My freshman year in high school was my worst academic year at any grade level. It’s not that the work was hard or the workload was heavy, I was just having a hard time adjusting to life in an all-boys Catholic college preparatory school after spending more time dancing than studying the previous year at the eighth grade.

My mother’s decision to uproot me from the public school system (and my wayward friends) would ensure that I would spend more time in books than on the dance floor. Due to my apathetic attitude, I failed some courses and barely passed others.

One day, while going through assigned homework (which I didn’t complete), my Spanish teacher and eventual mentor, Mr. Pacheco, looked me square in the eye in front of my entire class and said with a stern look, “When are you going to to go?” stop pretending to be a rough boy?”

Roughly translated it means stupid boy. I took offense at the statement.

He told me to stop wasting my mother’s money and take advantage of the opportunity I have been blessed with. I was still offended.

After class he told me about my “attitude.” It was during this conversation that my academic fortunes changed (I ended up earning honors in Spanish), and little did I know that it planted the seeds of my career as an educator.

Fast forward many years later…I am now a college professor.

I’m the one who deals with students who have attitude problems. Since “higher” education is voluntary, you’d assume the apathy I blatantly displayed as a freshman in high school wouldn’t be a problem for college students… guess again.

The sad reality is that most college students are more concerned with completing a course and earning credit for it than with what they can learn from it. For many of them, there is no difference between a “B” and an “A”.

I once asked my students what they thought was the difference between the two grades, and one student responded, “More paperwork.” What a profound statement.

Marty Nemko, an Oakland, California-based career counselor, writes in his book, How to Get an Ivy League Education at a State University, “Employers repeatedly report that many of the recent graduates they hire are not job ready, lacking the critical thinking, writing and problem-solving skills needed in today’s workplaces.”

Apparently avoiding “more paperwork” is a habit.

Mr. Pacheco once told me that the true purpose of the school is to learn as think; not what to think

Many of today’s students are not challenged to think; they are simply being graded and passed based on their ability to regurgitate or recall information on a test, most likely multiple choice or true/false (which students overwhelmingly prefer).

What teachers learn from teaching is that those types of tests only test students’ short-term memory and deductive reasoning skills. It is for this reason that I was never in favor of multiple choice or true/false tests.

Construct tests or projects that reflect the type of work you appeals to the education that is imparted it is how teachers should gauge a student’s true understanding of the subject.

It also allows us to accurately measure your ability to think in a solution-oriented way. After all, education does not become knowledge until it is combined with experience; therefore, it behooves us to simulate the circumstances that will be encountered in real life situations.

Unfortunately, this is the exception, not the norm for overworked and underpaid teachers who often recycle the same tests used year after year for convenience.

What I have learned from teaching is that students who are interested in their subject and have a plan to apply their education to some venture in the immediate future, they are the ones who excel academically and professionally.

Their personal interest forces them to dig deep and completely wrap their minds around the issues, as a result, they become graduate thinkers; students who are graduate thinkers are in less supply and greater demand than those with college degrees.

It is this very point that today’s teachers must address, especially when you consider that the market is now saturated with workers who hold degrees. Entrepreneurs rise from the ranks of graduate thinkers and are loved (and rewarded) by employers once they have risen to the challenge of demonstrating the depth and breadth of your thinking abilities.

What teachers learn from teaching is that graduate thinkers are also happy people.

Statistics show that those with college degrees earn more. By some accounts, it’s 50% more (depending on job and title). In dollar terms, that’s about $23,000 more per year. The government uses these statistics as marketing tools for higher education; universities use them to promote higher attendance at their campuses.

The correlation between earning a degree and having a fuller life as a result of the opportunities created through the use of education It’s not advertised enough. Teachers need to do a better job of teaching students about that correlation.

What teachers learn from teaching is that our education system is designed to maintain the status quo for our nation’s disgruntled workforce.

The students mirror the nation’s apathetic workforce with their mother’s concern for survival (survival; defined as vocational and financial indulgence), while only a minority are motivated enough to succeed (succeed; defined as vocational gratification and economic).

This apathy is at the root of why too many people hate their job.

What’s even worse is that so many people accept and live with their hate. This hatred stems in part from being misemployed or underemployed; resulting in their passions being neglected and their true talents not being utilized.

Somehow, people have been conditioned to think that if they compartmentalize their disdain for their jobs, it will make it easier to ignore their dissatisfaction. Those with demanding and time-consuming jobs predictably offer the mundane external justification of money as an excuse as they inhale and suffer in silence.

To them I offer these simple facts:

There are 8,760 hours in a year. You spend 2,555 hours a year sleeping (a generous estimate based on 7 hours of sleep per night). You have 2,496 hours of weekend time each year. We spend 2,080 hours (or more) at work each year, based on an 8-hour workday.

Is 2080 hours a long time to do something you hate? If you discover what you like to do as a student before you graduate, you can breathe freely every day once you enter the workforce.

What teachers learn from teaching is that students take time for granted.

The time spent in the university is preparation time; time to prepare for life. The classes you take, the activities you participate in, and the people you spend time with represent investments that you should seek a return on. Bad investments are hard to beat. They result in wasted money (bachelor’s degrees are estimated at $50,000) and, more importantly, wasted time.

From time to time, Mr. Pacheco would ask us to put away our textbooks so that we could talk about “real life.” It was during these talks that we had the opportunity to share our life experiences with him, and he would in turn bestow his wisdom on us.

Looking back, I realize that he got to know us better as he looked for opportunities and different ways to educate us while breaking down barriers of resistance. She made sure that we saw how the topic was relevant and useful to the lives and activities of all the students in the class.

What I learned from teaching, perhaps most importantly, is that the real difference between being good and being great is trying harder; which is also the difference between a “B” student and an “A” student – not the paperwork (although there is more work involved).

Mr. Pacheco always said that “the key to excel at anything is to demand more of yourself than you allow others.”

It’s a proven formula for success that teachers can use to maximize their effectiveness so that average or struggling students who, in the words of Mr. Pacheco, “pretend to be rough kids,” can really begin to learn what they’re being taught. is teaching.

May he rest in peace.