College Students and Tests

     In the book Mindset by Carol S. Dweck, the author describes two types of mindsets, fixed and growth.  People with a fixed mindset believe you need “to prove yourself over and over.”  People with a growth mindset believe “your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.” (Dweck, 2008)

     On page 36 of Mindset, Dweck describes a scenario where “College students, after doing poorly on a test, were given a chance to look at tests of other students.  Those in the growth mindset looked at the test of people who had done far better than they had…But students in the fixed mindset chose to look at the tests of people who had done really poorly.” (Dweck, 2008)  The students with a growth mindset wanted their minds to grow with knowledge.  They gave their best effort, and they wanted to learn from their mistakes.  The fixed mindset students had an arrogant attitude toward the test.   They took the test, and only wanted to look at tests of other people who did worse than they did.  They did not want to learn from their mistakes.  In their mind, the thought “at least I did better than somebody else” was going through their head.

     I think all students should try to learn from their mistakes.  That is part of being a successful student.  No one is perfect; even geniuses make mistakes.  The growth mindset students wanted to improve on the next test, but the fixed mindset students wanted to put themselves on a pedestal.  The question I wonder now is if the person with the lowest test score had a fixed mindset, whose test did they look at?

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Dweck, C. S. (2008). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books.

What was Marita's Bargain?

     “In the mid-1990s, an experimental public school called the KIPP Academy opened… in New York City.”  (Gladwell, 2008) Children from low-class families were put into a lottery and signed up with the school if they were willing to put in the time and effort to become an accomplished scholar.  Marita was one of these students.  She signed up for this school and was accepted.  For school, she woke up at 5:45 am.  She started school at 7:25 am, and remained there until 5:00 pm.  She came home, worked on homework for most of the night, and went to bed around 10.  Throughout the summer, she went to school for three weeks.  With the help of the school, the children significantly improve their math scores by the time they leave the school.  Most children who at first do not seem like college bound students, become college bound students.  Eighty percent of the academy’s graduates go to college.  How do the children do it?

     The students make a bargain when they sign up for the school.  Marita did not know the full realm of how much she would have to sacrifice; she only wanted to make her mother happy.  She lost all of her old friends.  With the academy’s homework demands, she had no time for a social life.  She worked on schoolwork, and that’s pretty much all she did.  Sometimes she even skipped dinner just to finish homework.  The bargain she made was to give up all her free time and social life in exchange for a chance to improve and become an accomplished scholar.  Most of us would not think of doing such a thing, but most of us attended good schools. 

     Up to this point the bargain does not sound very appealing.  However, the bargain has some virtuous points too.  By making a bargain with KIPP, Marita will help improve her learning skills.  She will more than likely go to college, whereas before she may not have.  She gained new friends that were more on her level.  She will probably obtain a respectable career in the future.  She gained so much from making the bargain, but she lost so much too.

     When I started to read the chapter about Marita, I realized I was like her in so many ways.  I did not go to a “privileged” public high school, but I did take college prep courses.  Sometimes the homework was not the easiest, but I did what I had to.  Because I live in the country, I had to wake up around 5:30 to catch the bus at 6:30.  I would stay up working on homework sometimes until 11 o’clock.  I watched less and less television as high school progressed.  Sometimes I stayed home from visiting relatives, so I could catch up on my homework.  I never went out with my friends.  I lost three of them after I graduated. 

     On the plus side, my dedication to school compensated itself with a merit-based scholarship (that pays full tuition) as well as other scholarships and grants.  With my high grades, I also was able to apply for the honors college, which has benefits such as being grouped with academically motivated peers and early scheduling times.  In a way, by coming to college I made a bargain too.  My social life made not be the best right now, but my academic life is going along fine.

     In conclusion, Marita signed up with an advanced school called KIPP, so she could become an accomplished scholar.  She made a bargain, which was to give up almost everything in exchange for her to work on homework.  I hope someday this all works out for Marita, and she does not regret any of it.  I am hoping the same for me as well.  I am already starting to see some changes.  I am slowly gaining new friends, and my television hours have increased enough to watch my favorite shows.  Like Marita, I have been given a chance, and now all it will take for the both of us is hard work and dedication.  As the Chinese put it, “no one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.” (Gladwell, 2008)

Comparison: Harlan, Kentucky and Glenwood, West Virginia

     In chapter six of Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell describes a little, scarcely populated Kentucky town called Harlan.  This town is located in a valley of the Appalachian Mountains.  When it was first settled, it was abundant with trees.  Some spots in the narrow valleys were only wide enough for a one lane road and a creek. The physical characteristics of Harlan are similar to my hometown Glenwood, West Virginia.  Trees are everywhere, and the trees are divided by a single lane road.  In some parts of Glenwood, there is a creek running alongside of the road.  Hills and ridges are abundant because Glenwood sits on the outskirts of the Appalachian Mountains.  Glenwood has quite a few people, but the homes are not side-by-side; they are spread out.  Glenwood and Harlan also have similarities of the people that make up the towns but only to a point.

     Harlan was the center for a family feud.  The Howard and Turner families were always at odds with one another.  Houses were raided, and people of both families were killed often.  These people were descendants from the Scots-Irish settlers, and Scots-Irish defend their honor.  Whenever a member from either family felt offended by the other family, they would get even.  In my hometown, there have been no family feuds.  However, I have seen and heard of fights among people in my area.  One family in particular likes to stir up trouble.  I have seen them try to fight their own cousins on the bus.  Someone runs their mouth to them, and before you know it, the fists start flying.

     In summary, Glenwood and Harlan have about the same scenery.  The people of both towns like to defend their honor.  However, Harlan handles their problems in a much more brutal way.

My Ideal Successful Student

     I used to think that being a successful student meant having straight A’s, being in the top of your class, and going to college. After assessing my family’s past history in the education system, I have changed my view.  Not everyone has the opportunity of going to college, not everyone can make straight A’s, and obviously not everyone can be in the top of their class.  There are students who do fulfill these conditions, and they are deemed as successful from their supporters, but what about the students who have limited mental capabilities and resources? Are they considered successful too, or are they viewed as failures?

     Success should not be defined as how much money a person has, or what type of position they hold, or how many children they were able to produce.  Success should be the state at which one person has accomplished all their goals and used their full potential in obtaining those goals.  So, applying this to a student, a successful student should be a student who has obtained the highest grades and achieved the most education possible within the limits of their mental capabilities, financial resources, and goals.

     The first two constraints are common sense.  A person with an IQ of 70 more than likely will not be able to attend college even if their parents are millionaires.  A person considered to be in poverty more than likely will not be able to go to college, unless they happen to be extremely smart and qualify for prestigious financial aid.  A person with straight A’s, superb ACT scores, and money at their disposal should not waste their time being lazy; they should go to college.  However, the third constraint may not let that happen.  Not everyone has a goal that involves a college education. A fourth situation may be that a student goes to college because they are smart, had the financial resources, and had the goal of a college education.  However, they made straight B’s because they did not do their homework or study long enough.  Although straight B’s are not bad grades, the student had the capability of making straight A’s.  So from my standpoint, that student was not successful.

     Success is like beauty; it’s in the eye of the beholder.  Everyone has their own opinions and definitions of success as well as a successful student.  My ideal successful student is one who has achieved the best grades and education possible within the boundaries of their mental capabilities, financial resources, and goals in life.  Only then can the student be labeled as a success.

Definition of an Outlier

      A white deer in a herd of brown deer, an African-American boy in a group of white children, a girl in an all-boy classroom, a Ferrari among thirty trucks, the straight 100’s student in a classroom of average students, Rudolph and the other reindeer…what do all of these situations have in common?  They all represent examples of outliers. 

     When the word "outlier" is brought up, this definition comes to mind: someone or something not included in a particular group.  According to the website thefreedictionary.com, an outlier is "one whose domicile lies at an appreciable distance from his or her place of business." In layman's terms, this means a person whose home is a great distance from his or her place of work. Two other definitions of outlier are also provided on the same website. One of them is "a value far from most others in a set of data."  The other definition is "a portion of stratified rock separated from a main formation by erosion."  The book Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell employs the second definition when he describes the town of Roseto, Pennsylvania.  The town is different from the mainstream set of data; the people of this town are healthier than the average American.

     Outliers can be outliers for good and bad reasons.  Adults and children with high IQs (on the upper end of the scale near 200) can be seen as outliers.  They learn school material within a matter a minutes that would take “smart” children an hour to comprehend.  To those who appreciate their talent, they are seen as a genius.  To those who do not appreciate their talent, they are seen as freak shows, too smart for their own good.  An African-American boy in a white crowd could go either way too.  By his skin color, he could be considered an outlier because he is unique.  But also by his skin color, he could be considered an outlier to be discriminated against.

     In summary, outliers in general are someone or something that does not fit the “norm.”  They can be seen as bad or good depending on the situation and perspective from which the situation is viewed.  Outliers give meaning to the word unique.