Skeel, 1

Max Skeel

Lilah Galvin

English 111

November 7, 2018

Lack of Interest Among High-Achieving Students

In my experience as a high school student, classes have been easy and extremely

uninteresting. Unfortunately, this lack of interest is a common problem for high-achieving high

school students. Many different viewpoints have been put forth as to why these students are

uninterested by school, ranging from boring curriculums to bad programs for accelerated

students. Some also argue that school is a “get out what you put in” type of system so the

accelerated students themselves are to blame. Although to some degree students receive more

benefit from school as they put in more effort, students are being held back by boring

curriculums and poor programs for high-level students.

One component of students disliking school is boring curriculums. Shirley Jacob and Otis

Lovette review the ​Louisiana Study​ and in this study, research on student interest is done. Over

the course of the study, it was revealed that 76.8% of all students did not like school. After the

study is confined to students with grade point averages (GPA) between 3.0 and 4.9, 82.4% of

students claim they do not like school. When the study is confined even more to students with

GPAs

between 4.0 and 4.9, 87.8% of students indicated that they did not like school (Jacob and

LoVette, 3). The table below shows the full published results of the study. This study clearly

shows that the higher level students have a greater chance of disliking school. In addition to
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asking students if they like or dislike school, the study also asked students to explain the

reasoning behind their choice. Two of the most popular reasons cited by the students are “lack of

interest, and busy work” (Jacob and LoVette, 3). Lack of interest is partly caused by busy work.

When work starts to feel like it is meant to keep students busy instead of actually advancing

learning there is little value in doing it and students are able to see through this. In addition to

busy work, poor learning habits and a general disinterest in school are also promoted by boring

curriculums. These habits and disinterest also carry over into higher level learning once students

advance beyond high school. One example of this comes from a piece about learning written by

Robert Leamnson. In Leamnson’s example, a student picks up the syllabus on the first day of her

biology class and then does not show up for class again until the first exam. She does the exam

and then does not show up again until the second exam. After she takes this exam, Leamnson

asks her why she is doing this, and she responds that she had biology in high school (Leamnson,

76). This may be an extreme example of a poor learning habit, but had her high school biology

class been more interesting, the value she saw in actually learning the information might have

been higher, promoting better study habits. Additionally, this high school class has lead her to

view biology as a whole as something she is disinterested in. Leamnson’s story is a perfect

illustration of a boring high school class leading to a lack of interest and poor learning habits in

higher education.

Bad programs for accelerated students are also to blame for a lack of interest. One

example of this is the Accelerated Reader (AR) program. Gail Thompson, Marga Madhuri, and

Deborah Taylor conducted a study in this topic for the ​Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy​.

What they find is that the AR program is actually decreasing students’ motivation to read. To
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begin the AR process, a student takes a test to determine their reading level. Once they have a

reading level assigned to them, students can choose books based on their reading level. After

they have read the book they take a computerized test and are awarded points based on the length

and difficulty level of the book if they receive above 60% on the test (Thompson, Madhuri, and

Taylor, 554). Thompson, Madhuri, and Taylor conducted focus groups with high school students

involved in the AR program, the main focus of the meetings were not the AR programs but the

curriculums as a whole. However, the program was the most talked about part of the focus

groups. This program is the most unfair to accelerated students. Someone at a college reading

level has to read a disproportionate amount of books when compared to someone at a much

lower reading level when it is taken into account how college level books are generally longer

than lower level books. Another concern voiced by students is how limited book choices get as

the reading level increases. Students are not being rewarded for increasing their reading level

(Thompson, Madhuri, and Taylor, 555). This decreases motivation for students to reach these

higher reading levels and even incentivizes staying at a lower reading level where more book

choices are available and the required workload is less. Another way in which these programs

hurt high-level students is in the way they shift the focus of the classroom. One example of a

program that hurts high level students is the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). In short, the

NCLB is a federal act primarily aimed towards students in elementary schools that tries to

minimize the gap between students (Conley and Hinchman, 2). While this act has numerous

benefits, there are drawbacks as well. One drawback is that the focus of the classroom is shifted.

This is harmful to accelerated students in high schools. Instead of teachers catering to the class as

a whole, lower level students receive more attention while higher level students are often left on
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their own to figure things out. This system works well through elementary school and into

middle school as it gives every student opportunity. However, once students get into high school

they have a general idea what they want to do after they graduate. Students that plan on going to

college will be working hard in the classroom so they will be accepted into a university. Students

that plan on entering the workforce after they graduate have much lower requirements. They do

not need to work as hard in school as students that are planning on entering college. This is an

area where the NCLB becomes problematic. Poor grades in high school generally come from

low effort. Students that have less incentive to do well have no reason to put in a large amount of

time and effort. High school classes focus on dragging the students that have less motivation to

do well through classes, instead of catering to students that are motivated and want to do well.

In contrast, school can be seen as a “get out what you put in” type of system. James

VanderMey says that a habit is “a tendency to act, say, or think in a certain way” (VanderMey,

13). One argument made is that these habits can be cultivated through programs such as dual

enrollment. Dual enrollment is a program in which students enrolled in high school take classes

through a local college (Phillips, Yuan, and Tharp-Gilliam, 42). If students have been putting in

time and have cared about school enough to develop good habits, then they will be rewarded

with an excellent opportunity to make the transition from high school to college. These classes

generally offer a great chance to improve learning habits and get a feel for what college will be

like, without being thrown straight in. If students have been putting in time and effort what they

will get back is higher education. Higher education leads to more opportunities in the future,

which result from the students working hard in high school.

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Throughout my time in high school, I have been bored by classes and have not been

challenged. This is a common problem for high school students and an unfortunate one. Students

are being held back by boring curriculums and poor programs for high level students. As top

level students, these are the leaders of the next generation and schools should be able to cater to

them as well as students that are comparatively behind. The current system was created to drag

students along rather than challenge everyone. In order to gain more interest from students,

programs that cater to every level of student need to be created.

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GPA Percentage of
students that
dislike school

4.0-4.9 87.8%

3.0-4.9 82.4%

0-2.9 73.2%

0-4.9 76.8%

This table shows the full published results of the Louisiana Study, done by Shirley Jacob and Otis LoVette.
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Works Cited

Conley, Mark W., and Hinchman, Kathleen A., “No Child Left behind: What It Means for U.S.

Adolescents and What We Can Do about It.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy,

Vol. 48, No. 1 (Sep., 2004), pp. 42-50.

Leamnson, Robert. “The Biological Basis of Learning and Today’s First Year Students.”

Exploring

Connections: Learning in the 21st Century​, edited by Pearson, 2016, pp. 65-85.

LoVette, Otis K., and Shirley Jacob. "Why do so Many High Achieving High School Students

Dislike School?" National Association of Secondary School Principals.NASSP Bulletin,

vol. 79, no. 575, 1995, pp. 70. ProQuest,

https://search.proquest.com/docview/216034508?accountid=35715

Phillips, Andrea., Yuan, Kun., Tharp-Gilliam, Shannon. “Performance of Dual Enrollment.”

Evaluation of the Regional Choice Initiative,​ RAND Corporation, 2016, pp. 42-47.

Thompson, Gail., Madhuri, Marga,. and Taylor Deborah. “How the Accelerated Reader Program
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can become Counterproductive for High School Students.” Journal of Adolescent &

Adult Literacy, Vol. 51, No. 7, 2008, pp. 550-560. ​JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/40012381.

Vandermey, James. “Remarks on Habit.” ​Exploring Connections: Learning in the 21st Century,​

edited by Pearson, 2016, pp. 12-17.