Teenage Brainiacs Alexandra Robbins Summary

A book about teenage brainiacs isn’t complete without a chapter dedicated to the SAT. As author Alexandra Robbins explained the history and composition of the test, she also shared with readers different types of learning methods students use to absorb what they are taught in the classroom. Two of these methods included the surface achieving method and the deep approach. The first focuses on the memorization of facts while the latter pertains to truly understanding the subject.

“The study found that the higher-scoring students were those who used the surface and achieving approaches, while the lower-scoring students were more likely to use the deep approach, their love of learning unrewarded by the SAT” (Robbins 291).

I was appalled after

No, I don’t think that teachers cower in fear because of their students or their student’s parents, but I do believe that both teachers and the administration have been subjected to plenty of harassment. I think certain groups in our society have raised their children to always place the blame on someone else. Why this is, I couldn’t tell you. Perhaps it’s because they know that they’ll always have their status, connections, or wealth to fall back on, so what’s picking a fight with the teacher going to do? If you get kicked out, your parents can just enroll you in a different private school. By giving their children this mentality, parents make them think that they have no fault serious enough to cause any real harm. So they start mouthing off. They stop doing their homework and studying. When the teacher tries to talk to them about it, they accuse her or him of wanting to watch them fail. In the meantime, Mom and Pop Vanderbilt are golfing with Harvard’s dean and sipping cocktails with Yale’s president. Even if the connections parents have aren’t that affluent, there are still children who never learned that the first step to fixing their report cards and detention slip tallies are