7 ms·

I heard this talk at Microsoft about outlier success, and while somewhat of a throwaway comment, the speaker mentioned that the vast majority of the low America

by tjs8rj 5y ago

I heard this talk at Microsoft about outlier success, and while somewhat of a throwaway comment, the speaker mentioned that the vast majority of the low American standing in those international math score comparison is due to motivation. Summarized, he said when taking the PISA math exam used to benchmark countries on their academic rankings, we always hear how the US is nearly last among developed countries, but if you compare how far different county’s students get on the 120 question end-of-assessment question (with nothing to do with math), THAT ranking almost perfectly lined up with the math assessment ranking. Overall, if true, the weak showing of the US seems to be in large part a matter of motivation and persistence than what we’d traditionally call math ability (so maybe we need to change our thinking to include grit to stick it out as part of the math curriculum). Paper on the topic: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w24004/w24004.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w24004/w240...

nashalo 5y ago
Well ability and motivation can also have a causation relation in both ways...
dmos62 5y ago
From abstract: > Offering incentives to U.S. students, who generally perform poorly on assessments, improved performance substantially. In contrast, Shanghai students, who are top performers on assessments, were not affected by incentives. That's pretty interesting. What's with US students and motivation?
npunt 5y ago
China cherry-picked higher performing, higher socioeconomic regions for their PISA testing, where poorer students don't have access to HS & tests. US PISA scores would be very different if Cambridge and Minnesota and a few other regions were tested. Worth considering before social factors come into play, as large countries have a lot of variance. Not saying motivation isn't also an issue, but there are lots of motivated kids and great schools in the US if you know where to look. https://www.the74million.org/article/schneider-the-strange-case-of-china-and-its-top-pisa-rankings-how-cherry-picking-regions-to-take-part-skews-its-high-scores/ https://www.the74million.org/article/schneider-the-strange-c...
an9n 5y ago
I remember visiting Sri Lanka a while back and seeing in massive letters on the side of a school: 'Education is the only path to success'. I asked myself why I never, ever saw this kind of simple reinforcement during my schooling in the UK. The conspiracy theorist in me would say it suits them to deny the riff raff the tools to see through the diet of bullshit they serve us on a daily basis.
- Jensson 5y ago
  Saying that education is the only path to success would make students with bad grades feel bad. That is the reason. The goal is to shield students from real world pressure so that it all comes down on them like a hammer when they get out of school and can't get a job, at that point they are no longer the teachers problem so it doesn't matter.
- deepsun 5y ago
  Also because in countries with low social mobility, the only path to success is inheritance.
  - throw1122334 5y ago
    So you're claiming that the UK has lower social mobility than Sri Lanka?
- kevinventullo 5y ago
  As an American my first thought is “That’s not true in general.” There are many paths to success, many of which require a great deal of formal education, some which would at least benefit from it, but also some which are more or less orthogonal to education. Perhaps what rubs me the wrong way about that phrase in particular is it seems to imply that education is not only necessary but sufficient for success. A common anti-pattern I’ve seen in young adults is finishing 20 years of schooling, entering the real world, and saying “Wait, now what?”
- tim333 5y ago
  I think in the UK that would quickly get graffitied with "except being born royal or landed" or similar.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Overall, if true, the weak showing of the US seems to be in large part a matter of motivation and persistence than what we’d traditionally call math ability (so maybe we need to change our thinking to include grit to stick it out as part of the math curriculum). Emphasis on persistence in drudgery is already deeply ingrained in our educational system, because it fits well with our cultural predisposition and moral framework, and is a big part of why our educational system ranks where it does, because it doesn't actually work. You don't motivate students by training them to endure nonmotivating instructional methods. Its funny how people think evidence that motivation matters means we should try to change students to be motivated rather than change instructional approach to be motivating.
- tjs8rj 5y ago
  That's a fair point, and one I'm just as prepared to agree with as the one I made if it is a more viable path.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
vintermann 5y ago
> so maybe we need to change our thinking to include grit to stick it out as part of the math curriculum What makes you think students don't have a good idea of their own situation? They know best what they want, they know best how miserable it actually makes them to keep grinding though failure vs. the potential payoffs. Which isn't to say that they're right about it, individually. But on average they probably make better decisions in their circumstances, than someone else would make for them. You can't teach grit. You can at best preach it.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  One of the major purposes of K-12 school is to prepare kids for their future life. For the vast majority of people, life is nonstop grinding through things you don't like: Grinding a job you don't like so you can survive, grinding through traffic/commute, filling out forms, waiting in lines, paying bills. I'd almost argue the grit and persistence to keep grinding is the primary skill you need to be a baseline functional member of society and not end up broke or in prison. Even video games teach people to grind boring tasks for skill points and experience. For better or worse, it's ingrained in the fabric of society.
  - vintermann 5y ago
    But I don't think it's a skill. Anyone will grind, if they feel the goal is worth it, something they really want - don't computer games prove that? It's about values, not skill. Maybe it's possible to value persistence as a good in itself, even if you're less than idealistic about the goal. But then that is not something to be taught as a skill, but something to be preached as a value, by someone who believes it and lives it.
  - garbagecoder 5y ago
    This guy gets it. And life is easier when it doesn’t bother you to get shit done so much you feel like it’s a revolt.
- tjs8rj 5y ago
  I wasn't trying to make a controversial statement here. Whatever needs to be done to best prepare students for success is the goal, whether that's teaching them different things or simply changing the way we teach entirely.
TMWNN 5y ago
>Overall, if true, the weak showing of the US seems to be in large part a matter of motivation and persistence than what we’d traditionally call math ability (so maybe we need to change our thinking to include grit to stick it out as part of the math curriculum). Yes, but that motivation (or lack thereof) is symptom of more fundamental differences. Americans do well on PISA compared to their ethnic relatives (<https://www.unz.com/isteve/the-new-2018-pisa-school-test-scores-usa-usa/ https://www.unz.com/isteve/the-new-2018-pisa-school-test-sco...>) Asian Americans do better than Asians; whites do better than Europeans; Latinos do better than Latin Americans; and blacks do better than Africans. Hispanics and especially blacks' scores drag the US average down. Both white and Asian Americans score higher than Canada (and white+Asian is essentially Canada's racial makeup), and higher than New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Norway, and the UK; Estonia is below US Asians but above white Americans. Norway is by far the wealthiest Nordic state but its average is only two points higher than the US national average, despite not having a demographic that is 13% of the population and scores 85 points below the white American average.

by tjs8rj 5y ago

nashalo 5y ago

Well ability and motivation can also have a causation relation in both ways...

dmos62 5y ago

From abstract: > Offering incentives to U.S. students, who generally perform poorly on assessments, improved performance substantially. In contrast, Shanghai students, who are top performers on assessments, were not affected by incentives. That's pretty interesting. What's with US students and motivation?

npunt 5y ago

China cherry-picked higher performing, higher socioeconomic regions for their PISA testing, where poorer students don't have access to HS & tests. US PISA scores would be very different if Cambridge and Minnesota and a few other regions were tested. Worth considering before social factors come into play, as large countries have a lot of variance. Not saying motivation isn't also an issue, but there are lots of motivated kids and great schools in the US if you know where to look. https://www.the74million.org/article/schneider-the-strange-case-of-china-and-its-top-pisa-rankings-how-cherry-picking-regions-to-take-part-skews-its-high-scores/ https://www.the74million.org/article/schneider-the-strange-c...

an9n 5y ago

I remember visiting Sri Lanka a while back and seeing in massive letters on the side of a school: 'Education is the only path to success'. I asked myself why I never, ever saw this kind of simple reinforcement during my schooling in the UK. The conspiracy theorist in me would say it suits them to deny the riff raff the tools to see through the diet of bullshit they serve us on a daily basis.

Jensson 5y ago
Saying that education is the only path to success would make students with bad grades feel bad. That is the reason. The goal is to shield students from real world pressure so that it all comes down on them like a hammer when they get out of school and can't get a job, at that point they are no longer the teachers problem so it doesn't matter.
deepsun 5y ago
Also because in countries with low social mobility, the only path to success is inheritance.
- throw1122334 5y ago
  So you're claiming that the UK has lower social mobility than Sri Lanka?
kevinventullo 5y ago
As an American my first thought is “That’s not true in general.” There are many paths to success, many of which require a great deal of formal education, some which would at least benefit from it, but also some which are more or less orthogonal to education. Perhaps what rubs me the wrong way about that phrase in particular is it seems to imply that education is not only necessary but sufficient for success. A common anti-pattern I’ve seen in young adults is finishing 20 years of schooling, entering the real world, and saying “Wait, now what?”
tim333 5y ago
I think in the UK that would quickly get graffitied with "except being born royal or landed" or similar.

dragonwriter 5y ago

tjs8rj 5y ago
That's a fair point, and one I'm just as prepared to agree with as the one I made if it is a more viable path.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

vintermann 5y ago

> so maybe we need to change our thinking to include grit to stick it out as part of the math curriculum What makes you think students don't have a good idea of their own situation? They know best what they want, they know best how miserable it actually makes them to keep grinding though failure vs. the potential payoffs. Which isn't to say that they're right about it, individually. But on average they probably make better decisions in their circumstances, than someone else would make for them. You can't teach grit. You can at best preach it.

ryandrake 5y ago
One of the major purposes of K-12 school is to prepare kids for their future life. For the vast majority of people, life is nonstop grinding through things you don't like: Grinding a job you don't like so you can survive, grinding through traffic/commute, filling out forms, waiting in lines, paying bills. I'd almost argue the grit and persistence to keep grinding is the primary skill you need to be a baseline functional member of society and not end up broke or in prison. Even video games teach people to grind boring tasks for skill points and experience. For better or worse, it's ingrained in the fabric of society.
- vintermann 5y ago
  But I don't think it's a skill. Anyone will grind, if they feel the goal is worth it, something they really want - don't computer games prove that? It's about values, not skill. Maybe it's possible to value persistence as a good in itself, even if you're less than idealistic about the goal. But then that is not something to be taught as a skill, but something to be preached as a value, by someone who believes it and lives it.
- garbagecoder 5y ago
  This guy gets it. And life is easier when it doesn’t bother you to get shit done so much you feel like it’s a revolt.
tjs8rj 5y ago
I wasn't trying to make a controversial statement here. Whatever needs to be done to best prepare students for success is the goal, whether that's teaching them different things or simply changing the way we teach entirely.

TMWNN 5y ago

>Overall, if true, the weak showing of the US seems to be in large part a matter of motivation and persistence than what we’d traditionally call math ability (so maybe we need to change our thinking to include grit to stick it out as part of the math curriculum). Yes, but that motivation (or lack thereof) is symptom of more fundamental differences. Americans do well on PISA compared to their ethnic relatives (<https://www.unz.com/isteve/the-new-2018-pisa-school-test-scores-usa-usa/ https://www.unz.com/isteve/the-new-2018-pisa-school-test-sco...>) Asian Americans do better than Asians; whites do better than Europeans; Latinos do better than Latin Americans; and blacks do better than Africans. Hispanics and especially blacks' scores drag the US average down. Both white and Asian Americans score higher than Canada (and white+Asian is essentially Canada's racial makeup), and higher than New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Norway, and the UK; Estonia is below US Asians but above white Americans. Norway is by far the wealthiest Nordic state but its average is only two points higher than the US national average, despite not having a demographic that is 13% of the population and scores 85 points below the white American average.