Some people disgust me

Sometimes I look at someone and say, “Why don’t they try a little harder?” I realize, according to our counselors, that Utah has an excellent high school graduation rate, but every single day I think I could pick out a new person at our school alone who gets bad grades, and could get good ones if they tried even a tiny bit.

There is a myth at our school; at least it is a myth in my mind, that getting bad grades is “cool.” In my opinion, if you get bad grades because you didn’t try in class, you look like a lazy slug. If you get bad grades because you are happy to do work in class but homework is a no no, then you do no have my respect, but at least you are somewhat motivated. If you get bad grades on purpose however, then I have absolutely no respect for you or the person you are choosing to be. My only exception to having bad grades is if you really do give every assignment and test your very very best and still can’t get anything decent out of it, then in this case and only this case will I take your side of the bad grade issue.

Trust me, I think that every teacher and most of our peers would agree with me that if you try to get bad grades so you can improve your social image, your efforts are in vain. You don’t look cool by looking stupid, maybe to some of your “cool” friends, but they are getting just as bad of grades as you.

I know of many specific examples, but this is one of the really ridiculous ones. There is this boy in my science class, this certain kid manages to keep a C average, which is not bad but it is much less than he could do. He has more potential in him, I know because he was in my second grade class and was one of the kids that always raised his hand and got the answer right. These were his exact words after getting an A on a quiz a few weeks ago; “What!? I got an A? I didn’t even try! Now I look like a nerd!” I couldn’t believe it; he was disappointed that he got a good grade! He was so worried about his social image that he couldn’t stand to improve his grade that will count toward plans for the rest of his life! Chances were nobody, including his friends, would have even know about his good score unless he had shouted it out to the whole class. People like him make me scared for the future of our earth.

I am sure that every one of us in our honors English class at least has enough sense to realize how stupid people like him are. Hopefully it will be the people like us in our advanced classes and not people like him that will eventually run major companies and become president and things like that. Most likely they WILL be people like us, since people like him will be the ones working night and day to get enough money to go back to college and get a better life for themselves while the rest of us, will working at successful jobs because we decided early on that education does matter. Thank you, one and all who actually work at succeeding in life and not sitting on your butt waiting for something to come that never will, the day when stupid people like those who I have mentioned many times in the above paragraphs will no longer exist and everybody will work hard for what they really deserve in life.