I once got a "D" in Chemistry

My father did not view my report card as an historical document since it did not sight specific days and times which I failed; although it did imply that I would fail again if corrective action were not taken. My Dad viewed the document as an actionable item. I got my ass kicked, was grounded for a month. Result, my grades improved dramatically.

But the point is well taken...........

which arrived yesterday shows an F in chemistry. He's grounded in a major way and I can only hope it motivates him. This is a smart kid on a college track who doesn't seem to do homework. Any advice?

I can understand a D, but I do not understand an F in any class unless a kid has serious learning disabilities.

and since I wasn't "winning easily" I just gave up. You may want to chat with your son's Chemistry teacher to see if there are any roadblocks you may help him get over. Grounding is good but there should be a specific plan of action for whiling away those grounded hours; maybe the teacher can help. Good luck.

Despite the common perception of hours of homework, the actual homework load of most students amount overall to an hour or less a day.

But, students in my wife's Physical Science class (8th grade) have real huge problems even in honors classes completing their homework.

Talking to the teacher is the first step.

It also vitally important to set up a time in the day to do homework.


Listen the student is in high school. I understand this is not an easy thing. But with that sort of grade it is vitally important. Everyone needs a little routine and schedule. This is proving in studies to be true for not just children but adults as well. Setting up a scheduled block of time for studying and soft monitoring of the time to ensure the student is on task is vital.

If you can get your son to actually study and do his homework, I think you will be amazed at the results. I say this with full sincerity and in a way not meant to be simplistic.

Your teachers input, of course, will be vital. Please I beg of you and I do not know you so do not take this the wrong way but try not to be too defensive or protective of your student in such a conference. My wife and I (I use to be a teacher too) have sat through too many conferences where the parents spent 60% of the time protecting and making excuses for the students with bad study habits instead of actually working through suggestions and issues in order to improve the behavior.

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this likely is a matter of persperation over inspiration, and your son probably just needs a kick in the behind. Honestly, high school chem is not particularly difficult, but it does require some diligence and memorization. Anyway, good luck to you and him.

We're going to contact the teacher and see what we can do, and hope that it's not to late to at least pass the course.

This is AP (Advanced Placement, meaning college level) chemistry. My son (who took regular chemistry last year) attends a very academically demanding independent high school, and this chemistry teacher is one of those all-time great teachers. His students usually get 4s and 5s (the highest grades) on the AP exam. He usually has 2-3 hours of homework every night. I'm not kidding when I say this is a demanding school. Everyone goes on to college, many of the students get into very selective ones. We're NOT looking at the selective schools for his further academic career, but he's going to close the doors to the ones he currently wants to apply to if he doesn't improve his grades.

I do know that the simple explanation is that son is not doing his homework. Every single teacher mentioned it on the comments part of his report card.

He gets an A in physics without doing much of the homework at all. Go figure.

...and I think it shows that your son is smart enough and should be very capable of doing better in Chemistry.

I always regretted not trying a little harder in Chemistry because it definitely hurt me going into college and closed some doors for me.

Physics at the high school level is a lot more intuitive and you can get by on your smarts alone, but Chemistry is a lot more rote learning at the entry level.

I've got two cousins currently pursuing PhD's in chemistry, and in talking with them, I think it just really comes down to discipline. You can't expect to just figure out Chemistry because a lot of it just doesn't make sense on the surface level. You have to memorize a bunch of rules and exceptions. BS can get you to a certain point in Physics, but it doesn't get you anywhere in Chemistry.

Hit the books. I guess it's all as simple as that.

With just a little bit of paying attention in class and a little memorization.

I went to a school similar to your son's and what kept me motivated was the competativeness. I got mad when I saw kids who were not nearly as smart as I was getting better grades than I did. I was especially motivated to pull all-nighters if I had a big test close to a weekend or holiday knowing that I could sleep and have fun on friday and saturday and I would feel much happier about myself if I studied and did well on that test. Generally people were academically motivated and everybody went on to college but there were always some who never really tried. I did my homework in high school but oftentimes I rushed through it. It's better than not doing it at all because teachers often give you a certain amount of points in the class for just doing homework and teachers have a higher regard for students who do their homework. But in an AP class, you really have to do your homework because of the difficulty of the subject. Might I ask why your son decided to take AP Chemistry if he doesn't want to work hard and the subject doesn't come naturally to him?

small matter...anyway, I assume you're referencing the August PDB that condi referred to as "historical". I'll give her and A for creativity in this respect.

Of course it would have been an actionable item. And what did they do? Nothing! LIHOP. That PDB needs to be declassified. National security, my ass. They're afraid of what it will show.

LIHOP!

a thought. I was hoping to make a tie in to the election. To show the bush campaign as being slimy liars and making a down to earth comparison (to the PDB) to uncover their sliminess.

this is ALL the teachers fault. i know MY chem teacher sucked.

but then i told my mom i did NOT ANT TO TAKE THE ^@#$% CLASS. i am creative. chem was more bloody math.

you must have been in a pretty odd chem class! there shouldn't have been much math other than arithmetic and maybe a tiny bit of algebra...