For once, blame the student

For once, blame the student

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-03-07-forum-students_x.htm
http://tinyurl.com/g3r5l

By Patrick Welsh

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.