how do I start reading for pleasure?
What DOES give you pleasure if not reading?
Goldman Sachs/Morgan Stanley is not the end all be all. I know people who work there and they aren’t necessarily any happier, and in fact, many are quite unhappy. Life is what you make of it. Money is not the determining factor of a successful and happy life.
I want to change but I dont where to start. I told you I know the stuff I been taught but I choke on these test(seem to do better challenging environments with alots of practice provided by the teacher). my messy habit since pre-k. It like telling a man to switch his hand writing from his right to his left. Idk I feel frustrated with myself yet feel powerless. I hate competition yet want to work at prestigious work place. All I seem to care about is money yet I am born from a poor family which I am powerless to pursuit(that why I want to work at these places). I told you guys I hate certain subjects and seem to do poorly in them. I am frustrated because I study yet getting nowhere close to grades with my friends that do not study. Im with smart friends but none of which are hardworking because they already the process info way better getting 95s while I have to study to get a B 99 percent of them dont study. I am fustrated because I feel there is side of natural intelligence to do well in school and frustrated I am nothing but good at politics/finance/history. I am frustrated because there is always something in my academic life dragging me down.
Okay. You start by not comparing yourself to your friends. They aren’t living your life so how they do or don’t do in school isn’t relevant. Next, you decide that success or failure at school is not the deciding factor in success or failure in life. There are lots of people who don’t perform well at school, for any number of reasons, but discover that they have gifts that make them successful people: Find your gifts. If you don’t know what they are, ask friends and family members what they like and respect most about you. And then find the places - the jobs, the relationships, the communities - where your gifts are valued and appreciated. (I’m not, by the way, suggesting you don’t have any academic gifts - I’m sure you do - but focusing on what you don’t have academically has clearly become your focal point and it’s counter-productive.)
There are lots of ways to be successful in the world - making slews of money and beating out other people at something is how some people do it. If that’s the measuring stick you are going to use, then you may indeed end up a failure and spend your life steeped in resentment. If, however, you decide that success can be defined in other ways, you can become very successful indeed: Some possible measures of success include how many people consider you a good friend, how many peoples lives you have made better as a result of whatever you do, how good a parent/spouse/son/sibling you are, whether you have improved the community you live in by your efforts, whether you are good at organizing and motivating others around a worthwhile goal, whether you are good a comforting someone in pain…the list goes on and on. There are so many ways to be successful. Again, find your gifts and use them.
You have been given some good advice here but you are full of excuses as to why you can’t improve your situation.
Stop with the excuses! You blame what happened in 1st grade for your poor reading habits. In all the intervening years, what prevented you from becoming a better reader? Becoming a better reader will make a huge improvement in your academics. Your command of the written langauge is very poor based on what you have written here. Every post has several grammar errors. With more exposure to good writing, your own writing ability should improve.
Also, you keep saying that you don’t want to be avarage, but a C student is at the average level. A B student is a step above average.
So, what step are you going to take starting tomorrow to begin to improve yourself? Pick one item from the many that have been given in this thread. Tell us what it is. And then do it. No excuses when it gets hard to keep doing that one thing. Just do it. Everyday.
Read the newspaper. Sports page, financial page, comics. Read anything. Read things that interest you. You don’t have to read War and Peace. Read magazines about finance if that’s what interests you. Pick one class that you want to ace and then do it. Every day get every point. If it’s math and the teacher assigns the odd problems, do all the problems. Go for after school help. Teach the problems to other students (thereby reinforcing your knowledge of the material).
My daughter is one of those students you think has it easy. No. She went to 3 different high schools, with three different math ‘paths’. She didn’t get to take calc but in her college class more than half of the other students had had AP Calc. She goes to all the extra sessions the TA offers. She goes to office hours. She does all the practice problems. She works with students who missed class and that helps her. She DOESN’T miss class. Ever. She sits at a table in the library every night for 2-3 hours studying. It is work. It is hard.
By the way, my other daughter couldn’t hold a pencil before K, and her handwriting was awful. Her second grade teacher said ‘enough’ and challenged her to improve it, and she did. She was born very premature, had brain bleeds, is left handed because of that, and it was HARD. She did it. I actually think most kids have horrible handwriting these days. Hers stands out as beautiful because she worked at it.
@recker12, Have you ever been tested for a learning disability? Kids who have difficulty learning to read can have learning challenges that follow them if the reasons for the struggles aren’t addressed. Yours must have been pretty bad if they held you back in 1st grade. I have a teen with dyslexia (reading issues), dysgraphia (writing issues), and dyscalculia (math issues) and she’s had attention problems and struggles with reading, writing, and testing. When a student truly tries but isn’t successful, there’s a reason. Maybe better study habits are needed, but there could be other causes too.
You want to be a better reader. That’s an excellent start. Go to the library and pick a book that interests you. Any book. The topic doesn’t matter. As you read, stop and think about what you’re reading. Put it in your own words. Practice summarizing (in writing). What happens with kids who have trouble writing is that they focus so much on the physical act of writing, that content (and grades) can suffer. Try doing the same thing with your textbooks. It’s never too late to increase your knowledge. It’s going to take hard work and determination on your part, but it’s worth it. Don’t give up.
First of all, take care with what you do. An ‘A’ student does not give a teacher an ‘excuse’ to mark him down. edit everything you write before you send it. Everything. If it is possessive, put in the apostrophe. If it is plural, put the ‘s’ on the end. If it is past tense, write it in the past tense. Care about everything. Take care of details. Start each sentence with a capital letter. End each sentence with a period. Take care of the details and the big things will take care of themselves.
Would you give the above thoughts a grade of ‘A’? I seriously do NOT know what you are intending to communicate in the parentheses. If I have to work to understand you, it is not grade-A work!
Tell me what this means:
seem to do better challenging environments with lots of practice provided by the teacher
Where is the subject? Are you doing better by challenging environments, or in challenging environments? What, exactly, does “alots” mean? When it is underlined in red on your computer, check out the problem!!!
“I dont where to start…” Do you mean “I don’t know where to start…”? If so, then SAY IT. If you do not take pride in your work, and work to make every detail correct, you WILL NOT be doing A-grade work. When you read, read actively and critically.
I do not see evidence of studying and taking seriously the skills needed to succeed.
You KNOW it is incorrect to write “… I am powerless to pursuit(that why I want to work at these places).” You NEED to care! “to pursuit” is not a verb, “to pursue” is a verb. And “that why I want…”??? Might as well say “Ima be loaded when work here.” Will that get you in the door at G-S?
Make a choice. You can excel, or you can make excuses.
Here is the motivational story you requested:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/06/14/4978093/2-years-later-homeless-student.html#.VM23iEKxy6Y
WRT to the link, here is a quote from Dawn Loggins’ website:
If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see what others do.
— Mahatma Gandhi
If this student is dyslexic or has another learning disability, s/he could very well NOT know that an apostrophe is missing, that verb tenses don’t match, that words have been left out, or that capital letters and ending punctuation is missing from sentences. Those traits don’t come from carelessness. However, they take systematic drilling to remediate. Every sentence does have to be examined. Does it start with a capital? Does it have a subject and a predicate? Is the verb tense correct? Does it have punctuation at the end? How’s the spelling? Do any other words require capitalization? This has to be done for EVERY SINGLE SENTENCE until it comes automatically, and it’s exhausting work. OP is not necessarily lazy, although dyslexics have a tendency to label themselves that way; this has been an ongoing struggle since s/he was about 5 years old.
I’m hearing lots and lots and lots of excuses.
I would love to be 20 pounds lighter. But I’m not. I haven’t chosen to diet, and as a result, I’m 20 pounds heavier than I want to be. And I can complain all I want about how rich people can afford expensive diets, and personal trainers, but here’s the reality: I am in control of what I put into my mouth. If I were serious about losing 20 pounds, I would be working on it and making it happen.
If you’re happy with your B’s… and from my earlier post you can see I have no issues with B students… then find something else to expend your energy on.
But if you want those A’s, it’s time to stop complaining and do something about it. Start by stop complaining about how everyone else has it easier than you. At the end of the day, that doesn’t matter: it’s what YOU do, not what they do. (And, as an aside, you have no idea what’s going on behind closed doors at their homes.)
At some point, adults cut their losses and stop bemoaning all the breaks they didn’t get. They look at their current situation, determine where they want to be and what it takes to get there, and take the steps they need to take.
@Recker12, it’s true that $ and educational background of parents does play a significant role in the success of students. Many students of college educated parents get a lot of help and guidance daily about how to succeed in school from their parents. And students of college educated parents usually learn good grammar just by living in the household and listening.
Although you have had some challenges, you can definitely succeed.
Yes some classes are terribly taught and boring. That doesn’t make the subject bad. I always told my children to try to find something interesting or useful about the subject even if the class was bad. Spanish is a really useful language to know and if you are good at Spanish it can help you get some jobs. There are tons of resources on the web to help practice grammar, vocabulary or listening. IF you want some suggestions, I can give you specifics.
Attitude is really important. To succeed, you need to believe that you can succeed and you have to really want to. You will be most successful if you find what you are working on to be interesting, useful, relevant and/or applicable. It would be nice if school made learning this way but often learning seems irrelevant and boring. So it’s your job to find some relevance, interest and importance that will keep you motivated.
Reexamine how you frame yourself. You are not a B student. You are someone who got Bs. The grade in know way defines who you are. Your handwriting has been messy but it doesn’t need to be. It will take effort to change it but once it’s changed it will be easy to maintain. It’s a choice you can make if you want.
I know cheating is very prevalent in schools and life but I would strongly advise against it. I am guessing that it doesn’t make you feel very good about yourself and it doesn’t lead to learning or the real success that you want.
What specific steps might you be willing to try to change your situation? You’ve read lots of suggestions here. What one or two steps might be doable for you?
Having a mentor would be very useful for you. Is there anyone that you know that might serve this role?
Actually @bjkmom, dieting has been shown to cause weight gain in the longterm.
There is some problems 1. Tutoring is not available to physics other than students
in peer tutoring. The only kids that do get tutored are the ones who failed completely. If you get a 70 or higher you are not getting tutored. Though I scored really high on my finals so I probably replaced my 40 from my physics test from last time
2. Math I have yet to see. I just retook my trig regents and going to pre calc. I hope I get a teacher that gives out homework for once.
3. English…This teacher is so bad . I dont do anything in that class.You can play on your cellphone in that class and get a 85. Sadly, I dont know how to get a 90(she gives random people 90s)The sad part is that it a honors class.The teacher apparently doesn’t give anybody 95s
4. Doing extremely well in ap us history. Got a 100 the first quarter. It actually the only subject in my high school career that I get 95 and above. It in fact one of my greatest subjects of all time even in middle school. Even my smart friends struggle so they come for me to help. I score a 100 on the global regents.
5.Here comes the dreaded Spanish. I cant apply to it because I am practically a year behind.Cannot even speak the language properly. I should not even be here because the honors/normal class is mixed together. There is a severe shortage of spanish teachers and one time the room was so filled till the point we had to use the teacher table for seats. I review but it does nothing apparently I get a dreaded 65 even if I do review.
6. Business class I excel.It super easy but the teacher doesnt give out hundreds apparently nor a 95 even If I do ask.
Excuses, excuses.
Great job in History!
Khan academy is a great free resource for math. There are tons of short videos explaining how to do different types of problems. Check it out if you haven’t.
Spanish: https://conjuguemos.com/list.php?type=verbs&division=verbs&language=spanish good for practicing verb conjugation The site also has vocabulary games and quizzes. There are many free spanish learning videos for all levels - just google.
Just curious… what did you think of the Trig Regents (Thursday, right??? My son and my friend’s son both said it was brutal.)
Since you’re in NY, there’s a GREAT site for Regents review: http://www.regentsprep.org/
Every person is different. I was bored by history, hated to write essays, loved science and foreign languages, was never athletic or could draw. It’s good that you have identified some subjects you’re better at and enjoy. And B is better than average. You need to find out what you want to do after high school. Not everyone needs to go to college, but you could take some business classes and see where this takes you.
Try a flashcard type website, like Quizlet. You put the terms and definitions in and it will generate quizzes for you.
I’ve had some trouble with math, I don’t think “studying” helps, you need to understand the concepts. But there are helpful resouces online that explain step by step.
Agree with others here that your attitude needs adjusting. The thing is that you seem to think that if you work hard enough and complete all the tasks you’re asked to do, you “deserve” to get A’s. But A’s are not awarded for hard work if you still write badly, get answers wrong on tests and can’t learn Spanish. Sad to say, good grades are given for the best results, not the hardest effort. I know it doesn’t seem fair that you can work your tail off and still only get B’s when others seem to get A’s with less effort (though as others have said, you don’t actually know how hard other students work, even if they make it look easy).
What do you actually enjoy doing? What subjects do you enjoy learning? Rather than looking on school as a competition in which the only goal is to get A’s (and then going on to a working life in which you regard your career as a competition in which the only goal is to make as much money as possible), you should be focusing on what you actually find interesting. Otherwise you’ll just waste your life chasing after these arbitrary prizes that in the end don’t really mean anything.
Op,
Get the book “How to be a Straight A student” by Cal Newport and do what it says.