Generalli 1

Kennedy Generalli
ENC 1101
April 1, 2014

School or Jail?
Imagine walking up to a three-story, brick building, the monotone bell rings deafening
your hearing for a few moments and vicious administration bark at students to get to class.
Each chair in the classroom slowly fills up with loud and rowdy students. The teacher stands at
the front of the class, her face containing more wrinkles than pruney fingers when you get out of
the pool, and begins to take role, collect homework, and between names she yells at students
to put their phones away. This scenario is all too familiar to any person who has endured the
high school teaching system in America. The repetitive, dull schedule would easily make anyone
groan. Little do these students know that in a few short years they could have the opportunity to
run their educational career in college. While both high school teachers and college professors
provide their services to better the students knowledge, the approach to discipline, the
approach to learning, and the environment of the class room of each differ greatly.
The approach to discipline is very different in high school and college. In high school are
numerous warnings and chances are given to a student to fix any mistakes, no matter how
significant or insignificant they may be. There are detentions and referrals issued for dress code
violations, class disturbances, or use of cell phones during class. This allows a student to have
a 60 minute timeout or parent contact to send a message that these actions are not tolerated.
If a student is acting out in a way that is harmful to peers around them or has any sort of
weapon or illegal substance on them, Student Resource Officers are sent in to handle the
situation. In most situations, the student is issued a multi-day suspension either in school or
outside of school.

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In the college environment there is little to no tolerance for misbehavior and any
discipline that may be enforced is detrimental to the GPA of a student, their criminal record, and
their ability to be accepted into another college institution. At the beginning of each semester
each teacher supplies their classes with a personal syllabus which lays out their rules and
guidelines that are required to be followed. In that syllabus is the punishment if any of the rules
happen to be broken. Every professor is required to document each class that a student misses
and if that number exceeds three before the 60% completion date in the semester, they have
the ability to be dropped from the class with a F. In college, cheating is a very serious offense
and is not taken lightly by any of the administration. If a student is caught cheating in any way,
shape, or form, the professor is required to report the incident to the board and the student will
be dismissed from the college. In some cases, the cheating can be put on their permanent
criminal record for all future employers to see.
In high school, the learning process is memorization and regurgitation. Teachers present
a new lesson each day of the week and test the students on Friday. Since each class period is
only 45 minutes that allows very little time each day to introduce a lesson and let the students
have the ability to really understand the concept. Due dates and lessons are easily pushed back
and changed as the teacher chooses. To make up for this lack of time, teachers assign
homework each night and accept any assignments late for minimal to no points off. If a student
misses class when any work was due, they simply can turn in the work a couple days late with
no penalty. Perhaps the biggest difference in high school teaching and college teaching is the
grading periods. In high school every six weeks a report card is sent home and every three
weeks a progress report is sent home. This allows students to be able to stay on track and keep
their grades up for a shorter amount of time. When the marking period ends they get a fresh
start, any rough patches they went through weeks before are simply pushed off the table. This
idea of marking periods babies the students and gives them the impression that they can do bad
now and it wont affect their semester grade.

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The approach to learning in college is night and day difference to that of the high school
ways. In college, you are given a syllabus with all the due dates at the beginning of the
semester. This lays out all your tests and days the class will meet. Instead of meeting every day
of the week, college meets twice a week for an hour and fifteen minutes. If a student is going to
be absent from class on a day that assignments are due, they are required to hand in the work
the class prior to their absence or have another peer hand it in for them for any possible credit.
It is the students responsibility to contact the teacher or a peer and figure out what they missed
in class. A downside to the college grading system is the fact that there are only semester
grades. It is the students responsibility to maintain the grade they would like throughout the
whole semester.This can be difficult for students who are used to a fresh start every six weeks.
While the teaching styles and environments of both high school and college each have
pros and cons, the high school system allows for much less independence and responsibility of
each student. The ways that college professors have chosen have an even distribution of the
independence and responsibility that one would experience in the workplace, but also has a
support system and safety net for the students if they do begin to struggle.