DEAR EDITOR:
I would like to respond to Mr. Scott’s letter printed in The
Dispatch on March 12. I was a student in Mr. Scott’s AP statistics
for the class last year and was one of the six students who did
pass the AP stats exam.
DEAR EDITOR:
I would like to respond to Mr. Scott’s letter printed in The Dispatch on March 12. I was a student in Mr. Scott’s AP statistics for the class last year and was one of the six students who did pass the AP stats exam.
The problem with the AP system concerning statistics at GHS is the fact that seniors feel that they can take it for an easy A, or it sounds easier than trigonometry/pre-calculus. There were a number of people in my AP stats class that just didn’t care about what was going on in class. Mr. Scott would try numerous times to teach to the students but the students would make a joke or just zone out not caring about anything in the world.
How do I know that Mr. Scott was teaching correctly so that people would have a chance to pass the AP stats test? Well my first reason is that I know the other five people who passed the test. Those five people, along with myself, actually listened during class and did our homework daily. I am not saying that not all of the students who received a 1 or 2 did not also do this because I know of a couple of individuals who did more work then myself and still did not pass the test. But, those students never said that Mr. Scott did not do a good job or put that much effort into the class.
Students take AP courses for the challenge and a chance for getting ahead in college. Why would we want to limit a student’s choice to take a class if they want a challenge? For some students, the AP courses give them the self-esteem that they need to go to the next level of their education. If a prerequisite had been instituted for AP government or AP economics, I personally would not have been qualified to take those classes because of the grade that I got in AP U.S. history, I passed both AP exams. I also have a friend who took AP government and AP economics and received a low grade in regular U.S. history. He also passed the AP government and AP economics tests. Were both of us not qualified to take these AP classes because of our performance in a class the previous year?
Teachers can teach any subject until they are blue in the face, but the students will only listen if they are willing to learn and want to be challenged. So why fault the teacher for trying to teach the students to the best of his ability? Creating a prerequisite grade will also not stop the problem, it will only crush the self-esteem of some students who want to have a challenge and make a change in their lives, but their previous grades in an unrelated subject are holding them back.
Scott Seekatz,
University of California, Irvine
Submitted Saturday, March 13 to ed****@ga****.com
