Another Day Of Science

So I know this is late and I am sorry about that. I was going to put this up yesterday, but then I fell asleep. Anyway, here is my blog post for last week.

"Do or do not, there is no try." -Yoda, Empire Strikes Back  

A couple of days ago, we had a Random Subject competition at so-and-such school. It was pretty fun, but I hated how early I had to wake up to get there on time. I mean, it's a Saturday for crying out loud! Anyways, so I woke up really early and went to the already named school to compete in my first event. I then spent an hour of excruciating brain functioning and thinking, while running down 3 flights of stairs and forgetting half of the things that I needed for that specific event.

After this event was done, I had exactly 5 minutes to run back down those three flights of stairs, run down the hall to our "homeroom" area, grab my 3 inch binder that is supper hard to carry around, run back up those 3 flights of stairs, and get to the room which was on the other side of the school to only find out that I had left my random subject guide downstairs in our homeroom area in my backpack.

It was WAY crazy. I then leaned over to talk to my partner for that random event and asked if he wanted me to go and get the random subject guide. He said no. Well it turns out that we really needed that book/guide/thing. We totally bombed the test even though we did really well, I feel like we could have done better, way better.

Anyways, so my question for this week is "do kids perform better under lots of stress or do they perform the best without stress?"

Kids perform well in both situations. Kids need stress so that they get assignments in and are constantly reminded that they need to get their assignments done because of grades. Without good grades, us kids will have a really hard time getting jobs and getting to go to college too. Our whole entire future depends on what grades we get in high school.

On the other hand, students get so caught up in grades and the stress to do well that the tendency to cheat is increased dramatically. With all the stress we put on our kids, all they want to do is please their parents and their teachers.

I know that I have felt this way. The pressure to do so well builds up on you. You feel as though you don't have any choice but to cheat. It is the feeling that your entire grade rest on that final test. The one test that ever single teacher I ever had that they stress and say that it's really the biggest test ever. It is the test that you work the entire year to take and if you don't do well on it, you will fail.

I hate it when teachers do this, but I also love it because it helps me have a goal. It's something to work towards. It helps me keep going. To answer my question, I would have to say both. It's good and bad. At least for me it is.