This-essay is a7908092.htm which is available at the web-site www.essayz.com. See more notes at the bottom. Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay By-Months By-Years By-Words Webs of Like-&-Un-Like ESSAYS <==> Like-&-UN-Like This-One ========================================================== %WHY DO STUDENTS FAIL? MUTUALLY EXPECTED+790809 %TEACHERS BETTER COMPETE CONFORM TO ROLES WIN 790809 Students often fail because that is the role into which they have been cast in the drama of academe. It is their role to confirm for the teachers, so that the teachers will succeed in a competitive academic enterprise where few are successful. Through their failures such students tell their teachers that they, the teachers, won in a competition which is very demanding. The students thereby perform a much needed service. Teachers would lose their self-esteem if that service were not performed. Any change which would deprive them of the affirmations of failing students, would be unthinkable and so is opposed at a thoughtless level without discussion. The teachers need to be told through failures that they are better than their students. People are most secure in a stable pecking order. It is more threatening to be high in an unstable pecking order than to be low in a stable pecking order. Students who have been cast in the role of failures find themselves low in a stable pecking order, and prefer such a role to one in which they might climb high in an unstable and perhaps ambiguous pecking order. For this reason such students do not seek to undermine the script which has been given them, they play their parts according to teachers' expectations, and fulfill their duty to confirm teachers through their failures. The traditional script for academic plays calls for only a few to be cast in the roles of winners. By tradition such plays do not have many winners---it would be poor dramatic form and would offend the patrons of the academic theater. Thus tradition sets the number of winners in academic competition. All that remains is to set the rules by which students are cast into the various roles. There are certain stereotypes which tend to prevail. Students who meet those stereotypes are cast in the roles of winners, and those who do not are cast in the roles of losers. Teachers' expectations, demands, and grading---assure that the students play their roles faithfully. The teachers' needs are well met. The patrons of the academic theater are pleased to see their expectations fulfilled. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in www.essayz.com Search for Integrity and Honesty (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================
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