The "C" Student - A Discussion

“C” students are “C” students for a variety of reasons… unlock the reason and you unlock the potential…

Who are the ‘C’ students?

-- Intelligence Factors (Intelligence = ability to analyze and/or learn)

-- “Gifted” = innate talent (learns quickly and easily but won’t always follow the rules and is therefore a “C” student in most classes that are not of interest – they will learn what they want to learn)

-- Hard worker with average talent (commonly known as the “over-achiever”) – tries hard – but still receives C’s

-- Learning Disabled - for a variety of reasons that may or may not have been detected (such as dyslexia which has nothing to do with intelligence).

-- Missing the pre-requisites is the major issue for student non-performance. When families move, students change schools and often curriculum standards change or are presented in a different order. When a student is ill for a prolonged period of time, that time lost becomes a gap in the curricular continuum. The student may have had a bad year (or more) in a failing school. These are the places to USE THE TOOLS available, such as EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE.

-- Motivational Factors

-- Home life doesn’t value education

-- Student sees no purpose in the material being presented

-- Outside pressures from peers, family, employers

-- Lack of sleep or nutrition or home stability

-- Friends who do not value education

-- Employer’s demands if student has after school job

Solutions

As an educator, we need to see what we can do professionally to give that “C” student the time and attention needed.

If you yourself are a “C” student and a successful adult, congratulations! There are many very successful C students – usually the ones with innate intelligence coupled with hard work.

If you are a “C” student and wish to excel, take steps to do so:

-- Seek 1-to-1 tutoring

-- If you cannot afford 1-to-1 tutoring, purchase educational software.

And the reason we need to SAVE our “C” students is that as time goes on, they quickly become “D” and “F” students who dropout.

Many of the “C”, “D”, and “F” students are labeled with all kinds of LD labels when in fact most of them are simply right brain thinkers in a left brain world. And many of them grow up to be very successful adults.

Unfortunately, too many of the "C" students who subsequently become "D" and "F" students will dropout after a year or two of high school and are then faced with a life of hopelessness. This is not good for society as a whole. We are all in the same boat. There's a hole in the boat and we must all start bailing the water out by doing what we can to save our most ignored students, the "C" students.

©Illana Weintraub for MathMedia Educational Software, Inc. All rights reserved.

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