A large part of high school is complaining about classes. Everyone seems to have a least favorite class that they dread going to every day. There are countless reasons that can cause students to be disinterested in a class; maybe that subject has seemed more difficult than the others since kindergarten, the teacher is a particularly hard grader, or the student just cannot seem to do well no matter how hard they try. But can approaching a class with this hopeless, pessimistic attitude affect how well a student does in said class?

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of attitude is, “A feeling or way of thinking that affects a person’s behavior.” Coming into a class already having a feeling of disinterest and dislike is the settled way of thinking, and the way it is reflected in a person’s behavior is the student not doing well in that class. But where does that feeling of disinterest come from? The source of a student’s dislike for a class is key to understanding how it affects their schoolwork.

When asked what their least favorite classes are and why, many students said that the classes they dislike the most are ones where they feel like it is difficult to succeed. It is frustrating for a student to be in a class where an aspect of the curriculum makes the student feel ill-prepared for assessments, which Erica Rodi ’17 gives an example of: “Sometimes we take too long on random stuff that we don’t need to know for a test and then when we are tested, it’s on stuff we never actually went over.” When a student feels like they do not know how to succeed in a class, it is stressful for them, and they are discouraged from even trying. Classes can place a high importance on tests and the grades earned, which can remove the fun from a class and make the student disinterested, especially when they feel like they will do badly no matter how hard they try. “I don’t like when teachers don’t make it clear what we’re being tested on. I like when teachers are exact with what we have to know,” one student explains.

        Students’ confidence can also affect their performance a great deal. A study at the University of Southern Mississippi on the correlation between achievement and attitude in fifth- grade math students found that, “Extroversion was the only trait to have a significant relationship with achievement, showing that students who were more extroverted scored higher on the test.” Nick Gauthier ’17 agrees with this: “If you’re in a positive mindset that you know the material, you’re more likely to be able to recall relevant information.” If a student has not done well in a class before, they are likely to be less confident when participating and performing in assessments in that class.

        Something that is not always accepted in traditional school systems is the idea that some people just have an innate ability, or lack thereof, to do well in certain subjects. “Math has just never clicked in my brain like it does for some people, and I just don’t find it interesting or engaging,” explains one student. Despite most people having a particularly bad subject that they have never seemed to be able to understand, this is not something that school systems allow for. It is natural for people to have strong and weak areas, and most students will go on to work in somewhat specialized fields as adults. However, students are expected to be well rounded and perform well in a variety of subjects while in grade school.

        Perhaps students would be more open to trying new, riskier subjects if they were not graded so harshly in them, or if there was not so much importance placed on grades. “I like the idea of no grades in theory, but I feel like a lot of people would be less motivated to do well,” one student shares.

        Students can feel disinterested in classes when they don’t have the tools to succeed or the confidence to perform to their full potential. Perhaps teachers are the key to helping students feel more engaged in classes, or students themselves need to try to be more engaged in class in order to perform better. Either way, this is something everyone in school can relate to at some point, and is trying to improve.