All throughout elementary, junior high, and high school we have had teachers encouraging us to do better and succeed. Telling us the correct way to be the best students we can. It’s rare that you will meet a teacher who does not want his or her students to succeed and make something of them-selves.
At a community college we are bound to encounter many different types of professors; the ones who are all too happy to be there, the ones who have been teaching so long that their lectures are all but memorized, the ones who just started and probably still have the golden plan to change the world, and even the professors that teach at a university or a different college as well.
Some professors, usually the ones who have been teaching for a while, get into the habit of saying certain things that encourage students to fail. These teachers that encourage failure probably do not even realize they are doing it. Some compare us to their university students they have or have had in the past. Some may say things like “I realize this is a community college,” and allowing us the opportunity to base our entire grades off extra credit. This does not seem like an effective way to teach a college course and would probably close more minds than it opens.
Most students that go to Salt Lake Community College are doing so, not because they are less intelligent or motivated than university students, but because they are not as well off financially. We have just as much right to learn like adults and to be treated as if we are intelligent individuals. Telling students that there isn’t as much expected from them as university students is more or less calling them stupid and will probably result in more drop outs or failures. Considering the human ego is a fragile one anyways, telling a student that he or she isn’t as good as someone at a different college or university can do one of two things; either motivate the student to prove that teacher wrong, or just give up.
Giving a student the opportunity to base their entire grade off of extra credit is not fair for the rest of the students that are there to learn. While it does make it easier on those who would rather watch TV and do a simple report than go to class, it means that the work that is assigned is unnecessary which makes one wonder why it was even assigned at all. Extra credit can be a great thing in certain cases, like changing a grade from an A- to an A, but when a student is allowed to do an entire semester worth of points by watching a few TV programs it kind of makes extra credit seem like a joke, and can make the college look badly.
Students at Salt Lake Community College deserved to be treated just like any other student at any other university or college. We are here to further our education and learn about ourselves, breaking down our egos will hinder this process greatly. The tests, papers, and projects that are assigned should be what our grades are based on, not 100 points of extra credit that could have been done the weekend before. We are just as intelligent and have just as much potential as anyone else, so give us the opportunity to succeed the way you would anyone else.