I have few problems with Roseville High School, but recently some of these few came to my attention and, simply put, make me mad: collective punishment, and group projects with apathetic people.

First things first – I am a really good student; I don’t get anything less than a B, I never talk back and I get my homework done the majority of the time. Despite my own behavior and performance, I understand that people, myself included, are not perfect and make mistakes which end in consequences. Students use their phones in class without permission, teacher takes their phone, fair enough.

What isn’t fair is the same students who always get in trouble get in trouble, and the teacher “apologizes” for the “inconvenience” and decides to outlaw everybody’s phones.

I don’t see how collective punishment is any more effective than individual punishment because some kids just don’t care how everybody else feels about them. And that fact alone complicates everything because it’s not teaching anybody a lesson because what is going to stop the individual from doing it again if they really don’t care?

One of my teachers has a personal policy that if she sees one student’s phone out, she gives the whole class an extra assignment that is more work than the classwork and homework combined. This angers me to no end because it interrupts the class exponentially more than if the teacher were to just take the student’s phone away, and in extreme cases they don’t get to finish the lecture, which is needed by the rest of the class.

Another teacher decided to introduce the phone cubbies two weeks into the semester after just three students continuously were on their phones. Initially she took away their phones, but then she implemented the cubby for all of us because she assumed the whole class would follow the lead of three disrespectful students. Why are teachers punishing the whole class? It’s unfair to the good students and it unnecessarily pits students against each other.

The other problem I have is group projects with people who just don’t care. As I mentioned earlier, I am a good student and I do what I’m told (which most would classify me as a try-hard, but I really don’t care). Group projects are difficult in any situation depending on the people involved, because they socialize too easily, don’t try, or only have one person doing all the work. Some groups do succeed, but my real problem is the idea of one person doing all the work.

Most often I am the only one completing any work (which is good in a way because I know the work will for sure be right) but it aggravates me because the other people in my group get a good grade even though they didn’t do any work.

The problem I had recently was a group test where two boys and I had to compare answers because the teacher would only grade one paper. But the real frustration for me was that one kid didn’t know the answer but decided to write something down instead of asking the other kid and I if we knew.

And the teacher graded HIS PAPER. We got a 15/20 on the test and I was frustrated, so I verbalized my opinion and they just told me, “That’s a good score for us, calm down.” I feel like I had a valid point but they have no remorse! The kid whose paper got graded said “I’m only trying to graduate, I don’t care if I have a good grade so good luck with that.”

If you don’t care about your grades, power to you. But don’t be inconsiderate of your partners and fail, but instead help out and be cooperative. Please, for the love of pizza, be a good person. Or possibly, teachers if you’re reading this, don’t be unfair to the students who put forth effort by putting them in cruddy groups, let them be successful and help out the kids who have troubles or don’t act according to class policy.