"'Top of the bottom: EGHS students' potential goes untapped'
Becca Craig, Managing Editor; Dan Stevens, Editor in Chief
Harvard, Yale, Princeton - many students dream of attending such top-tier universities, but only a select few are admitted.
For EGHS, "few" is roughly synonymous to "none."
As most admissions decisions have already poured in, several of EGHS's college-bound seniors find themselves on waiting lists for prestigious colleges, if they are not outright rejected, while their District 214 counterparts have gained entrance into upper-echelon schools, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Duke University.
Either something is in the water, or Elk Grove and Des Plaines natives are not measuring up. How come EGHS's best and brightest do not seem to be up to par with students from neighboring high schools?
College and career counselor Paul Genovese said that colleges are becoming more selective because of the increase in applicants.
"There are no bad schools; they are all about finding the right fit," Genovese said. "Still, it's so competitive. Colleges pay special attention to your senior year, to make sure you take a rigorous course load."
However, this may be a crucible of a larger epidemic roaming the halls.
Discussions have taken place among faculty members for all of English teacher Ryan Asmussen's five years at EGHS.
"There seems to be a noticeable lack of personal incentive," Asmussen said. "You can't teach a student who doesn't want to learn. Why don't they feel like getting an education is important to them?"
Asmussen does note that the EGHS community is an apathetic one, and that such lack of motivation may rub off on students immersed in this atmosphere.
"How they think about education, the environment in which they grow up...seeing that encourages it," Asmussen said. "In American society, it's OK to be OK."
Maybe it simply is not cool to be smart.
In most cases, high-achieving students spend most of their academic careers mixed in with students of varying ability, as the feeder schools lacked comprehensive honors tracks.
At any rate, students are taking note of the achivement gap between themselves and their local peers.
"Schools like BGHS have lots of people who go places," junior Jay Patel said. "Why don't we? We've got some smart kids."
The stereotypical struggle between jocks and nerds may have been enough to keep some otherwise-motivated students from flexing their muscle. As with any muscle that is not frequently used, students' brainpower [may have] deteriorated as they frequently put their pursuit of intellectual means on the back burner.
Students need to fight against the growing trend and keep their minds from turning into mush. Whatever stunted their desire to achieve, they need to get their acts together quickly.
High school is a critical segue into the next stage of life, which itself is an important segue into the next stage of life, and so forth. What students do now will directly impact their available options in the not-too-distant future. Not only in reference to college applications, but taking the shortcut now will set precedent to continue with this practice in the future.
In short, striving for mediocrity will almost ensure mediocrity in the future, and it seems as though this is the paty many - if not most - EGHS students elect to take."
Pardon the gaps and lack of coherence in some places - whoever had this on her page was clearly desperate to fill space, so breaking up every sentence into its own paragraph seemed to be the way to go. The point is there, and the controversy is stirring.
This article has prompted a speak-out in AP English Literature, and personal attacks on my character.
This article has been used as part of a lesson plan in AP English Language.
This article has been commended by members of the math/science department.
This article has drawn fire from other members of the student community. They do not wish to hear the truth, so they attack me instead. Ignorance is bliss, and probably the most fun we as a society can have while digging our own hole.
EDIT: I just had to delete a comment for the first time. This is a forum for intelligent debate and discussion, not a place to run one's mouth with personal attacks, libel, and the like. There is no place for immaturity in this corner of the blogosphere.
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8 comments:
A Note to your Note: I understand your cause to delete the comments but with an article like this you should know that there will be reactions like that. I think you should have left that first comment up even if it was an attack on to you or whatever.
What would be the merit in doing so? I would incite a flame war. This is a forum for intelligent, mature discussion, and saying I'm on an elitist powertrip doesn't really meet either criterium.
I'm not saying you on a "power trip" what im saying is that with an article like this you need to be ready to respond to even idiotic comments.
Actually, I was referring to the post(s) I deleted. I am perfectly ready to deal with both stupid and insightful comments. This blog is not the place to pander to the former. Hell, when readers post comments, it even says, "Remember to be civil!" I do not make exceptions for people who do not follow such simple rules.
Whenever I engage in debate, or even an expression of opinion, i think it should actually be encouraged for even supposed "vulgar and uncivil" viewpoints to be introduced. You know, to have the ability and the fortitude to refute such arguments with evidence and clarity of position. If this were a forum for debate, you would encourage this too...
If you watch any televised debate in which a debater attacks his opponent, the opponent will, in most cases, ignore it (assuming said opponent has any grain of maturity in him). That is what I choose to do. I still have to play to the high school mentality, which is why I moderate certain comments. It is a simple matter of taking this seriously so we avoid reducing ourselves to "you're gay" accusations.
Today, I witnessed a 50-minute debate between a teacher and a student about Rush Limbaugh and what it means to be American, and not once did the teacher personally attack the student for "being un-American" or anything of the sort. Why? Because there is no place for that in a forum for mature and intellectual discussion.
so, anything constituting the converse of your argument falls under the heading of "personal attack" and "you're gay" comments? So, it being said that you are transplanting your own shortcomings onto the entirety of EGHS instead of an actual statement of EGHS merit being lacking, a completely legitimate counterclaim to your fairly obtuse and generalized article is a fair comment to make, and not acknowledging it, or worse, running from it and deleting the comment makes you look like a coward and a lackwit, personal attacks intended, and hey, if you want to censor counter arguments, that's fine with the poster, but then you have to stop claiming that this is an open forum for intelligent discussion.
Well, that's the thing. It's supposed to be a constructive atmosphere, and the notion of publishing personal attacks is quite counterintuitive. Think about what you said in your closer: "This is an open forum for intelligent discussion."
Precisely. Intelligent discussion.
Personal attacks and flames are neither intelligent (though they may be witty, even though the ones I have seen merely seem to be churned out of an online thesaurus) nor discussion.
This is not a place for me to prove myself courageous. It's a place for relevant, topic-guided discourse. I shouldn't HAVE to prove myself courageous in this type of arena; it's ENTIRELY irrelevant to the focus of this blog. I'll back up my claims and I'll argue my case, but I should not have to defend myself as a person, but rather, the viewpoints which I support. Trash talk has nothing to do with civilized debate. I'll be more than happy to direct anyone who wishes to insult my character to the nearest sandbox or playpen.
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