Student Expectations, Essay Example

The world today is much different from twenty, fifteen, or even ten years ago. Both adults and young people alike expect things to be handed to them with little to no effort on their part. When this does not go the way these people expect, they feel a problem has occurred.  Such events happen not only in everyday life with work and sports, but this expectation has made its way into the academic world as well.  On the whole, students today expect to earn higher academic marks for a job which may not have attained the same caliber marks as it would have only a few years in the past.

This change in attitude is none the more evident in teachers such as Professor Marshall Grossman, who is an instructor in the English department at the University of Maryland.  He states that he has come to not only be surprised, but rather, expect complaints upon handing back graded assignments to his students. If a student feels he has achieved “A” status and does not attain those marks, the student will come to him and voice his complaint. Some students actually state they have never gotten such low grades in their entire educational careers.

Professor Ellen Greenberger is also not surprised with the change in students’ attitudes towards grades and their academic expectations in general.  She believes today’s students feel they are entitled to something, be it excellent grades, increased parental rewards, or some other measure of positive reinforcement and from all indications this seems to be the normal pattern in most secondary schools across America.  However, as the students graduate and move on to the college level they are not always met with the same ‘easy’ classes and blasé study habits they might have learned during their academic careers in the past.

Both Professors Grossman and Greenberger, in my opinion, are correct in their observations of today’s students and what they feel they expect from academia and life in general. Until we, as a society, begin to instill better virtues in our young children so they will understand the importance of hard work, increased effort, and demanding tasks, we will not be able to break this cycle of entitlement and students will only get more and more demanding as the years progress.

Reference

Roosevelt, M. (2009, February 17). Student expectations seen as causing grade disputes. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/education/18college.html?_r=2.