Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Students express opinions on education part I

Bonnie Beals, an English teacher at Gurdon High School, recently gave her Senior English students a rather interesting assignment.

Beals asked her students to tell her, on paper and in their own words, what they thought would help students learn more.

The exact question was stated as so, "Arkansas' Public Schools are receiving failing grades. What could be done to improve the public school system? How?"

As expected, Beals received some good ideas with reasoning and some that weren't so great. However, it was the students' opinions and that is what Beals was looking for in this writing assignment.

In their own words the students wrote: "Arkansas' Public Schools are receiving failing grades. The teachers can improve this by going over a lot of things with the students. Make sure that everything they teach the students is understood it well. And some teachers could give the students at least one worksheet, or one homework assignment, to do everyday, and maybe their grades would get better," Breanna Buford.

"Make sure school subjects are more interesting and appealing to the students. Instead of giving a lecture, teachers could be more creative by showing students by doing experiments in chemistry class or describing something that took place in a story and making it sound more modern," Steven Burris.

"The number one thing that can be done. Is that the students will try that is the one thing that students do not do on test like that. I know cause I do the same thing and a lot of people does it besides me. That is the one thing. It is not the teacher's faults out test are low it is the students because teachers teach us everything that is going to be on test if we try we will be able to do it," Cameron Dickerson.

"I feel that the teachers are not teaching us anything and they want to blame everything on the students or the parents. Where do teacher come in at they should be blamed to because they are the ones who are supposed to prepare us for the ACT and SAT but they don't that's why students scores are low. I think they should have an observer in every class to make sure we are getting taught what we need to learn. If they don't prepare us for what we need to know they should be fired," Torey Dixon.

"To improve the public school system I think they should find kids that want to learn and teach them and the kids that don't want to learn take them somewhere else. If you look at the big test they give the kids that don't care will put anything down and fail then that brings the overall scores down. So I say it's all on the kids if they want to learn and don't take scores from the kids that don't care. Look at the kids that are trying they might not be very smart but they are not making failing grades," Jesse Eckert.

"Arkansas' Public Schools are receiving failing grades because of lack of interest. Students don't want to learn anymore. There are still some students that come to school for the right reasons, but the majority comes for the pleasure of spending time with their friends. In order to change this I think their should be more strict rules and smaller classes, so that way a student could get more one on one help," Eddie Fort.

"One thing that could help failing grades is more teaching in the classroom instead of watching videos or playing games. Another thing could be more one on one time with each student. This would mean to cut the size of the classrooms down so that teachers could have more time with each student," Carrie Gibson.

"It's not the school system that's the problem. It's the child's will to learn. If they don't want to learn then they are going to receive failing grades. There are those who do care. But they only learn when they have to. A solution to this is that there is No Solution. I think that a child will learn if he wants to. But, the same child won't learn if he does not want to," Justin Land.

"The thing that can improve the public school system is teachers. Teachers should spend equal time with each student to make sure he or she knows what they are doing," O'Brian Moss.

"I don't think that it is the school's fault as much as it is the student's fault, although some teachers don't try as hard to teach. For example, some teachers don't take time to explain what they are doing. They just give a page number and tell you to go to work. If you don't understand the teacher tells you, you should have been paying attention when I went over it on the board.' The students are at fault too. Many students come to school everyday and don't listen to their teachers and sleep in class. Students need to come to school with the intentions of learning," Daniel McElhannon.