So Im a Freshman attending a very competitive school. In middle school i had a 3.96 gpa which is pretty impressive. But, as i come into high school i feel like the transition is so hard and I’ve been extremely unlucky with my teachers.
Current grades
Bio Honors :88%
French 1 :85%
English 1 honors 89%
PE : 100%
Algebra 2:86%
Photography 97%
So the reason for my B’s:
For Bio honors it is completely my fault but i know that i can get it up cuz its rly easy tbh
French 1 : I swear terrible teacher he doesn’t care at all about telling students when test and quiz dates are. He just assigns them and he expects us to know every single thing he teaches after every day its rly annoying. Im not trying to be one of those people that blame my teacher but he is really bad. His lessons are really vague, his memorization is more than bio, and never says when tests are.
English 1 Honors : English is one of my weaker subject so I would be happy with an 89% considering how hard the class is. The teacher is great, its just that the material is hard and everyone as a B in my class.
Algebra 2: Worst teacher I could ever get for math. I swear he is so nit-picky it is so annoying. Basically i got a 100 on my first test and he gave me an 87 for not following “his method” because his was really confusing and I used the method the book actually thought. He wants everything the way he wants to be and grades you so hard I swear to god. Once i got a 50% on a HW assignment because one of the answers i forgot to mark it as wrong because i forgot to add a negative to my answer. The average class grade is a C and they are all Sophomores and Juniors and Nobody really has an A because of how nit picky he is.
Basically all my core classes im doing bad and trying my best but i don’t want to get 3 Bs. Also, i took summer school and took geometry over the summer and It was extremely hard because you would cramn a 2 weeks worth of lessons in 4 days it was overwhelimg for me but i finished with a B. I want to get around 3.75 - 3.80 gpa but it seems impossible and I have been really stressed out about this. I also have some excuses too, my mom’s uncle who was close to me passed away and I have been mourning about this but the death didn’t really psychologically impacted me on to focus on school so IDK.
If Bio honors were “really easy”-- then wouldn’t your grades already be higher?
Of the two other grades you’re unhappy with, two seem to be the teacher’s fault. You have 2 bad teachers. Everyone else is doing poorly. You took a hard course in Geometry (before taking algebra) over 2 months instead of 10, and you’re unhappy with that grade. And you also lost a family member .
Lots and lots of excuses.
I’m a math teacher. If the answer is -6 and you say it’s 6, you’re wrong. It’s like the difference between owing a million dollars and having a million dollars in the bank. Your Algebra teacher is teaching you Algebra. That means you follow the process. The points are mostly for the process, not necessarily the answer.
I don’t know you or your school. Perhaps everything is exactly as you say and every single poor grade is someone else’s fault.
Or perhaps-- probably more likely-- you’re having a temporary pity party. And that’s OK. You’re a kid. You’re expected to sometimes see the world through a lens that has you front and center, and to sometime miss the big picture.
You asked for help, so here goes as a high school teacher and a mom:
Try very hard to stop blaming others for your grades. Your job as a student is to try to do the assignments as the teacher wants them done. There’s a reason for every single point a teacher has deducted from every one of the assignments you’ve done. Your teachers can see the big picture that you can’t. That Algebra I teacher knows what will be expected of you in Algebra II & Trig and Precalc and Calc. If he allows you to be sloppy with the details, or to shortcut the process, he knows just how much you’ll struggle down the road. You mention that he grades YOU so hard-- is he being harder on you than on the other 100+ students he’s teaching?
That French teacher is trying to teach you a language. That means it’s going to be cumulative. Think about it logically. If you’re going to become fluent in a language, you’ve got to know it all. You can’t NOT KNOW the stuff from September if it’s going to make sense in January. So he’s trying to keep expanding your body of knowledge to help you really learn French.
English: Everyone has a B. Doesn’t matter. If you’re happy with your grade, wonderful.
Let me begin this point by saying I think your grades are absolutely OK. Nope, not in the 90's. But not everyone needs to be an A student. Some B students I know are wonderful kids, involved in school activities and charity work. Could you work to change your mindset to simply accepting that for the amount of work you're willing to put in, these are the grades you'll have? There are plenty of wonderful colleges that will be happy to have a kid with your grades.
You don't mention any sort of a plan of action. Have you been to extra help? How often? With concrete questions? and I don't mean "why did you take off 5 points instead of 3?" type of questions. Have you ever gone to your math teacher--- or another Algebra teacher in the school-- and asked for an explanation of the method your teacher prefers?
Big picture: You’re a kid. You’re allowed to be disappointed if your grades aren’t where you want them to be. So have a brief pity party-- I strongly recommend ice cream, with extra points for hot fudge. Then call it a day and figure out how to solve this problem. Get extra help, set up a study schedule, start a study group with your classmates-- figure out how to get what you want.
@bjkmom Honestly the B in bio honors and english is my fault cuz I didnt know what the teacher was expecting to study on tests but know i know so I fully expect myself to be getting an A in both of them.
As for French, I understand he is trying to expand our knowledge, but not telling when the tests and quizzes are is very annoying as I get frustrated a lot of times.
As for Algebra 2, Yes and im not kidding he grades the other classes really hard. I asked my friend if he has any As in his classes and he said no. My friend who is in Algebra 1 has him and my teacher has bias towards him. For example, after correcting every homework assignment he asks if there were any questions and 5 hands usually come up for a question and one of them is usually my friend. So, for the past week and a half my teacher didn’t answer my friend’s question and the whole class noticed and they kept asking him that why is he skipping the questions my friend is asking? He said “Its nothing personal.” That is so skeptical this shows that he shows bias over his students. My friend didn’t do anything wrong, he wasn’t a bad student but for some reason the teacher was being biased.
Ive asked for so many explanations to my teacher but all he blabbers about is “Look at the notes and you will find the answer.”
And I recall that you told me that I should follow the teacher’s methods, but his methods are crazy confusing so i just use the book’s way and he marks me off for doing that. I get all the coordinates right but for some reason he wants me to follow his methods.
The reason why I am complaining over a B is that my parents have put tremendous amount of pressure on me. They don’t understand that Im trying my best instead they think that I am fooling around and that’s it. They took away my phone because they think that I need to focus on studies which makes no logical sense because Im trying my absolute best.
I have a girl in my Algebra II & Trig class whose hand is up a LOT. She has a 96 average and gets the answer before her classmates have the chance to process the question. Even if hers is the only hand up I will sometimes choose not to call on her while I wait for the others in the class to process what I’m asking. And, yes, she’s of a different race than I am. It doesn’t make me Archie Bunker, it makes me a teacher of a class full of kids. Fortunately she understands.
You ask, and your teacher “blabbers.”
Still more excuses-- now it’s about your parents placing too much pressure on you. And unfairly taking away your phone.
Again, I get it. You’re a kid. You see the world through your lens. And some of your many complaints are probably valid. My point is that there’s just about always at least two sides to a story.
But let’s say that I buy each and every one of your arguments. You have horrible, horrible teachers. None of it is your fault, Your parents are wrong for putting all that pressure on you. You deserve to have your phone back. Your math teacher should stop blabbering, stop teaching the way he wants to teach, and teach your way. Your French teacher should let you know each time he is going to require you to know anything at all.
Yet none of that is going to happen even if I, an internet stranger, buy all your arguments. You’re still faced with grades you don’t love. What are you going to do about it?
Hey, fellow high school student here. I’ve had ~sort of~ similar experiences (what I perceived to be not-so-great teachers). I will clarify right off the bat that my grades never really dropped below A-level, which is why I think I can help you out here.
I know sucky teachers is the worst, and I’ve been in situations where teachers are super nit-picky and homework loads are insane. Heck, right now two of my classes are 90% test scores. Last year, I had three classes where the average grade on tests were ace and Ds I understand frustrating classes.
First of all, I think a lot of this might just be adjusting to high school. Middle school, however hard it might seem at the time, doesn’t hold ANYTHING on high school. So I don’t know how far you are into the year, but maybe just give yourself some time to adjust.
Now secondly, I can tell math is really stressing you out. Part of that might be because you took Geometry over the summer. I was lucky enough to take that in middle school, but a lot of my friends ended up taking it in the summer and suffering the next year as a result. If that’s not what’s throwing you off, then I would really recommend talking to your teacher. I know you’re just a freshman, but it’s better to learn sooner rather than later that communication is the key to success. I’ll say that again:
COMMUNICATION IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS.
Talk to your teachers about your grades, for in for office hours, get help after school. If that doesn’t work and there’s a serious problem with your teachers, talk to your counselor about switching classes. Go in to other teachers who teach the same subjects for help. Seriously, talk to your friends. I can’t tell you how many times my friends have saved my butt in terms of understanding material or getting past a hard teacher.
I know it’s not a perfect or an easy solution, but nobody is going to help you if you don’t take the first step. If you really want a 3.75+ GPA, you’ll have to work for it.
I agree with @BWill0402. I don’t think cramming a year of geometry into a few weeks summer class is doing you any favors in Algebra II. It didn’t give you enough of a foundation.
Are your ECs taking up too much time, making it hard to get your homework done? Does your school offer tutoring? Does your school use Schoology or have a similar method of getting messages out to everyone in your classes? Are you communicating with your teachers in a polite and respectful manner?
@Groundwork2022
Algebra II is very easy for me it isn’t really that hard. It is all based on Algebra 1. The problem is my teacher is super strict and his grading is ridiculous. I didn’t label my lines and I went from a 100 to a 94 on the test. Then, i used another method which was from the TEXTBOOk and my grade went down to an 87. And i got all the coordiantes/answers correct. He never tells us that you have to label your lines and his methods are often times confusing to me.
Second, I am part of 3 clubs and a sport but I still manage my time to do homework. Im just getting used to high school so this is all new to me and Im trying to find a routine that is suitable to me in which I can have great time management.
Right now, Algebra II is all review-- lots and lots of factoring. It gets a LOT more complicated, and it builds and builds and builds. He’s setting you up for success. And you’re supposed to know to always label anything you graph from Algebra I. I’ve also zapped my Algebra II kids for the same error.
Surprise quizzes and tests are to be expected at school. They are meant to ensure your reading/studying all along not just when you know your having a quiz/test. It is a normal educational technique. It doesn’t seem unexpected at all.
Have you tried going to the math teacher and asking for help. Perhaps say I understand when following the procedure in the book but I’m not getting the correct answers when I follow your method so I might be misunderstanding something. Would you mind going over this with me again. I know it is hard especially when your used to work being easy.
It also sounds like you tend to make silly errors such as leaving out negative signs and not labeling. Here algebra 2 is the 3rd year of high school math so yes you would be marked down for those things. If you finish early try proof reading to catch those kind of mistakes. While they seem silly they are important to math so it makes sense that you would be marked down (to me).
My daughter did integrated math 2 honors over the summer. While she was doing okay she found the pace moved so fast that she felt she had no true mastery/retention. She is doing integrated math 2 honors again in 9th grade because full understanding was more important than getting ahead. There was no real rush to start with math 3.