The commonsense categorises a “good” student in the following ways:
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- Great listening skills
- Obey the teacher
- Not speaking out of turn
- Understanding the concepts and assignments with little-to-no difficulty
- Be successful in learning the traditional teaching methods
There are certainly more examples of what is deemed a “good” student, but those are the more noticeable ones. In Kevin Kumashiro’s book, “Against Common Sense”, he states that he felt “frustrated by such students” because he “assumed that being a student required behaving and thinking in only certain ways” (Kumashiro 21). He also felt the pressure from the school, parents, other teachers and the curriculum for his students to achieve success and be at an appropriate learning level that compliments the entire years worth of learning.
The students that are privileged by this definition of the good student are those that ultimately learn well in a traditional school environment and they often have some, if not all, the examples provided above. The students that are labeled as the “good” students, if we are being completely honest, are those that are “easier” to teach. As someone who was not a good student by this definition because I have several learning disadvantages that often left my teachers confused and unable to understand why *I* did not understand, I feel comfortable stating my above point. Easier to teach = labeled as a good student.
Hi Ashleigh, I quite enjoyed your blog post and how you broke down the first question into quick bullet points. I had the exact same answers for that one. I like you included yourself as an example of a “bad” student because I have also been lumped into that category myself due to my ADD. With your question 2, I am a little confused as to if you are saying Kumashiro is the one frustrated with such students as I took it that Kumashiro was at first frustrated with such students because of how they acted but then came to the understanding students learn differently and that does not mean they are bad students. Overall I really enjoyed your blog post
Thank you, Kyler Flahr
I definitely see what you mean by my first couple of sentences – that is confusing! My bad. I meant that he was at first frustrated by those that are deemed “poor students”. I suppose I should have proof-read better. Thanks for the catch!