Gilbert Arenas Quotes

Duke is in extremely competitive environment. In my high school, I think I got one B my whole four years. I was used to being the smartest kid in every class I was in, and then I went to Duke and suddenly I was the dumbest kid in every class. Everybody there is up to something.

The best students always are flunking. Every good teacher knows that.

Schoolwork came kind of natural to me, but when I brought home a grade that wasn't up to par, my parents let me know it.

I wasn't a troublemaker. I wasn't impertinent. The teachers liked me. But year after year, the comments on my report cards basically came down to a single point, and it was 100% accurate: I seemed to get nothing whatsoever out of all those long hours spent in the classroom.

What we now call school training, the pursuit of fixed studies at stated hours under the constant guidance of a teacher, I could scarcely be said to have enjoyed.

I had to get good grades and do well in school - my mother was an assistant principal and my father was a teacher - and they took this very seriously.

Top-up fees mean that universities are increasingly under pressure to confer degrees upon students, who perceive the degree as a commodity they've purchased. Failure doesn't enter into anyone's calculations.

If I were to take an undergraduate chemistry exam, I would probably fail.

It's unfortunate that sometimes in schools, there's this need to have things quantified and graded.

I myself scraped seven poor passes at O-level.

I was terrible at school.

The teacher is commodified, the school is a shop, the subjects are consumer goods. To read, to think, to reflect, isn't a question of want, it's a question of need.

It's a staggering transition for high school students that found they could study five hours a week and make As and Bs.

I had a number of teachers who hated me. I didn't do well in school.

I never cared what kind of grade I got.

I liked English and art and did a lot of painting. And for some reason I was good at math, but I wasn't an A student. I really had to work hard to get good grades.

Told that the passing grade is a B or competence and that we will help you to get there, students do competent work. The lowest passing grade in the real world is competence. Why do schools accept so much less?

The kindest word to describe my performance in school was Sloth.

Here, class attendance is expected and students are required to take notes, which they are tested on. What is missing, it seems to me, is the use of knowledge, the practical training.

We have placed more emphasis on grades and school ranking than on genuine education.

Princeton was really hard. I had learned how to write well at boarding school, and I knew if I majored in English and I just did the work, I could get B's.

My last name is Taylor. So in school, every time we got a project, I'm at the end. So I get to see the whole class do their project. Then, when it comes time to do mine, of course I'd pass, and the teacher wouldn't have too many questions.

I get letters from classes all the time. Say it's assigned in someone's 8th grade class, and the teacher asks everyone to write a letter to me about their impressions and what they learned. So, it's incredibly gratifying to hear.

What all good teachers have in common, however, is that they set high standards for their students and do not settle for anything less.

Standardised tests cannot capture all, but on the other hand, students who are not capable of doing well on standardised tests are not well-equipped to thrive in today's world and so it's important for teachers to ensure that students gain the foundation necessary to meet the baseline educational standards these tests represent.