Straight-A vs Flunking Students: Do Good Grades Matter? | Middle Ground

welcome to this episode of middle ground straight A's versus flunking students a huge thank you to our sponsors curiosity stream for sponsoring this episode for those of you who don't know curiosity stream is an amazing subscription streaming service that has a ton of great titles from documentary and nonfiction filmmakers so make sure to stick around to the end to find out how you can get 30 days free and also hear about some of our favorites but first here's the episode the idea of being a straight-a student I can't relate to because I'm always wanting to go out like I have that I do or like there's a paper that I have and you know there's a paper but there's a skateboard I'm um definitely keeping with all the work especially when you're like me and you procrastinate a lot sometimes I just don't understand and I just don't get as much help as I would want well first of all so I was like preppy doesn't really go outside of like their house kind of I got a 4.2 GPA exiting high school I worked my ass off see yesterday's I want to get a nursing degree but if I want to I'll go to medical school and become a neurosurgeon um of course I'm disappointed in myself that I let myself fail but I'm not gonna beat myself up for one letter grade I'm Randi I'm 15 and I'm going into my sophomore year I'm grace I'm 16 I'm going into my junior year hi I'm tansy I'm 16 and I'm going into my senior year of high school and I'm also a freshman in college I'm Cooper I'm 18 and I just graduated senior year I'm Nadia I'm 15 and I'm going into my sophomore year of high school I'm 19 and I'm going to my sophomore year [Applause] I believe my grave defying my intelligence I definitely think my grades define like how smart I am like that's the biggest like security point I have like a like as a person and I've just always been smart and like I always want people to think I'm smart I believe like that's really true for me I believe like some subjects will enable you to show your intellect in some way shape or form like math but I do think that grades can't show someone's intellect whether it's you know understanding the concept or enabling themselves to you know grasp a subject I didn't step up because I don't believe because I'm not comprehending the concept of geometry or algebra or poetry that's not making it dumb or that doesn't not make me less smart of a person I think also people have different styles of learning and a lot of times schools try to put you in this mold of how they how they want you to get a certain grade and people aren't always made for that mold and it's really important that I think schools take into account that not all people are willing to learn by reading a book and so to measure that based on a certain letter is I just feel like so like superficial it's it's looking at it so one-sided I am because it kind of like shows off my hard work and all that because I come from like a family that really didn't have anything and being a straight-a student allows me to pay homage to other hard work and so it makes me really proud to be able to you know honor them into some sort of way of course like if you try your hardest and if you do all your work you do all your homework you're good of course you're gonna get good grades just because you're not comprehending it doesn't mean that you're not gonna get the good grade yeah you're my struggle but with help and hard work you're gonna get there eventually so I definitely think there's two sides to hard work itself because we're hard that can mean like studying and like working super hard to better your own skills but you can also work super hard to cheat and work super hard to get answers to tests and work super hard in that manner but at the end of the day it still might get you a good grade on either side from the most part a lot of people tend to cheat on tests copy homework and depending on how the teacher might grade like the grading system 85 percent of your class grade could be homework you cheat on all your homework assignments you have a B right there if you're the type of person where you can put your mind to something and never give up on it you'll get that grade I've had a seventh grade teacher my English teacher and I tried my hardest in her class meanwhile I didn't know NSA me that she was full-blown racist okay so I was sitting there in that classroom working my hardest making C's knowing I can make eight and it like put me down so much with my self-esteem it also like depends on oh you're like personal sampling with actual teacher themselves if you if you clearly if you're provoking a teacher you know like I do it all the time like they're not gonna like you I've learned that but that's a lesson in itself that's like an experience of learning is that you need to make friends with your teachers don't want to give you a good grade if you're friends with them there's some concepts and I'm going back to like personal like experiences in eighth grade I couldn't get exponents to save my life I went to tutoring you know I stayed after school had parent-teacher conferences because they thought I was being a bad kid in that study they thought I was failing on purpose it took me my freshman year of high school to realize like oh my god this is so simple there's certain learning blocks that you can face within yourself it doesn't necessarily have to be teachers it doesn't necessarily have to be like social problems it could be all in your head and if it takes that one roadblock it will like stop everything are you you're great no I'm not self-conscious because I know there's a lot more students are in my same boat who aren't dumb they just have trouble comprehending certain subjects I can't relate to the other side so I've never gotten straight A's ever like I've never been like on the top in the top of my class I've always been struggling or I've always been just in the middle just yeah I mean ever since I was younger I was always in an extra class to like help me with my work like my elementary school they had a gifted program I was never in the gifted program there are some ways I can relate like I'm still I'm still I'm working hard I'm still making sure that I get the best rates that I possibly can but I'm not I'm not like them I don't stay up so during the morning study I don't stay up to 3:00 in the morning to do a project I'll say it to probably like one and I'm like you know what I'm done like I need my rest because the next day I'm gonna go to school and be all tired and be all frustrated and then it's just it's too much so being like the idea of being in tradition I can't relate to because I'm always wanting to go out like I have that I do or like there's a paper that I have and you know there's a paper but there's a skateboard I'm gonna yeah I'm out like the fun I have just hanging out with friends and just like doing whatever we want whenever we want she's so much better than like wow I just gotten a like you know okay so I can definitely relate to the idea of being a flunking student because I feel like there's two types there is one type that doesn't choose to do the work and then there's the other type of where I cannot understand this I need help and I relate to both because there's some times where like I've gotten a grade on a test like I failed it and there sounds like I'm not gonna retake that if that's too hard why would I waste my time and then there's times where I'm like oh my freaking God like I cannot understand this for the life of me I need help which is fine because that everyone's gonna get things like a drop of a dime you know there's some people that do there's some people that don't I can 100% relate to you guys because I know what it feels like to be sitting at a desk at 11:00 at night and wondering how in the hell am I going to finish this and luckily I've been able to push through but I can see how someone couldn't I fully relate with all of you guys because at some points I have questioned like maybe I should just go in and not study for the test I I don't I feel that like just some of you guys don't like a relate to as much as you think being a flunking student like flunking a lot not just one class and you guys still have four point knows I am lucky if I pass the two point no in a way I see your eyes is pointing like when you say there's two types but no matter what type of functioning you are you are always going to be characterized with the stereotypes that a flunking student is not smart they just don't do their words they're lazy I'm not gonna say that I'm an F student and I'm proud of it of course I'm not talking about being a student but I'm not gonna push myself down because I'm an F student you're right I can't relate to that idea of being a flunking student and having those eyeballs on you in a certain way and I I wish that I could because I want to I want to understand what that's like it's the same with you guys yeah at the same time like do you guys have like the nerd stereo outside walk up to somebody who's like like one of us right and like we don't know you and you be like yeah i'ma show you soon it really Oh so you sit in your room all day you don't you know what kind of your room no matter what there's always zero types you can be completely different but you're you're still gonna be characterized as that's or answer your time like cool I do like school yeah are there other things happening in your life that distracting yeah a lot of stuff at home I struggled with my grandma dying and my parents splitting up and all that isn't good for my mental health especially when I'm struggling with certain subjects and certain topics and tests and people my parents help me with my work um I won't say my mom helps you look like my English work my math my science when I was doing theater she would help me memorize my lines she would help me write the essays to like certain directors of the show she pushes me to do it myself which I'm glad about but there are some times when I'm like can you help me she's like I don't know what either I'm like okay that's fine you know my parents don't like writing my essays for me yeah you know it's like my dad you know he dropped out of college you know it's not like he's gonna be helping me with like my AP stats homework yeah but you know it's like he will I think they helped me do my work in the sense of like they keep me diligent they are in a sense like instilling me with the right qualities to write those essays I feel like my mom looks at my paper and she's like girl this I knew math like I aim like my mom she can't help me really and neither can my dad so cuz when I get back from school my mom's leaving and go to work my dad works all day and when he comes back home he's tired and then I have to take care of my little sister even when my mom comes back she comes back they're like 2 in the morning and she still sees me up I have to do that on my own so I'm certain subjects my dad could definitely help me open I take auto shop he's automotive tech well yeah exactly when it comes down to like actually doing it with normal subjects he says to me like you need to figure it out because at the end of the day one day I'm not gonna be there to help you at all I'm like well I have no clue okay I got it I'm gonna put something down and like I'm gonna turn it in so when it comes out don't be yeah don't be surprised like I want to be an automotive tech but then I would like to own my own business off of it I know they're like they want to see me aspire to what I can be it's hard to like steer people to a different direction to like but this is what I would like to do I do believe that I do these are the grades I get especially for the ones that I am failing such as English I'm not putting my hunter percent into the class I'm probably giving like 50% 75% if that but for the grades that I am getting good at like my film production class I'm giving all I'm focusing more on my extracurriculars and I am on my primary classes which is my fault it's nobody else's fault I am putting myself in a position where I'm letting myself like these classes I feel like I deserve the grade that I get because I know I could get a better grade but I choose not to because it's like the subject to me like it doesn't really click with me why am I gonna sit here and put all of my effort to something that you want me to put only to get like what you want to see that's as long as I'm passing that's all I really care for I mean I've worked my ass off just so that I can get that good letter and as much as I would have liked to just focus on film I knew that in order for me to you know at least have self-esteem and feel like I was being successful I had to do both and I don't know if like that was the greatest thing to do I don't know if that was the best decision but I worked as hard as I possibly could and I feel like I do deserve the grades that I got I'm not ungrateful for the great ticket and I'm so happy with the grades I get but to be honest sometimes I do just put like 50% of my work in and I don't try my best but I still do well on the project I don't think I deserve that because think about the kids who are like working diligently on that project trying to get a good grade but just because I was able to finish it out hope it out last minute or my teacher likes me or I'm a good student overall I don't think that that's a fair advantage to have yeah I don't believe that I deserve the grades I get because I've had lots of group projects where it wasn't just me and it's always people there was a time where I had two slides big sized project and I did most of the work but I only have like three slides for two other people to do but they never did it never turned it in and it just dropped my grade completely didn't you tell your teacher yeah she didn't care she says you have to talk with each other after school and I do that like can we just all agree that teachers really do like I don't know how to explain it or foot it yeah like the pressure of teachers like you can have a really chill mellow teacher and your worst subject and it'll make you work harder and you can have a really strict teacher and your favorite subject and then like make you slack I yeah for sure I definitely wanna go to college I think I want to go to law school and go into like the law profession I started doing debate last year and I can't solve so me and my parents haven't really had the college talk but I've had the college that I want to go to sit on since I was like 10 but yeah I want to go to college for me because I want to become a better dancer and then I also want to perform and then afterwards make my own dance studio and all that stuff but I want to be a performer and I can't be the level a performer I want to be without being able to go to college yeah I think I do it for like another reason to like I have to go to college because of my career choice but at the end of the day there's kids in countries that get killed for reading books that to travel across rivers and jungles just to get an education and I think sometimes we do take that for granted I want to show that education is very powerful the wanting like I I don't exactly want to go to like college but I want to go to trade school so it's kind of like an after school after you know but it's like I want to go and experience being in a different place like not being in high school people coming from all these different places like it's so like it's so different like you know so I kind of feel like the opposite side I like what you guys are saying I want to go to college but the reason why I want to go to college is because I feel like it's the thing that like make me feel more successful and like it's still like my own desire in my own want I want to go to college mainly just so I can like make myself a good life and make myself a good career another thing is I don't always like think that because somebody goes to college I'd not no offense to you but like it doesn't always come the way you think like just because you go to college doesn't make you exactly the most successful I mean like I want to go to college to make my family proud I come from an it from from a family where like we're all Hispanics not many of us have ever even thought about going to college the thought of call it's not of high school graduating high school is really difficult like you graduated high school so I'm like I don't want to waste my opportunities I'm not going to take these chances for granted like I am going to make myself proud in my family proud oh yeah I'm not one of those naturally like smart people who can look at a book and instantly know I think our education system is very like set into these like molds of how you need to fit not everyone fits into the mold of a high school there's so many things that defines smart and it's not just being book smart or street smart it's smart just knowledge and I have a lot of knowledge and I know a lot of things and I value that knowledge which I think is really important also to being smart I mean it's how you use the knowledge that you have I am smart no matter what like just because I'm getting an F on the test doesn't make me I can be book smart I'm also street smart like I know my way around I know my pace and I know where I need to be yeah to say you're smart is like something that everybody should you ever say in themselves because no matter what even if you don't feel like yeah I'm the smartest person in the room you might you might not feel like that but you're smart to yourself like you you're the one you're the only person who knows how your body works and how you feel you're educated on yourself you're educated on the people around you your friends you know so it's like you might not know something about her that I know that doesn't make you like dumb compared to me like you know what I mean like everybody's still smart in their own way I feel like everybody has something to bring to the table no matter what like at the end of the day schools just like the first start of her lives you know we're go stepping out we're learning new things and not to say that grades are like insignificant but at the end of the day they should really shouldn't like put such a hold of you where you like cry or you're depressed or something like that or makes you feel dumb is such a dumb word it's like why I like why do we use it I think all of you are like so freaking smart I don't give a about it you know you're you're 2.0 like I don't care you know it's like right you're right yeah you know it's like the it's the penis the person that matters and I hope that all of us actually know that you know because that's that's what's gonna define us in the end that's what's gonna make you successful oh that was super endearing I love that episode see I was a straight-a student no comment this episode dealt a lot with education the importance of grades and if you want to learn more about education or see what it might look like in the future check out a series on curiosity stream dream the future specifically an episode called school of the future it's narrated by Sigourney Weaver it examines how we might be able to use technology to make learning better for students for those of you who don't know curiosity stream is an amazing subscription streaming service they have a ton of titles like these from documentary and nonfiction filmmakers from around the world and for three bucks a month or twenty bucks a year you can get unlimited unlimited unlimited access to all these amazing films plus for you good humans out there if you sign up at curiosity stream comm slash Jubilee promo code Jubilee you can get 30 days for free I literally will do anything to not have to leave my bed so I watched on their website you can watch one like Apple TV Roku Xbox like any of these devices taking over the world right now people it's really cool check it out and thanks for watching see you next time you

Channel: Jubilee

Views: 4,415,699

Rating: 4.9496551 out of 5

Keywords: jubilee, jubilee media, jubilee project, live deeper, blind devotion, love language, middle ground, spectrum, straight a students, straight a vs flunking students, flunking students, high school students, do good grades matter?, studying, study habits, should you go to college?, do test scores matter?, is the high school grading system fair?, AP classes, honors classes

Id: dPicox3QWC0

Length: 20min 18sec (1218 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 06 2019