Hw 51 - This Has To Be One Really Tall Ladder

Topic: We use school to move up the ladder, we climb up to reach our desired level only to fall again or find ourselves disappointed.

Intro: My face = me = my identity
Okay, so we all know that each and every one of us likes to be looked at as an individual. We like being on our own (or appearing to look like we are on our own) we roll in packs but only so we can be singled out. The packs that we roll in are specifically chosen so that we are unified and we don’t blend. This is what school is about. School is about you being in a place where you can say “hey… LOOK AT ME” without really saying “hey look at me”.

Teachers go through the same thing, though it seems hard to believe. The only difference is that teachers actually get to say “hey look at me” but it’s more in the form of… “This is going to count for your class work grade” yada yada yada. And this is how they force our cooperation. Teachers don’t roll in packs, they on the other hand like to prosper and have the luxury of the identity of the ‘lone ranger’ they don’t need no-boday to do nuffin.

We all end up disappointed in the end because we never really get what we want. We get tiny portions of what we want and then it is swiftly taken away. Take teachers for example, they all want to be in control of the class by any means necessary. That could mean they are standing up there making a fool of themselves, dissin’ the other students, making jokes, handing out zero’s…whatever it may be they need to do things that get them noticed. Teachers are like little 13 year olds begging for attention.

Now, don’t get me wrong we students are just as bad or maybe even worse. It’s become a teen routine to act like we have authority when we really don’t. It’s amazing how many of us like to walk out of class or curse out teachers or make fun of them on our blogs, we all want attention. It’s just harder for us to realize that we haven’t reached that step in the ladder…yet.

When a student walks in to class late like he or she is the man or woman, and they make a mockery of themselves by laughing and joking about it they are trying to place themselves on the same tier as the teacher. But this action, of ‘jumping the line’ actually bumps you down further than where you actually started from. This action brings you lower than you actually were. It’s a shame isn’t it?

The Card Game:Is anyone really winning?

The answer to that would be yes, we are the losers. Yes that’s right the losers we are at the bottom of the food chain. In theory we work harder than the teachers. We have to juggle work, social time, leisure time, ‘study time’, etc. It is a very hard task to pull away from the very engaging task of favorit-ing a group on Facebook. Teachers have no idea.

We students for the most part all feel the same about school yet we do nothing at all, we actually have the power we just fail to use it. We are the Robin to this superhero equation. We have the niche of servant, for lack of a better term. Okay we have been told that we need this in order for us to excel and to get a good job like mommy and daddy “but excuse me teacher I can promise you I won’t be needin’ no quadratic maff for ma everyday lyfe” and this student is probably right. But besides making a scene in front of the class this student will probably go home and crack open a textbook or search a Google page or allegedly copy(hey if you can’t prove it I ain’t do it) from someone in gym.

Now teachers on the other hand are…winners. This is true because they don’t really do anything. No matter if we get the nonsense lesson plan they threw together over their morning coffee or something they thought up while riding from their brownstone somewhere in Brooklyn. They get their papah no matter what. This is true…I promise. Now most teachers don’t gloat about this, this piece of information is only shared under two conditions.

1: the students are too oblivious to even contain anything the teacher is saying and most likely won’t remember this piece of crucial information either.

2: The teacher is already seen as an asshole, so this snarky condescending comment probably won’t hurt his or her rep much.

We all know that grades matter, above a 65 means that you have ticket outta here. But if not I hear that credit recovery is actually fun and easy. This doesn’t mean that student’s fail on purpose although some do; this just means that the motivation to do work fades when you realize that the Wii isn’t going to play itself. This probably won’t help your grade but everyone needs to practice hand-eye coordination. When teachers grade no one really questions it we just take it for what it is because ‘te-cha knows best’. Who’s to say that the teacher only bothered reading their favorite and gave everyone else ‘what they deserved’.

This does nothing but show you who is at the top of the ladder and who is and will remain at the bottom. But if you become a teacher’s favorite you throw a grappling hook to the pocket of a teacher and you gently move up a few tiers while no one is looking…or so you thought.

We Are Robots: I Know What You’re Thinking Cause You Told Me To Think It

Here’s the kicker, no matter how much we hate a teacher we will always follow him or her. The only difference is how much we try to hide the fact that we are actually retaining the things that we learn. What does it say about a student who will make it known five times a day that they obviously hate a class but will always be one of the first ten people in class every day? It says that he or she is well trained, ‘wike a good wittle doggie’.

The moment that proves this shows up in at least one class per day. This is a probable scene, there is a problem on the board and the teacher will stand in the front of the class and no one will raise their hand to answer the problem. Why? Either they don’t know the answer because they didn’t spend yesterday afternoon studying or flipping through notes, instead they got to the last level of HALO3. (This is probably not a bad way to spend an evening). Or they know that they are minions, but they don’t want to be desperate minions as well…cause that just screams desperate man.

What we students don’t like to admit is that we actually like a lesson; it’s rare that we actually admit this aloud. If we admit that we like a lesson that means that we admit that we like the teacher and if you admit that you like a teacher that means you’re eligible for several things. One being peer investigation, now this is major. If the pier investigation shows that you are in fact a teacher’s favorite you can either move up the ladder or down or both depending on who is judging. From a student’s point of view we don’t like it when other students are smarter than us so we are most likely going to view that as a demotion in the tier but we will secretly or sometimes not so secretly want to be you.

What All Of This Means: Uhhhh
Now to a teacher the point of school is to pass on knowledge to the students…and to make that papah… But most teachers fail at the first part of this because if they have been drilling a lesson in to our heads for 3 weeks and then when we are tested can produce nothing but vague bland answers that poses a problem. It means that the teacher isn’t really doing their job and if we fail they will be stuck with us for another year and odds are they don’t want that outcome either. (That’s where the emergency 65 comes in to play, the quick pass is given to the top 3 students who really don’t do any work but the teacher would much rather die or quit than see these 3 students in their class again so tada…you pass! E for EFFORT!)

We are in a cycle; there will be the students on the ladder whose mission is to buy and use their grappling hook, there are the students whose mission is to stay as low as possible ‘real unda the radar type shit’ but secretly and allegedly copy in gym, those who like to move up ONLY if they earn it. The thing is no matter what you end up sliding back down, because the favorite student will eventually graduate and will have a fresh new spot at the bottom in a new school, the people who earn it will have to start from scratch and find a new group of friends to study with on Saturday and the emergency 65 student will be turning 21 soon.