<p>cate_intl, I’m going to pile on…because I’m sensing that you’re sort of going about this without much adult guidance yet from home and, while that doesn’t bode well for boarding school, I think there’s something here worth learning anyway. And while this is EXTREMELY preachy and I know it, I think it’s worth saying even if it comes off as high-handed (even for me).</p>
<p>Kids – and adults for that matter – who have things come easy to them tend to think that they don’t need to give 100% effort. If you’re getting 96-100% for your grades, you’re doing as much as you need to do, even if it’s a piece of cake.</p>
<p>Well, if you’re that gifted, then show people you have a gift. Don’t just dumb yourself down to getting 100% and be content with that. If getting 100% is easy, don’t think, “Well, I can’t get 110%, so I’ll play video games and talk on the phone!” What you should do – boarding school aspirations or not – is develop your gifts. As creative1 mentioned, help others learn, exert your energy and extra time to make things run more smoothly in the classroom.</p>
<p>Students who easily get high grades generally fall into one of two camps. </p>
<p>On the one hand, there are those who sleepwalk their way to high grades, make a show of how easy it is, don’t take notes (because they don’t need to), get distracted (because they’re too self-centered and can’t empathize with fellow students who need to pay close attention from bell to bell) and, in a nutshell, make it harder for the teacher to get through to their fellow students. IN SUM: Stellar grades; extraordinary competence and skill; makes teacher’s job more difficult. (The recommendation practically writes itself!)</p>
<p>On the other hand, let me introduce you to the student who has an easy time of it and understands that their fellow students aren’t so lucky, even though they’re also bright. This student challenges his peers to do better; studies with them and works with them to prepare for exams and just discusses the class and material during the time between the end-of-class bell and the beginning-of-the-next-day’s-class bell. They’re quiet and attentive and deferential to what the teacher is trying to do for the other students during class. Or maybe, if the teacher allows, they go out into the hall or to a corner of the room to work with another student one-on-one while the teacher helps the rest of the class move along. Same grades as the first student, but this recommendation also writes itself…and it comes out much differently!</p>
<p>The best students – from a teacher’s perspective – are not the brightest ones, but the ones who make teaching the entire class easier. There might be some teachers who will write, “Oh, what a joy it has been to teach Maisy because I only had to say it once and she totally owned it.” But the recommendation that you want is the one that reads, “Maisy doesn’t just understand the material, she has mastered it to the point that she has inspired her fellow learners to master it as well. What a joy it has been to have her in my class because the whole class is elevated by her participation.”</p>
<p>If you’re not looking outside yourself and you’re simply measuring your success and value to others in terms of how well you, and you alone, cogitate and grasp facts and knowledge, you’re not likely giving your best effort. It’s not about lifting yourself up to the 100% line. It’s about overflowing and sharing what you’ve got with others.</p>
<p>If your classmates and teacher are glad you’re in the class, it’s not because you’re just getting better grades than most everyone else. It’s because you’re valued in that small community of 15-20 or so people. Getting good grades is of no value to anyone else. You have to find ways to make yourself valuable to the school community.</p>
<p>Maybe a better way to put this is to give you an idea of how the teacher sees things. So, imagine you’re in the “real” world and you own a company or have someone who’s doing some work for you. If that person just knows stuff (how to get a tax write-off or fix your plumbing), that alone won’t be worth paying them anything, will it? They have to make themselves valuable and use that knowledge in a way that benefits you. If you read a story in the newspaper about someone who has discovered the cure to all forms of cancer, is the story significant because of what that person knows or for what that person’s knowledge means for other people? That knowledge is useless if they don’t share it with anyone. You can’t tell me that it’s good enough for someone to know the cure to cancer and understand it inside out. If they did know the cure, and didn’t share it with anyone, would you be impressed with how smart they are or find them reprehensible for their lack of empathy or inability to communicate? That may be where your teachers are coming from, as they watch you get high grades. If you don’t understand how you can get the highest possible grade and still get poor marks for effort, maybe it’s because you still haven’t learned the age-old pre-school lesson: “doesn’t share well with others.”</p>
And anyway, I like preachy advice. I get one from my mom every other day or so. I do help my friends and whoever sits beside me if they want. I don’t know if teachers realize this because I usually do this over lunch/breaks or at home over the phone/IM.</p>