A 'Smart' Kid's Advice to 'Stupid' Classmates

A 'smart' kid's advice to 'stupid' classmates ELISSA GOSS ''OH, my God! You're sooo smart!" "Dude, you're, like, a superwhiz." These remarks are a few of the many I receive from my fellow classmates when they see that I have gotten an A, while they got a big, honking F. After the news gets around that most of the kids in class have failed the assignment, the complaints start rolling. "The teacher hates me!" "This was too hard!" "The assignment was sooo stupid!" And the all-time favorite, "I can't do it because I am stupid." The fact is, most of the kids in my class are far from wavering on the stupid side. Many of them, when they apply themselves, are actually capable of getting good grades. They just don't apply themselves. It has become fashionable among my peers for them to fail. When the teacher hands them back a paper with a low grade, they proudly puff their chests out, put their papers in the air, and exclaim, "Guess what? I failed!" and the class will erupt with laughter mixed with remarks such as, "Me, too!" and "I'm so stupid!" When they talk abut how stupid they are, they're smiling. My peers smile as if grades are one big game and by failing, they're winning. Then, after the excitement of "winning" has died down, they eventually get around to glancing at my paper and exclaim, "How in the world did you do that?" The answer to their question is simple: I didn't procrastinate. Students today are getting into the habit of waiting until the last minute to do their work and saying to themselves: "If I pass, great. If I don't pass, oh, well. I will just talk to the teacher, and if that doesn't work, I'll let loose my secret weapon — The Parent." Then they will fail. They will blame it on any factor other than their lack of planning ahead. What these kids aren't realizing is that in the real world, you can't just say, "Oh, well." Imagine what will happen to procrastinators when it comes to paying a mortgage. With a mortgage, you pay a certain amount of money at a certain time of the month, and if you don't pay on time, you get a warning and a late fee. If you keep missing the due date, you will eventually get a foreclosure on your house and bad credit. Along with bad credit, you will also get a big bad stack of late fees. The same consequences also go with a job deadline. If you don't do your job correctly and on time, you get a warning. And if you keep procrastinating, you will get fired. Then how are you going to pay the mortgage that is already late? Students need to learn to plan ahead and stop procrastinating, because in the real world, you can't call on Mommy when you fail.

Goss, age 14, recently graduated from Clear Lake Intermediate School.