Review Of Denise Clark Pope's 'The Predicament Of Doing School'

Denise Clark Pope, a graduate from Stanford University and the author of “The Predicament of Doing School,” has done an extensive study of the school system at Faircrest High School, and observed what happens inside and outside the school building. She writes about how students get high grades, and the cost at which high grades are achieved. She also includes her theory of how students and everyone involved with the school system just “play the game” of school instead of truly learning the information that is being taught.

The author make several claims on how the school system works. One of them is what she calls “doing school,” which is manipulating the system to enhance grades. Pope’s observations have lead to her writing about how students have taken advantage of faults in the system in pursuit of success in school. She lists a few specific behaviors that help enhance grades. Some of these are establishing allies with parents and teachers so they will give them extra help and attention when grades are being finalized, multitasking to get double the work done in each class, and cheating to get information that was missed in class (Pope 150-152).

This is why the students manipulate the system. She argues that students want high grades so they can eventually get a high-paying job and live a life of wealth and comfort. She observed that students only memorized the information to achieve an “A” on the test and them pushed it out of their head to make room for the facts that will be on the next test. She says that kids simply want to get good grades and move on, not actually take-in and process the information that is being taught at school. She says that the school system doesn’t allow for time to be taken to process the information, and reflect on what they’ve learned (Pope 156)