No student should be an island. It is unfair to expect a student to cope with all of their academic needs on their own. The key to a strong learning environment is each community member being invested in everyone’s success.

Recently, scores for the juniors’ ACT tests were sent out and the next day at school you couldn’t walk into a class without hearing scores being discussed, analyzed, compared and agonized over.

It can be easy to get wrapped up in our own grades or scores, but these are not always an accurate measure of success. The ultimate goal of being in a class should not be getting a certain score, but understanding a subject.

As students, focusing solely on our own success only hurts us in the end. Eventually, all of us will run into something that baffles us in every class. In that situation, we would like to be able to turn to a neighbor for help.

At the Southerner, we want South to have a strong academic community, enforcing the values of support and trust.
Each of us, as students, has the responsibility to help facilitate a learning environment where this is possible – where we feel comfortable asking our classmates for help and they can come to us for the same.

We should be able to expect teachers to facilitate this cooperation as well by removing situations that promote direct comparisons or competition between one student and another.

Too often, academics become overly competitive. At worst, it can seem as if our successes are dependent on others’ failures, as if there’s only a certain number of ‘A’s’ available. This is a noxious atmosphere – a class in which only a few students are learning is not a good class for anyone.

The best way to ensure this sort of learning environment is to place students on even footing so that they can help each other as peers, rather than perpetuating the idea of a “good” student helping a “bad” student.
We can do this by taking an interest in others’ success, seeking help from our peers, and being sources of support and help.