A good student is according to commonsense is a student that does as they are told, gets good grades, and leaves with more knowledge then when they came in. The student does as they are told in all situations. Is quite when they are supposed to, engages in discussion when prompted, goes to the bathroom at appropriate times, listened to directions perfectly, and overall does everything that the teacher asks of them. In the article “Preparing Teachers for Crisis: A Sample Lesson” the teacher discusses what it means to learn. I the diagram it illustrates that student come into the class empty and a good student would leave full, or not at the same level. This is the commonsense that most people would expect out of school and how the student might learn.
The students that are privileged in this definition of commonsense are the students that the best is reflected in a good grade. In lots of cases the student’s grades does not reflect their knowledge or how smart they are. Some students do not do well with written exams and would be better with an oral exam or a project. In other cases, some students are very smart in social skills, art, drama, finance however they are not good at English, math, and science so they are said to be not smart because they will get lower grades. Students that learn well in a structured environment that has a rigid schedule. I for example love schedules and I thrive on structure. I am not good with changes in plans and I find it hard to focus when I have more then one task put in front of me. However, there are many students who if given all the assignments at one time to accomplish would do amazing because they could create their own schedule. Students that do not have their own opinion. I think that in most schools that want students would repeat what was taught to them. If a student already has an opinion on a topic it will be harder for them to change and agree with what the teacher has taught.
The context behind all these students in that historically the government want students that were easy to mold into what they wanted. Historically education was to prep people for the workforce, so cooperativeness, high grades, and good listening are very important to have in the workplace. Other than that the government did not want people to branch off and do their own thing so they have a very rigid curriculum and schedules that students were to follow so that when they got to the workforce it was commonsense to work from 9-5 and only have a few lunch breaks and to do what your boss told you to do.
Leave a Reply