Don't like your grades? Blame yourself.

[Neo]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/200...BhBHNlYwM5NjQ-

Failure in the classroom is often tied to lack of funding, poor teachers or other ills. Here's a thought: Maybe it's the failed work ethic of todays kids. That's what I'm seeing in my school. Until reformers see this reality, little will change.


Last month, as I averaged the second-quarter grades for my senior English classes at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., the same familiar pattern leapt out at me.


Kids who had emigrated from foreign countries - such as Shewit Giovanni from Ethiopia, Farah Ali from Guyana and Edgar Awumey from Ghana - often aced every test, while many of their U.S.-born classmates from upper-class homes with highly educated parents had a string of C's and D's.


As one would expect, the middle-class American kids usually had higher SAT verbal scores than did their immigrant classmates, many of whom had only been speaking English for a few years.


What many of the American kids I taught did not have was the motivation, self-discipline or work ethic of the foreign-born kids.


Politicians and education bureaucrats can talk all they want about reform, but until the work ethic of U.S. students changes, until they are willing to put in the time and effort to master their subjects, little will change.


A study released in December by University of Pennsylvania researchers Angela Duckworth and Martin Seligman suggests that the reason so many U.S. students are "falling short of their intellectual potential" is not "inadequate teachers, boring textbooks and large class sizes" and the rest of the usual litany cited by the so-called reformers - but "their failure to exercise self-discipline."


The sad fact is that in the USA, hard work on the part of students is no longer seen as a key factor in academic success. The groundbreaking work of Harold Stevenson and a multinational team at the University of Michigan comparing attitudes of Asian and American students sounded the alarm more than a decade ago.


Asian vs. U.S. students


When asked to identify the most important factors in their performance in math, the percentage of Japanese and Taiwanese students who answered "studying hard" was twice that of American students.


American students named native intelligence, and some said the home environment. But a clear majority of U.S. students put the responsibility on their teachers. A good teacher, they said, was the determining factor in how well they did in math.


"Kids have convinced parents that it is the teacher or the system that is the problem, not their own lack of effort," says Dave Roscher, a chemistry teacher at T.C. Williams in this Washington suburb. "In my day, parents didn't listen when kids complained about teachers. We are supposed to miraculously make kids learn even though they are not working."


As my colleague Ed Cannon puts it: "Today, the teacher is supposed to be responsible for motivating the kid. If they don't learn it is supposed to be our problem, not theirs."


And, of course, busy parents guilt-ridden over the little time they spend with their kids are big subscribers to this theory.


Maybe every generation of kids has wanted to take it easy, but until the past few decades students were not allowed to get away with it. "Nowadays, it's the kids who have the power. When they don't do the work and get lower grades, they scream and yell. Parents side with the kids who pressure teachers to lower standards," says Joel Kaplan, another chemistry teacher at T.C. Williams.


Every year, I have had parents come in to argue about the grades I have given in my AP English classes. To me, my grades are far too generous; to middle-class parents, they are often an affront to their sense of entitlement. If their kids do a modicum of work, many parents expect them to get at least a B. When I have given C's or D's to bright middle-class kids who have done poor or mediocre work, some parents have accused me of destroying their children's futures.


It is not only parents, however, who are siding with students in their attempts to get out of hard work.


Blame schools, too

"Schools play into it," says psychiatrist Lawrence Brain, who counsels affluent teenagers throughout the Washington metropolitan area. "I've been amazed to see how easy it is for kids in public schools to manipulate guidance counselors to get them out of classes they don't like. They have been sent a message that they don't have to struggle to achieve if things are not perfect."

Neither the high-stakes state exams, such as Virginia's Standards of Learning, nor the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act have succeeded in changing that message; both have turned into minimum-competency requirements aimed at the lowest in our school.

Colleges keep complaining that students are coming to them unprepared. Instead of raising admissions standards, however, they keep accepting mediocre students lest cuts have to be made in faculty and administration.

As a teacher, I don't object to the heightened standards required of educators in the No Child Left Behind law. Who among us would say we couldn't do a little better? Nonetheless, teachers have no control over student motivation and ambition, which have to come from the home - and from within each student.

Perhaps the best lesson I can pass along to my upper- and middle-class students is to merely point them in the direction of their foreign-born classmates, who can remind us all that education in America is still more a privilege than a right.

Patrick Welsh is an English teacher at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., and a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.

[MuGen]

Interesting article.. I'm so glad I'm no longer in the middle of this :P Being in the work force is good to me after reading this...

[Perfect Stu]

the work ethic in upper-middle class north american kids these days is absolute garbage...i know my work ethic is mediocre, but one thing I DONT do is complain when a teacher/professor gives me a mediocre grade. If i go into something hoping to get by with my smarts and not put a lot of work into it, I'm also accepting the possibility of a poor grade.

[Dyne]

That's funny, it seems like the opposite in my major. Tons of rich asian kids in it to just be in it; the only ones really serious about it seem to be us few caucasians. I'm not even kidding.

[Vampyr]

I actually heard this guy in my Spanish class talking the other day:

"If I get less than a B I'll just have my mom come in here and bitch at him. That's what my brother did, and he got an A."

[GameMaster]

Yeah, I guess I could agree to a certain extent. Although boring textbooks are a very real sleep inducer in many American classrooms.

Although the poor work ethic isn't really a problem for the kids in my area. It's upper class. The rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. Kids take over their parent's businesses or buy their way into private colleges. Something that is especially notorious around here is paid tutors. Some kids have tutors for all their classes. Then they have essay writing tutors, personal college couselors, etc. If you come from a family with enough money, you still seem to get by just fine.

[Professor S]

The American education system has become the scapegoat for poor parenting and work ethic for a long time. No teacher decided to teach because the wanted to cash in on the big payday At one point, they were all idealistic, and either remain so or have been broken at some point along the way.

We compare our test scores to other countries who don't have inclusive school systems. The end effect is that we are comparing 100% of our kids to the top 40% of theirs.

The public seems to think that their children whould learn everything at school. This is rediculous. I learned how to read AT HOME. My mother read to me every night as a child and helped me with my school work as well. I don;t think this happens as much as it used to anymore.

The public school system isn't broken, but out society is slowly breaking apart as we constantly devalue the importance of the family in a child's education and development.

[Xantar]

I don't think it's as simple a matter as "It's the parents' fault" or "It's the teachers' fault" or "It's the government's fault" or anything. When you come right down to it, there's plenty of blame to pass around.

Sure, American culture values learning and education a lot less than other countries do. Being Vietnamese had a lot to do with how well I did in school. And if you learned how to read at home from your parents, that's fantastic. But a lot of parents nowadays work jobs that don't give them as much time with their kids as they used to, and an ever increasing number of homes have a single mother working two jobs who is more worried about simply putting food on the table (these are all issues that are way beyond the scope of this thread). And yes, a tragic portion of parents don't take proper care of their kids as well because they're too selfish to do it. But the point is that while parental involvement is great, schools have a role to play, too. And particularly in poor districts, they are failing. Teachers may have noble motives, but the deck is stacked against them. Inner city schools literally don't have enough money to buy textbooks. After school programs are getting slashed which often leaves kids with nothing to do but get in trouble. And teachers all too often are called on to teach classes they aren't qualified for. It's not their fault. But when you're called on to teach biology and you don't have any kind of science degree, the chances that you'll excite and inspire anyone to become a scientist when they grow up are very low. And then you've got the police or the Secret Service getting called in whenever a kid points his finger like a gun or brings a giant burrito to the school (no really, it happened. I can cite it if you want).

My point is that we have a cultural problem with education here, but the education system is also not in good shape. Is it broken? In certain parts of Wilmington, I would argue that it's pretty close. I read the filings from people who haven't retained an attorney to do it for them. These people are mostly products of the local education system, and the picture isn't pretty. So yeah, maybe mom and dad shouldn't have taken them out to the library, but at the very bare minimum, shouldn't schools teach teach people how to punctuate?

And as far as I'm concerned, the fact that Intelligent Design was even seriously considered in some school districts as part of the science curriculum is evidence of something very wrong with the system. And before you protest that Intelligent Design is legitimate science or has legitimate points or that it has a right to be taught just as much as the theory of evolution, I suggest you go and actually figure out what the words "science," "evolution" and "intelligent design" mean.

I actually think the public education system in middle class suburbia is adequate. In some particularly wealthy places like Montgomery County in Maryland, it's excellent. But in poor neighborhoods, the system is fighting a losing battle as kids are pushed out with barely adequate reading, writing and math skills and then they grow up to become parents who don't know to demand more in their turn from the school system.

We compare our test scores to other countries who don't have inclusive school systems. The end effect is that we are comparing 100% of our kids to the top 40% of theirs.

I've actually read a lot of articles suggesting that the dropout rate in high schools is as much as 50% in Texas and is often artificially hidden by altered records. If this is true, that would mean that a significant portion of our students aren't being counted either. You're the education guy, so I'll just let you comment as you will.

[Joeiss]

I'm so lazy. I hate doing work. But I'm getting better at it as the weeks go on. I just pretend that some of the compulsary courses I'm taking are interesting, and it makes me do better! haha.