hah! in elementray school I got horrid, horrid grades and did not improve in middle school at all until 8th grade when I found some stuff I was actually interested in. I can remember they gave us horrendous piles of HMK almost every night to "prepare" us for HS. I think I got mostly c's, d's and f's then.
WHen I got to HS I got FAR less HMK than in MS or ele. school, and thats probaly when I found out just how well sucking up to the teachers would work. For example, I would read the textbook cover to cover pratically the day they handed it out. Then, I would just sit in their class, listen to what they were saying, and make some statement or ask a question that would show I completely understood exactly what they said. And I would do it in a very suck up way, not with attitude or anything but w/ respect. In no time at all I got to pretty much screw around in the classroom and do whatever I wanted cause the teachers (most of them) realized that I understood their subject. In some cases (CAD class, particulary) I could even skip all the remaining tests, finals, etc and get a A++.
I did not graduate with a 4.0 but I did find enough teachers like this to come away with a 3.7 or somthing like that. most teachers are very receptive to this kind of sucking up and you might find a couple like this.
The caveat is that you have to be able to spot them, and observe to what kind of stuff they talk about, the stuff they like to talk about espcially when they are off topic. for example, my english teacher is from new york city, and loves to spend 1/2 the period on new york. So I did a massive book report on Robert Moses, who was very influental in NYC. The second part is asking itelligent questions, not the "who was that" varitey but "Is paul a reference to paul of the bible"
The questions don't have to be directly related to the topic on hand but should be pretty close.
If everything goes well, they will pretty much give you free rein to educate yourself. You will be able to tell if it is working when they offer you that oppouturinty; asking for it might backfire. I even got to stay inthe computer lab unsupervised after school for hours at a time using this techinque!
NOw that I am in college, I find this is not quite as effective as proffesors like to follow their couse outlines exactly and detest suprises, although I have found a few "suck-up-ables" but there is not as much to get out of them as there was in HS.
01 May 2005, 9:06 pm
