Teacher spends two days as a student and is shocked at what she learns

During class I hid whatever book I actually wanted to read at the time inside the class book and drowned out the teacher.

If homework was worth >10% of the total grade for the class (so that you couldn't get an A from tests/quizzes alone), I would copy the homework from someone else the period before.

Tests & quizzes are so gameable it's a complete joke. Standardized tests even more so. Without any actual learning from the class itself, you can generally come close to ace'ing most high school tests by being moderately intelligent.

There was one class where I got busted for copying the homework and actually had to apply myself for the rest of the semester to avoid being failed, and this was only because the teacher felt I could rise to my potential if challenged to do so. Thankfully, that was actually one of the more interesting classes I had to attend.

I was warned constantly that college was going to tear me apart if I didn't instill good study habits, but it was mostly more of the same. It actually required even less work because most classes relied more heavily on quiz & test scores than High School did. After my freshman year, I went to class about 2 hours a week (out of ~18) and still kept above a 3.5 GPA.

At the two corporate jobs I've held so far, the same formula still seems to apply where you can avoid applying yourself 98% of the time as long as you can shine during the corporate equivalent of "tests."

To date, it's the hardest thing in the world for me to garner the self control to apply myself to a task if I'm not passionate about it (even forcing myself to pay bills is a challenge), and I think a large part of that is due to the fact that I've been able to coast through every "challenge" quite easily, and everything has seemed to work itself out so far.

This next month I'm actually striking out on my own, thankfully on something I'm passionate about (and have been working on for the past six months on the side), and I'm scared to death I won't be able to actually follow through on the hard work required to be successful as an entrepreneur.

[1]: We operate on a 4x4 schedule (4 classes August - December, 4 classes January - June). So we sit in one class for 90 minutes, a good time to focus on a task and get it done.

[2]: Issue 2 is a problem with every school I've been in and seen. I can't think of any school that has managed time in a way that will cover curriculum and capture student's attention.

[3]: I'm lucky that my school is only 3 years old, extremely new for my district. I can easily form personal connections with my teachers and administration. My teachers know my extracurriculars and understand if I didn't complete my homework that day (I turn it in later, but I do have to finish it).

Overall, this article was a reflective experience and made me even more thankful of my school.

Doubt it.

It is rare for teachers to have the time to truly consider the student's perspective in their class, and the context of how that fits into the entire school day experience.

EDIT: I should note that I read this article a few days ago. The entire staff at my school held a discussion on how to make school better in that regard. This blog post alone will at minimum affect the 1400 students at our school, but given the number of places I've seen it shared, it will have a much larger impact than that. Always a good reminder.