OT: Calling all students: What motivated you in high school?
I'm curious to know what motivated you to do well in high school? Was there ever a period when you weren't motivated or had a crisis of confidence relating to your school work? How did you deal with not doing well in a class? I'm assuming that many of you are at Michigan, so you figured it all out in the end, but did you ever have times when you really were just not into schoolwork? How did your parents deal with it?
Edit: Thanks to all of you who spent time writing responses. It's helpful to get different perspectives on this.
"I encourage you to consider the SES of the wildly successful "mid-level" alums you claim to know. I know a few successful "mid-level" alums too. Of course all of them attended $10K-25K/year private schools or premier publics like Birmingham, East GR, Grosse Pointe or Bloomfield Hills. All hail from upper middle class, two parent, both equipped with graduate level degrees, homes."
Hmmm...
My multi-millionaire uncle (former CEO and Executive with numerous west coast banks) with his working class parents, non-premier public high school, and mid-level (WMU) accounting degree would disagree.
My millionaire friend (bioengineering) with his working class parents, same non-premier public high school, and mid-level (CMU) chemistry degree would disagree.... so would his Ferrari.
The plural of anecdote isn't data...but by all means, cling to those outliers, old sport. For every CMU or WMU grad with a new Ferrari there are 5,000 students who dropped out and moved back to their provincial hometown to sell insurance or work at Home Depot.
Ummm... you're the one who suggested we look at anecdotes -
"I encourage you to consider the SES of the wildly successful "mid-level" alums you claim to know."
"For every CMU or WMU grad with a new Ferrari there are 5,000 students who dropped out and moved back to their provincial hometown to sell insurance or work at Home Depot."
Absolutely.
...and the same is true for Michigan.
When we talk high end economic achievers, we're ALWAYS talking about outliers. In the end, it's about the person.
Of course - it also paints economic pursuits as the "be all end all" of the discussion.
Personally - I want my kids to be as happy or happier with their life than I am, not be more wealthy than I am.
Is it possible for you to move your theories out of the state of Michigan? Michigan is a pretty small sampling given how big the rest of the country is.
Well, for starters, my best friend in high school went to the University of Denver for both undergrad and law school. Not exactly on anyone's top ten list. He also didn't pass the bar until the third try. Boy, things were not looking good for him. Then.....it all clicked. He started his own law firm, which now has offices in three states. He's a class action attorney and takes on multi-million dollar cases. Three years ago, he won Lawyer of the Year by the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association, of which he is now president. He lives in Marin County, in a beautiful house, drives a Mercedes, and is incredibly fulfilled by his work. I believe that covers all the bases.
Not only completely not true, but the biggest advantage for college admission is based on gender, not race/ethnicity.
Males have it much easier (for non-engineering/business programs), as they typically have much lower grades in HS than females. I worked in an admissions office, and if we had made decisions solely on academic record, we would be 75% female.
Glad to see you've already worked through adversary early on. My biggest regret was quiting baseball in sixth grade because I didn't make the team after being an all-star in 5th.
We all have regrets like that. My husband tells the story of his coach yelling at him while he was at bat in 5th grade to the point of major tears, and he didn't play after that until he tried out as a senior in high school. He rode the bench the whole season, but he did make the team. Those kinds of experiences are huge. My son almost didn't play house league in 4th grade and I made him. He got down on himself really easily and it wasn't fun but I knew he needed to stick with it and work out all the self-doubt. I'm glad he stuck with it.
nothing. that is why i am sitting here making comments on a blog instead of running this country.
In Elementary/middle school I was a lazy student' did not buy in. The work bored me to tears and seemed pointless (my attitude kind of sucked).
8th grade I really started to get my stuff together because I wanted to get into the HS of my choice.
In HS I bought in. I went from teachers who would harangue and demean to ones who yelled and challenged but also made me feel included.
Its very hard to explain, but I felt more respected by the HS teacher (private school) who gave me a dope slap with his ring turned around for forgetting an assignment than an elementary guidance counselor who just lectured and berated me for two hours for the same thing.
I think the difference is that the HS teacher, right after the dope slap, told me to stop screwing around and wasting my God given talents and parents money, because I was part of a good school and was expected to perform. That was it. Then it was done. Stuff like that was constantly done. It jazzed me up. If I f*cked around I'd get yelled at, but if I worked hard I could be part of something special.
The lady in middle school just went on about how I was spoiled and defiant and how she wasn't going to take any challenges to her authority. Then she made me scrub a bathroom floor with a toothbrush as people were coming in to school.
There's more to it than that. As I said its hard to quantify. But at the HS level I was made to feel like I could be part of a team. At the middle school level I was just a deviant kid.
Now I don't apply this to every kid or every school, what worked for me might not for you. Nor do I deny my culpability. I was a lazy kid.
But one method got me excited to do well and the other just made me pissed and feel bad.
more directly relating to the OP.
I sucked at math. Its still not my favorite. But again, the environment was different. In MS I just felt I could never do it. I remember my MS teacher just smiling and sadly shaking her head when I'd try to ask questions or if I said "I still don't get it'. Felt like an idiot. Felt sorry for myself after awhile.
I (again) was blessed with a great HS teacher who basically called BS on me. Wouldn't take 'I can't do this' for an answer. Insisted I get in early for extra help. Not everyone liked her but she really helped me. Just the believing in me was a big thing. She didn't rip on me or just sigh if I made the same mistake repeatedly. She'd just keep working with me. She worked with my Mom and eased up some pressure at home saying 'He's doing great. He's working really hard. His test scores don't reflect it yet but they will.' That helped me believe in the process.Maybe I got a D on that last quiz, but I made 30% less errors and she'd point that out.
My wife teaches now. She's a fantastic teacher; she really is. But seeing her also makes me realize that there's alot going on with a kid learning and getting past the rough humps. Alot of it is an adult who they respect believing in them and not accepting crap. But there are many other things. If a girl who's living in a family that doesn't value education gets a C; that might be a win. If a kid who's in foster care or who has to take care of her step siblings while her Dad and his GF are out working or partying gets a D+, that might be a huge win.
Again, all this is my opinions based on my observations and personal experience. I had a great, stable family that valued education, and some truly excellent teachers, so this may not help.
I think you hit the nail on the head, re: when the teacher believes in you. My son from the get go thought that this teacher didn't believe in him. Rather than encourage him or offer help, she seems very unsympathetic. Both my husband and I noticed this in conferences as well. It's a phenomenon we've experienced in sports too. When my son plays on a team where the coach is positive and supportive, and it's obvious he believes in the players, my son thrives. But when the coach, after a lackluster performance, casts you aside for someone else, my son has a harder time bouncing back. I've always felt that teachers and coaches reap what they sow, and the good ones understand the process of building up and nurturing isn't coddling; its like fertilizing the plants (the students and the players) to stay strong and not wilt under adverse conditions.
I'll add my 0.02... It sounds as though your original question about self motivation might be more accurately phrased, "how did you overcome adversity in high school". It sounds as though your son has motivation in spades if he feels physically ill when he doesn't know the answer. I don't know if my parents brainwashed me when I was much younger, or what, but in high school and beyond, any sort of similar setback just made me that much more determined. I had a piece of paper on the wall of my room that said, "it's OK to have people doubt or question me, that's just more people I get to prove wrong". In retrospect, maybe I was a weird dude in high school. Similarly, I still have all of my rejection letters from med school (a LOT of them). Someday, my kid will have a frustrating setback and I'll say, "look at all these people who thought I shouldn't be a doctor. It's not how often you get knocked down that matters, it's how often you get back up that counts". Interestingly, after fellowship, I'll probably end up on the faculty of one of them that rejected me. Best of luck, I'm sure he'll end up on his feet!
Probably not very helpful but
1. Parents drove me to do well.
2. my friends were all of the nerdy etc type and all did well so some aspect of maintaining a standard
3. Pride - I had always done well in the past and I didn't want to face the situation where that was no longer the case.
There are resources to help you succeed whether it be peer tutoring, or talking toteachers after class for help or online resources, it's just a matter of having the motivation and drive to tap into those resources.
Probably a bit late, but my little tale.
Unlike a lot of people (at least based on internet comments), I had to work reasonably hard in HS. I goofed off my freshman and part of my sophomore years, and I wasn't doing great. I mean, I wasn't failing, but from a kid who was used to getting all A's I was pulling in A-/B+ grades in reasonably easy classes. My mom had always been a pretty tough cookie when it came to academics, using the Catholic guilt bug that burrows into your soul as you grow up. But I also hated letting myself down, and was deathly afraid of not getting into a good college. I really didn't know/care about the admissions standards at places like UM, but I knew enough that mediocre me wasn't getting in unless I refocused. So I did. I kept taking honors courses but refocused my efforts, got in better shape via x-country/track, and just kept plugging away. Lawd knows I hated AP Chem and wasn't a natural at Trig/Calc like some of my classmates (one of whom completed the bachelor degree math requirements at Lawrence Tech while in HS), but I just kept at it and ultimately did well enough on the ACT/raised my GPA to get into UM's engineering program.
I wish I had some magic bullet, some easily-consumable morsel of focus, to share, but I think most people succeed or fail by discovering what they care about and then putting their heart and soul into that. And sadly, formal education doesn't really care about nuance, that someone can be successful without struggling through calc, physics, or literature. Maybe panic will be useful for a bit, but success comes from internal pressure, and nothing outside can recreate that.
It's why college admissions suck, why early job searches suck, and why you hear of thousands of kids every year who practically live and die on the scores they get from a couple of exams and what "good schools" think of them.
So I guess my suggestion is that if your child is really struggling at a particular topic, it's okay to take a step back and try something else for a bit. There is nothing to "demotting" yourself; learning the material and doing better at a slower pace is way better than failing through in a cloud of uncertainty. And in the end, if your child shows growth and potential, he/she will succeed. It won't matter if they switched out of geometry for half a semester.
Good luck.
The desire to get into a good college. I never really reached that "I don't want to study or work" point because I'm a dork and actually enjoyed learning and reading, but yeah, my main motivation was to get to college.
Teacher, not a student, here, but I have some thoughts. Sorry if I missed something already posted; I didn't read every response.
I also teach to the top end of the class. But I make sure to offer tons of extra help. Does the teacher in question have any free periods, or lunch, or before or after school, or any other time that she could offer extra help to your son? Most math and science teachers I know do that for kids who are struggling.
On another note, geometry in high school is very different from the other math classes. If he likes algebra, trig, etc. a lot more than geometry, your son may be just fine to stay on the honors track.
Have you thought about hiring a tutor? Tutors can make a huge difference. Sometimes people just learn better in that type of setting. Sometimes it's just the schedule and the extra effort that does the trick.
If the problem is really motivation and not the material, then it's up to your son. Ask him what motivates him and then apply carrot and stick appropriately, in my opinion.
Michigan teacher, I am absolutely baffled by my son's situation, which is why I posted here. I've talked to other parents with kids in geometry honors. Some have moved their kids out, another has a child who is doing well. I've reached out to the teacher, who seems to be unmoved. She holds AM support hours, but it's not a one-on-one situation. The class is usually filled with other students who have questions, so my son doesn't feel like he's getting the help he needs. He had a tutor the entire first semester and ended up with a C- (got a D on the final which I was grateful for after hearing that 30% of the kids failed the final). He wanted to go second semester without a tutor but that was short-lived. The new tutor seems to be good but his grade isn't improving. The teacher's only offering is for him to come into AM support, and then we're just running in the same circle. I've now contacted the department head. I just want him to be done with this with a C-. A D is more likely.
Contacting the department head is a good idea. Is that an assistant principal at your son's school? I would also take this to the AP or principal level.
If your son is doing all that, it sounds like the problem is not motivation. Further, if she's really failling like 30% of the class and giving Ds to a siginficant remainder, then it sounds like the problem is her. That's not the American standard. If she wants to teach that way, ok, maybe in a different world that'd be fine. But colleges looking at a transcript aren't going to know that she teaches that way. They assume teachers teach to the American standard, which right now is pretty much A for good to excellent work, B for acceptable work, C for poor work, and anything below a C is terrible. It's grade inflation, but it's the way it is.
Also, just offering extra help in a group setting during one period in the morning is not the norm among good math and science teachers, at least not the ones that I know.
Hope that helps.
My dad was a high school science teacher (Plymouth Salem) and my mom was an RN, so doing well in school wasn't an option, it was an obligation. Attending college wasn't optional, the only question was where I would go (UM!). So parenting and a family culture emphasizing education was the key, and still is today!
That's it in a nutshell.