Often when a student is failing a class, several questions are asked in attempt reveal the underlying cause. Most prominently featured is the question, who’s at fault? The student failing the class, the teacher, or the parent? All of the following serve a vital role in the individual’s education and ability to excel. However, it remains, are they also all responsible for the student’s failures?

The student of the modern age is burdened by a plethora of responsibilities. While some have remained the same since the earlier ages, many have evolved with along with technology and time. Therefore, this brings the issue of whether these responsibilities are too much and causing the student to fail, or rather the student’s incapability of juggling each task.

A student is routinely expected to keep a busy social life, stay healthy, pass their classes, keep up with family life and quite possibly sustain a job all while still getting the recommended eight hours of sleep. With this extensive list, it is a wonder how the average student has time for anything, especially sleep. Could an overwhelming amount of events and expectations consume students or do they simply not have the motivation and strength to keep up with classes?

The teacher handles the grading of a multitude of student’s work, balances the work of creating lesson plans, prepares students for state tests all on top of assisting students in need of extra help. Often times, the other priorities may overrule assisting students in need to the fullest extent, leaving a student confused and unprepared to move on within the class. While this doesn’t necessarily fall upon the teacher to fix, it poses a significant factor in whether or not the student passes the class.

Simply, if they don’t understand the concept then they most likely won’t do well on the assignments. Furthermore, assignments are only formative grades and while those can add up, none hits the students GPA as hard as a failed summative grade. When a student fails to comprehend the key concepts presented on a test and then does not receive the proper tutoring, failing the test becomes an inevitable fact. The student in the end can only learn as well as they are taught, if they aren’t properly taught or are denied help then ultimately their grades will collapse.

Finally, the parent is the support system at home, they encourage their child to pursue their dreams and work hard, or at least it’s hoped they do. Parents and the actions they take to nourish their child have a major impact on how the child develops. An unstable family life can result in mental obstacles as well as the inability to focus on schoolwork. A lack of positive reinforcement for the child’s accomplishments can result in a child feeling depleted and overworked, therefore diminishing the motivation to do well in classes. Overall the parent plays an incredibly important role in how the child views education and how they go about achieving either straight A’s or failure.

In total, it is not any one individual’s fault that a student fails a class. Efforts are needed from all angles to achieve ultimate prosperity for the student. While triumph can be achieve without one link of the triangle, it is strongest when the teacher, student and parent all come together to attain success.