so, why are you applying for college then?

"I hate high school."

"Honestly, my teacher hates me. Have you seen this homework load?"

"I'm way too busy for all of this work."

Okay, how many times have we all heard this from our classmates?  Way too many.  If you hate school so much, why are you sitting there applying to 15 colleges?  We blame our teachers, our parents, our stuck-up bosses, our siblings, our addictions to Facebook, and our extracurriculars for unfinished homework.  But who actually takes the time to get past all of those distractions and realize the real problem is themselves?  We work hard for the teachers that we like, and the ones we don't are automatically labeled as evil and out to get us.  I admit it, I have classes that I just breeze through and don't try as hard in as I should because I don't connect to the teacher well.  And when I get back that ugly, little B from that teacher, I automatically think, "Well, that's because they didn't teach this material well." By the way, this occurs most often in math.  I learned that complaining to my parents gets me absolutely nowhere.  They want me to get a good education, but they don't believe it is their responsibility to get me to try my best in school.  Believe me, I complain, whine, and even stomp a foot or two every once in a while over a homework load, but I never would ask my parents to approach my teachers and demand a better grade.  I have seen my friends get their parents to practically attack a teacher when they receive bad grades.  This makes me feel almost embarrassed for my generation because none of that would fly 20 years ago.  What changed?  Why are we suddenly called the "lost generation"? Are we lazy as a whole? Maybe.  Is every single high school student lazy? No.  The article, For Once Blame the Students makes an excellent point, but there are still some of us who realize that the teachers aren't the problem all of the time, but the students are.

As for the film, Two Million Minutes, it kind of made me want to give our generation a friendly "wake up, we are reverting back to cavemen" slap across the face.  This was honestly one of the most frustrating films to watch because I feel like I don't even have enough time to breathe in a day during the school week, so I don't understand how I could possibly increase my hours of studying and school performance.  The only way I can see this happening is if I cut out all of my extracurriculars.  I have an unhealthy obsession with sports and clubs at our school, so this would be way too difficult for me.  I feel as though the film was really slanted toward a particular view on American education and it made a lot of generalizations.  It basically said American students are all lazy, obsessed with video games and T.V., and that we don't know how to study.  Obviously showing the Indian and Chinese students with sleek desks piled with homework, violins, sheet music, and math competition medals is going to make us look bad.  Yes, maybe the academic standards set for American students has been lowered, but it doesn't mean that motivated students have become extinct.

This is shown through Mike Rose's writing, "I Just Wanna Be Average".  He makes the argument that teachers do not expect enough out of students.  This was interesting to read in contrast to "For Once Blame the Students" by Patrick Welsh because Rose is placing the blame on teachers while Welsh places the blame on the students.  Who really deserves the blame?  Honestly, if we are acting as adults here and are still playing the blame game, I think we are all at fault a little.  There has to be a good balance between teacher and student effort.  Both teachers and students must be motivated to give all they can to each subject, even if math is a terrible, impossible one.  Both of the articles and the film both make huge generalizations about groups of people.  Yes, some of it may be based on fact.  But we must consider those students and teachers who expect a lot from each other and have the motivation to learn.

I wish I could keep blogging, but I have so much homework.. my teachers honestly hate me... and I have college apps to work on so I can go to more school and get more homework and complain more..

Honestly, this sarcasm symbol is so useful.