Serious I just failed senior year in high school

I fail to see how this might be debate material, I'm going to go ahead and move this to temple of the ancients, since it sounds more personal than saying "school systems suck etc.."

Also I don't see the where the debate is in here, so anyways.
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As for the OP, I'm not sure how you got to where you are though? Did you miss a lot of classes? Miss a lot of the material? Couldn't understand what was going on, and needed a tutor? I notice you said you have a hard time paying attention for extended periods of time. You might have A.D.D. or even H.D.A.D., which you might need to go to the doctor to get on some ritalin.

I will say school is important for folks right now, because in this low economy right now, people are looking at your resume's and then looking how much you have completed even if you are applying to a tanning bed - as well as experience (which would be more important).

I know it's your senior year and all, and you are almost out.. but this online course... should never really have been taken. I know I shouldn't try the apathetic approach, and I know I sound harsh right now bro..

I know you don't need to even get more depressed, but cheer up bro. I think you just need the motivation, and when the school denied you because of an online class, you just need to take the responsibility and get back into the mix. Yoooou can dooo it!
 
lreal said:
I'm just gonna call it how I see it from what's written.

I think you should have been more proactive. Sure you can cry "learning disability" and "school system blows" but really who are you kidding here? You had the entire semester to figure this shit out and it sounds like you haven't even begun the course yet. Why would you even go see the principal for this? If it's just a technical difficulty or inability to navigate the website, I'm sure there are school employers who are more accessible that could've fixed the problem. I am still unable to comprehend how you can leave something that is this important until "one day left." Blame the school all you want, but I don't buy it at all. To be honest, this sounds just like a case of procrastination gone bad, and you want to cry regret
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That's fine and dandy to say, and it could even be true, but it may not be. Obviously you've never experienced the sort of school that could care less. Well, I have. The teachers don't care, at least most of the ones I've had, and it's much easy to just blame the student then to actually fix the problem.

If you need more proof about how much schools care then just look at all the recent cases of bullying. And don't try to deny it happens, because it's happened to me. And you know what the school said to me: "Boys will be boys". I was having heavy objects tossed at me and being kneed in the back and nobody cared. Think God my parents raised hell until the school had to notice.

So, before you go all "It's your own fault" on people, you should at least try to understand where they might be coming from. And I'm not saying that what you're saying isn't true sometimes, all I'm saying is that it isn't always true. You should be nicer and less condeming in your response. You sound as though you don't believe that things like this ever happen.

What I'm trying to say is that sometimes they do. Sometimes, I would say most of the time, the school doesn't really care if it doesn't effect them directly.
 
@saintvox

I'm not denying the fact that many American schools are in shambles, but that still is not a good reason to put the blame on the school. From what he's written, it seems like a fairly simple technical difficulty that could have been solved anytime during the entire semester. Why he decided to leave it to meetings with the principal or wait till the last minute to actually take an aggressive stance is unclear. But really, he just fucked up.

Plus, I went to a normal high school where the administration sounds just as incompetent as his. But that's an additional reason why you need to figure and do things on your own. If there's a problem that you need fixed, you don't just ask the school and have them throw it on the back burner.

I have little to no sympathy because all he is doing is whining about how the school system is poor and blah blah. Welcome to life, all high schools aren't great. You're not going to have someone hold your hand through life. He learned it the hard way.
 
Oi, no need for that. Calling him fucked up is not called for.

Its perfectly understandable that by reading the first post that people can get a miscommunication, but read the WHOLE thread before calling him fucked up. Its the fact that the school did NOTHING even in the initial stages when he pleaded for help with the site. All they did was hold the briefing which he needed till it was too late.

There is only so much a student can do. If the sites fucked, the sites fucked. He cant do anything to fix the site besides lodging complaints to the school, which he did. The result? They ignored him.
 
@tipsy

I'm gonna try to keep this short and sweet so as not to derail his thread.

1. Learn to read. I never called him fucked up. I said "he fucked up," as in he made a mistake.

2. Again, learn to read. The only thing he did was set an appointment with the principal. He emphasized it with "being important" and "about the course" but that's far from being persistent enough to put all the blame on the school. There are many steps he could have taken apart from what he did.

3. Don't just side with the student. I understand there is this "us vs. them" mentality which creates an immediate bias, but if you just take the time to look at the situation as a whole, then you'll see that most of the blame actually falls on him. Sure the school system could be better, but he shouldn't just use that as a justification for what happened. It wasn't a hopeless situation by all means.

If you read between the lines it just looks like some guy who held it off till the last minute, then realized how much trouble he was in so started complaining. Why wasn't he more persistent throughout the semester? Why didn't he attempt to ask employers apart from the principal? Why did he just start getting aggressive at the last minute? He hasn't told us the entire story, but it does smell of a kid "who fucked up" and is trying to get out of his mistake by placing the blame somewhere else. Like I said before, I'm just calling it like I see it.
 
Maybe you need glasses, Ireal.

There's nothing wrong with expressing your opinions, by all means do, but try to be nice about it, could you? Sure tough love works sometimes, but sometimes it pushes the person off a ledge, you know? That's all people are saying.

You seem to have the whole us vs. them mentality you claim everybody else has. You seem to be writing this off as stupid student puts it off vs. school that would have helped. You don't know it was like that. In fact, more than likely, it wasn't. That's what I'm saying. The American school system is in shambles at the moment, and I say that as someone who has spent twelve years in it.

Schools often don't care! If I hadn't experienced it myself, I'd probably keep saying the same things you are saying. But I have, and not just about some stupid site. I was being physically and verbally abused on school grounds in front of teachers and administrators. My parents called the Principal. Apparently getting things tossed at you, being called names, and even having borderline sexual harassment is just "Boys being Boys. Like I said earlier, if my parents hadn't gone crazy, around the time I starting to try to off myself, I'd be in a real mess. And you know what, the school could've given a fuck.

So, yeah, I'm taking a person's side when it might be partly his own fault. I'm doing it because my experience with the school system is that it probably isn't!
 
^^

You think I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth? I went through the American education system just like you and had to face the same incompetent school administration. I really do despise people who bitch and moan about something because it's not the way it should be. He's just putting the blame on the school. It's not physical or verbal abuse but figuring out how to begin an online course. He had the entire semester to figure it out. How can you not see this as almost pure failure on his part?

If you had a deadline in 6 months, would you hold off till the last day to panic? I would've hounded the school at least once a week. He just put in a "meeting" and let it roll till the end of the semester. It's procrastination at its finest.
 
As rude and offensive as the claims in this thread are, I still cannot side with one party here. I am a teacher-in-training, in the process of getting my Master's in Education and a lot of what I'm seeing here is true on both ends.

The schools: Yes, schools now-a-days are more focused on making sure students are able to pass standardized tests; therefore, they are less inclined to work with students on an individual basis. You can thank No Child Left Behind for that one. The point is, it's not always the teachers fault. In one case, I believe I heard on the news that somewhere, teachers would be paid based on performance, which is unbelievable to me. If your class does produced the results, you get paid more. Um, but how is that possible? What every happened to 'every child learns differently'? Are we seriously going to assume that every kid in the school system can fit into this cookie cutter outline and be able to perform just as well as their fellow student?

Please don't think that all teachers don't care. That's so not true. Many of them are under extreme stress of trying to get their students to perform well under federal law that could lose their school very important funding; something the education system in many parts of the country is in desperate need for--just something to think about.

The students: They don't really understand how administration puts pressure on the teachers to produce results. They don't also understand, at times, how depressing it is to see their students failing, not caring and simply giving up. We (the teachers) are supposed to be able to do our jobs and do them well and when our students fail, especially under their instruction, it's disheartening. Now, I'll give you that some teachers really don't care. But I can guarantee you that a good number of them probably did at some time; when they were young, bright-eyed and full of hope that they could make a difference in kid's lives. I guess what I'm trying to say is maybe the students should try to better understand how the system they are in works and how much pressure everyone is under; the administration (for funding), the teachers (for results/funding/job security).

In response to the actual topic, I would just say take the matter calmly to someone who can fix it. Tech support would be a good place to start. If you ask, I'm sure someone would be willing to guide you through the computer system. The thing is, you just have to watch your approach. Coming at them with a bad attitude, defensive and rude is not going to work in your favor--that I can guarantee.
 
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lreal said:
^^

You think I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth? I went through the American education system just like you and had to face the same incompetent school administration. I really do despise people who bitch and moan about something because it's not the way it should be. He's just putting the blame on the school. It's not physical or verbal abuse but figuring out how to begin an online course. He had the entire semester to figure it out. How can you not see this as almost pure failure on his part?

If you had a deadline in 6 months, would you hold off till the last day to panic? I would've hounded the school at least once a week. He just put in a "meeting" and let it roll till the end of the semester. It's procrastination at its finest.
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No, I don't think you had a silver spoon. I was just saying that it's really easy to blame the student for putting it off when they may've tried ahead of time to do something. I was pointing out that sometimes, schools don't care about the student. And I'm not completely absolving anyone from blame, like you seem to be doing. You just want to blame him totally.

A school is supposed to be there to help you, not hinder you. Lately, it seems like they do more of the latter than the former. It shouldn't really matter when you ask, they shouldn't just shove you off. It's their job to help you after all, they get paid to do it.

And I'm not trying to say that all teachers don't care. I've had teachers that care a lot. I've had some that wouldn't care if you died the next time. Teachers are people after all, it makes sense that they aren't all the same.

And if my claim seems offensive, I apologize, but I swear that it's true. I was being bullied intensely by the "in" crowd, and the principal and co. cared about as much as a noodle. I had one teacher, who when he found out, was really angry about it going on. One of them watched it going on. I just thank God that they were content with accusing me of being gay, throwing things at me, and touching (not in an overtly sexual way!) me, and not killing me. Although they almost did indirectly.

And that's why I get definsive when ever someone just wants to blame the kid for everything.

And Dee, I'm preparing to graduate this year and being my course to being a teacher myself. I know that teachers aren't all bad. I myself hope to be a better one then some of the ones I had. I know that when I'm in a classroom, I'm not going to look the other way. And I won't let the administration either!
 
^^

God, did you even read what he wrote? Stop comparing his bitching and moaning about failing an online course because the principal didn't pay attention to him to the blatant abuse you were subjected to by your peers. They are two very different situations. The school may be at fault in yours, but it definitely wasn't so much in his.*

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lreal said:
^^

God, did you even read what he wrote? Stop comparing his bitching and moaning about failing an online course because the principal didn't pay attention to him to the blatant abuse you were subjected to by your peers. They are two very different situations. The school may be at fault in yours, but it definitely wasn't so much in his.*

Edit*
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This my final post about this matter. I don't want to fight with you about it. I'm not comparing his "whining" with what happened to me. I'm just saying that sometimes the school doesn't care. That covers big and small things. And I'm not saying he's innocent, like you seem to believe. I'm just saying it might not be all his fault.


And it's possible that the school took the "It doesn't affect me, it's your class" attitude that they sometimes do. It happens sometimes. And that's all I'm going to say.:D
 
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