Personal Experience

I was a slacker until last year. From 1999-2007 I coasted through high school and four years of college. I was not a quality student, as my GPA during those years was around a 2.5, but I wasn’t avoiding performances, either. I was simply present during those school years. Avi Kaplan and Michael J. Middleton state in their article, “Should Childhood Be a Race or a Journey?” that “research suggests that performance approach goals may be associated with certain types of positive outcomes such as achievement but not with other types of positive outcomes such as meaningful learning and retention (p 646).” My tie to this statement is that during high school and my first four years of college, I was an average student who retained little and mastered nothing. Humbly, I relaxed my social habits and strengthened my study habits in the past year, and am now an “A” student. Luckily, I can now pigeonhole myself into the mastery goal orientation due to the terrifying realization I had last year that my future students would be taught by a slacker. I agree with the authors of this article when they suggest that performance-approach goal orientation need not be put in the same category with mastery goals. The difference between these two types of students is comparable to the difference between the student I was prior to last year, and the student I am today.

Because I am 24 years old, I do not fit into the category that the authors write about, which is childhood. However, I do know that there are plenty of young students out there who will coast through school like I did, without legitimately fitting into any of the goal orientation categories. The authors argue that, “ . . . some of the primary purposes of education should be educating everyone, facilitating social responsibility, and developing critical reflection over societal processes that enhance inequality and injustice. . .”(p 648). I could not agree more.