In the article, "For Once, Blame the Student," Patrick Welsh claims, "What many of the American kids I taught did not have was the motivation, self-discipline or work ethic of the foreign born kids." After watching Two Million Minutes, this makes so much sense. The students in India and China were already decided on their careers in highschool. They had their highschool courses based around their career choice and were applying to some of the most prestigious schools in the world. Knowing their career path in highschool is probably a huge motivator for them. They are taking classes that interest them and will help them with their careers later in life, whereas most American students are undecided at this point in their lives, and are taking standard math, science, english and social studies classes that are required to graduate. The movie showed the Indian and Chinese students studying for multiple hours everyday, and then showed an American study group-they were preparing for a test while watching Grey's Anatomy.
Although I do agree with Welsh that teachers are not entirely responsible for the motivation of their students, Mike Rose describes his incompetent teachers in "I Just Wanna Be Average." His civics teacher was a football coach who could hardly read the textbook, and his English teacher was barely even trained in English. It would be difficult to be motivated when your teacher doesn't know any more of the subject than you do. I don't think student motivation even applies in a situation like that. There are strong teachers, however, who connect with their students very well and teach effectively. In prime situations like these, students are responsible for motivationg themselves. I think there needs to be motivation from both ends (student and teacher), but it is mostly on the student.
i agree with your point about needing motivation from the teacher and student, but I think it also needs to stem from the parent. If neither parent nor teacher cares like in Roses initial situation, you probably won't mind staying average. In terms of the motivation of foreign vs American students, I think it is because of the culture in which we were brought up. Sports is such a center in American lives that we can sometimes put school on the backburner. so when a countries culture is based on academics, then their students will be much more motivated to that.
ReplyDeletei agree! sports are not nearly as emphasized in other countries as they are in the U.S.
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