Students at Bowie High School are under a lot of pressure to keep their grades up especially if they are in a UIL event. The rule is that if the student is failing when progress reports are finalized they are not allowed to participate in their chosen UIL activity. The question is whether this is a fair consequence for the students or not.
I think that holding students back from participating is very unfair to them and that there are other ways of motivating them to get their work done. In the end, I think this consequence causes more harm than good.
Students need to have a good balance between their social and academic life and this restricts them from doing so. Taking away the student’s hobbies and isolating them to just academics is only going to decrease their motivation.
One reason that I think this consequence is unnecessary is because most of the time students’ grades are a lot lower during progress reports than when the finalized report cards come out. When progress reports are published there are still many assignments to be completed and inputted for that nine weeks. This means that their grade will most likely improve a lot in the upcoming weeks. Punishing students for things that they are most likely going to have fixed is not reasonable.
Numerous studies show that students perform better academically while being involved in an extracurricular activity. This is another reason why I think that limiting students to just their academics as a consequence would not be beneficial. Many students use UIL activities as their way of reducing stress and anxiety from school. Taking away the things that they enjoy doing the most is only going to cause more stress and put more pressure on them.
Finally I think that there are better ways of motivating students to do well in class. It would be more beneficial if teachers were to reward students for their good progress reports instead of discouraging them for their low grades.
Some people may argue that this consequence will motivate students to do better academically but I completely disagree with this stance and believe that positive motivation and rewarding students is much more effective than punishing them.
I think an effective way of motivation could be something like giving candy or free time to the students who have kept their grades up and didn’t receive a progress report.
I think that depriving students of their hobbies is not the correct way of disciplining them over progress reports. Students deserve a balance in their academic and social life and that is something that shouldn’t be able to be taken from them.
