14 ms·

Go Ahead, Let Your Kids Fail

199 points by tokenadult 13y ago

nickff 13y ago
This piece reminded me of an earlier NYT piece, where the author suggested that students drop out of STEM because of the low grades they receive compared to similar peers in other faculties.[1] It is somewhat strange that students in different fields are compared through the lens of a grading system which does not reflect the subject matter differences, or the grade inflation which has affected each field differently. [1] http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/why-students-leave-the-engineering-track/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/why-students-le...
- Balgair 13y ago
  Thank you for the NYT article link. It is a fact that grade inflation occurs in the humanities at many school. Earlier posters state that Harvard Biz. School only give 5% of the class a C. My brother incurred this problem when applying for grad school in the medical field. He was a physics major, arguably one of the hardest majors on most campuses, and got a proud 3.0 based on a strict bell curve. Top 15% of the class is pretty nice. However, in the bio field, with GPA inflating a C to a B, this made him seem totally average. Many schools just rejected him outright based on this (he thinks) What to do? A standard has to be set, and as been. But professors can do as they please. Inflating grades has all the wrong incentives, which is why it happens. Schools give high GPA, kids give alumni dollars back with better jobs, repeat. However, now you can't compare the kids as the metric is borked. garbage in = garbage out.
jrs235 13y ago
Amen. Getting an A- in 9th grade may have been the best thing that may have happened to me in high school. It relieved me of the pressure to get straight A's and "compete" for the top of the class. I no longer had to be driven by an external factor. In college I realized how awful things were (for those that were driven by grades). You could look around and see zombies sitting in desks. Most weren't interested in learning or thinking critically... just worried about getting the "right" answer and "good" grades. I remember the first time I "failed" and got detention in high school... it was my senior year. Thank goodness I hadn't gotten it earlier because after experiencing it, it wasn't all that bad. In fact I actually sat down and got my homework done then. Life's too short to worry about grades and failure and we only make childhood shorter by placing this pressure on our children so early.
- nsxwolf 13y ago
  Getting an F in the 9th grade had a somewhat different effect on me. I was initially shut out of all the non-remedial math classes after that, and over the next couple of years I fought to get into the regular or accelerated classes. The reaction was always along the lines of "Why? You've already blown it, you're not getting into a good college... just stay where you are, it will be easier for you". I did eventually get into the classes I wanted to, but they were right - I didn't get into a good college. It's interesting to have a system where you can be told you've ruined your life at 14.
  - jrs235 13y ago
    That's an interesting point. My example was more like the article's dilemma... not being perfect. Your's involved an actual [F]ailure. What is a "good" college? I understand going to some colleges will give you a leg up in the "business" world. HNers and programmers tend to ride the meritocracy train and if one hops on board then the only thing that "should" matter in the eyes of HN peers is what you produce and your results. So don't get a standard job at a typical company working for the "man" where your resume has to make it through HR BS, instead start your own thing? I agree, a system where you can be told you've ruined your life at 14 is BS. I don't know the circumstances surrounding your F. Regardless, the fact that adults gave up and give up on a youth is somewhat revealing about the culture and beliefs they have... sad.
    - nsxwolf 13y ago
      I bounced around from a (non-elite) state school, to community college, and finally ended up with a CS degree from a fairly mediocre accredited private university. I had a pretty bad attitude about education after my high school experiences, so I just fancied myself as some sort of autodidact that does things his own way without concern for the "system, man". I've done well for myself as an engineer, so I feel that I cam out of it all ok. But now that I have kids, I don't really want to pass on my bad attitudes onto them, so I guess I'm facing some of the issues this article discusses.
      - 13y ago
InclinedPlane 13y ago
I'm always reminded of an essay by, I think, pg about how school works the opposite of real life. In school you are effectively judged by your failures, and thus are encouraged to avoid failing since it will bring down your grade point average. Moreover, the impact of your successes is capped, and at a fairly low level due to grade inflation. Once you've achieved an A/4.0 there is little incentive to put in more effort. In real-life, however, things are reversed. Being mediocre yet diligent at doing busy work in a variety of subjects, which is precisely what earning a 4.0 implies, is not terribly valuable. Instead what matters is excelling at a small number of things, perhaps even only one. The conceit of our educational system is that the way it works encourages students to become "well rounded", but it does nothing of the sort and works stronger against doing so than towards. Students are discouraged from developing passion, discouraged from exploration, discouraged from putting forth more than the minimum amount of effort, discouraged from developing their own interests and their own points of view.
- matteotom 13y ago
  This is probably the one thing I've hated most about school for the last 7+ years (since middle school; I'm a HS senior now). At the beginning of a term, I'd always get at least one teacher that says "you all have As now, and you can keep that as long as you don't mess up." (It's usually worded a bit nicer, but that's the idea.) I HATE that mentality. It means, to keep an A, I have to be on the top of my game for every test, every assignment, and every class. It means that if I screw up and stay up late before one test, I might mess up my grade for the rest of the semester. It means that one night can ruin my perfect 4.0 (which I gave up on after freshman year), thus "ruining" my chances of getting into my college of choice. Luckily, I decided after freshman year that the difference between a 3.8 and a 4.0 was not worth the huge amount of extra diligence it would require. And that has paid off: instead of wasting time on HW and studying, I've spent my time learning Python and C and Linux administration and dozens of other potentially useful skills (that haven't helped much in college applications, but will be useful in and after college). EDIT: Something else I wanted to add to this: I've thought about this a bit, and I think one of the big problems is how our grading system is structured. Like I said: if you mess up, you're (in theory) done. My ideal system would be the opposite (mostly). At the beginning of (high) school, a student starts with 0 in each subject. From there, school would be similar to an RPG: classes would have a prerequisite "level" required, and each class would gain points toward "leveling up." In each class, each assignment would be worth a number of points, and the total points earned at the end of the term would determine the points earned for the course. In order to graduate, a student would need certain "levels" in each subject. This would not punish nearly as much, allow the best students to progress faster, and allow slower students to take it more slowly. I haven't written this down before now, so excuse any glaring holes it may have.
ef4 13y ago
One of the ironies here is that it's actually much easier for the smartest kids to excel in school if they have a healthy level of disrespect for it. Intrinsic motivation is the dominant factor. A student that's actually driven by curiosity and a desire to master everything he or she can is tens or hundreds of times more effective than someone acting out of extrinsic motivation -- the carrots and sticks of grades and punishments. It is so much easier to learn this way that the other kids who are just slogging it out seem to be moving in slow motion. Staying far enough ahead of them to get good grades takes very little effort when you've actually internalized that learning is something you do for fun. The real trick of course is igniting the desire in the first place. Which has been obvious for at least two millennia: "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited." - Plutarch
- tokenadult 13y ago
  Good on you for attributing the saying to Plutarch. http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/28/mind-fire/ http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/28/mind-fire/ Yes, to your substantive point, learning is easy (comparatively) when the motivation is intrinsic. Trying to preserve intrinsic motivation in my four children is why I keep slogging along in homeschooling. I had no competitive sports involvement in my youth, nor did my wife, but we've encouraged our children all to be involved in our local soccer club, and I LOVE that they have had early experience in shrugging off defeats and continuing to improve their skills on the field. One loss (or even a bunch of losses) does not end a playing career.
  - ef4 13y ago
    I have been building up a quote file for many years. :-) And I'm a homeschooling parent too, though my son is still quite young and we will play it by ear. For me, it was Scouting more than sports that gave me something meaningful to succeed and fail at. There are many good ways beyond classrooms.
- psbp 13y ago
  The smartest kids I knew were those with very intellectual, but hands off, parents. I always thought it was misguided to advice parents to demand homework be done at a certain time or enforce certain metrics (test scores, volunteer hours, etc), rather than just having intelligent conversations about, well, anything!
zwieback 13y ago
How many kids like this are there, really. I keep reading these articles but I'm not sure how representative they are. I live in a town with a demographic that should be 100% trapped in upper-class white-ville angst but I don't actually meet very many parents or kids like this. Maybe it's Oregon, my in laws in the Bay Area are more prone to this kind of behavior.
- ronaldx 13y ago
  It may be as much a product of the school system. In my local area, schools are formally ranked by their average grades. This means they spend 13 years encouraging kids to believe that taking easier subjects (with better pass rates for the school) is in their own best interest.
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  A tremendous amount. This is really a very nice version of how things work in many Asian countries. One or two questions on an exam India decides the date of many kids, what's worse is that most agree with culture that a particular exam score is who they are and it's not really questioned. I think it is very simple minded.
applecore 13y ago
I suspect these parents aren't actually conflicted, but are reasoning through their own fears of failure by projecting it onto their children.
joelgrus 13y ago
I grew up as one of these "terrified to fail" kids. Now I have a kid of my own, and one of my primary parenting goals is that she not end up like that.
- kaybe 13y ago
  How are you planning to do that? (Honestly curious.)
  - ssully 13y ago
    They way my parents did it for me was by identifying what I really enjoyed and what I had no interest in. They would encourage and push me to try new things and do what I was interested in, both in and out of school. When I did bad in school they would always ask if I tried my best, based on my answer they would push me accordingly. Their way of handling poor grades completely eliminated grade anxiety for me. Instead of freaking out when I failed I would try to identify why I failed and how to improve that.
  - joelgrus 13y ago
    Mostly by encouraging her to regularly try things that are well above her capabilities or that have low probabilities of success, and then being totally accepting/encouraging if/when she fails at them.
dethstar 13y ago
The thing the girl said reminded me of my little nieces and nephews. They are in either Highschool or jr high, whenever I've asked them what they want to study, or do in life they just say "something easy". By easy it doesn't mean not challenging or that requires no effort, it means that they are certain they're going to pass, that's all they care about. And since they haven't experimented/looked in other fields, for fear of failing, they are also not sure what they want to do at all. When I talk to their mother, she just wants them to be teachers like her, because she could probably get them a job. So yeah, it is pretty harmful. Let them fail.
mathattack 13y ago
There's a saying at Harvard Business School... (I didn't attend, so I'm not namedropping!) The A students become professors. The B students work for the C students. The academic society forces this focus on high grades across all subjects that is unhealthy. But what's a student to do? If you can't get into a top school with a couple of Bs, life gets tougher. If you want to major in Computer Science, any school is fine. If you want to major in Philosophy, you had better get into a top 10 school. And once there, you'd had better get top grades because you'll need to go to graduate school. The problem is even larger than the author suggests. If you're in a large city, to get into the nice high school with the fancy IB program, you might need straight As in junior high. And that junior high school may have competitive admissions. It's a wonder that any creativity survives!
- nswanberg 13y ago
  The wonderful thing about today's society is that making a living off of creativity doesn't require these credentials. I'm not sure where he went to high school, but Johnny Lee (the man behind the Kinect and Google's Tango project) went to the University of Virginia for undergrad, and after that went to CMU and then on to create some interesting hacks and products. The University of Virginia is probably a good school but not the place a parent who believes credentials are an end in themselves would choose to send their kid to be a successful engineer. I bet its extremely rare for a person to both be very well credentialed and also very successful in their field (where the field does not explicitly depend on credentials--the Supreme Court is a counterexample).
  - sanderjd 13y ago
    I don't think this generalizes as well as you think it does. Even in technology, credentials haven't become un-important, just less so, and I think it's the furthest along that path. I suspect most of these kids want to be successful doctors, lawyers, scientists, (non-software-) engineers, or "traditional" business management rather than hackers, and credentials are still the way to do those things, and will be for the foreseeable future.
    - 13y ago
knappador 13y ago
Make it twice as hard and require half as many points. Getting 100% at anything signals the end of learning, not the beginning of mastery.
- gizmo686 13y ago
  In my high school, tests were used to make sure that we understood enough to move on. Assessments were project/writing based.
kator 13y ago
I have six kids, my goal in life is to teach them to make good decisions. I always tell him to embrace originality in mistakes. Make them big, creative, interesting mistakes. Learn. Move on.
- namenotrequired 13y ago
  That's great, I love that. How do you show them that you practice what you preach? I don't have kids myself but I can imagine that to be the hardest part.
  - kator 13y ago
    I've started several businesses over the years and they get to see the good and bad sides. I'm also very frank about mistakes I've made in my life and about things that went well. To me it's less about preaching and more about teaching.. :-)
- mokus 13y ago
  I like that, and hope to encourage the same in my kids (currently too young to "get it"). If you're making the same mistakes as everyone else, you're not learning by example. If you're not making mistakes at all, though, you're not learning by experience either.
deleted 13y ago
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shas3 13y ago
The key problem with schools is that they teach you to not just respect authority, but also to defer to it. In the real world, conforming and deferring to authority only makes you mediocre. In order to succeed, one needs to develop the mental framework to question authority and challenge the status quo. The current schooling system, for the most part, does not encourage the development of such a mentality. As someone who grew up in India, I am all the more sensitive to the role of authority. Thanks to massive density of population, weak economy, and cultural norms, Indian institutions promote the worst forms of deference to authority. However, rather than culture, in countries like the US, the schooling system is the primary source for teaching people to conform to their peers' expectations and to defer to authority. The American society, in general, is quite different from the hierarchical structure that exists in American schools. In the real world, you have more freedom to question authority. Life is also different for adults because they are often more mature than kids, and are in positions where they have more choice than in the school. Schools should thus change to mirror the society, while still understanding the fact that school students are mostly immature. Often, such suggestions for reform are mistaken for 'give them the choice to study what they want'. On the contrary, throughout secondary school, students should necessarily be taught all subjects and forced to sit through all classes. But, be careful to note that this does not necessarily imply that they should be judged on all these courses. The key problem in modern schools is that the 'judgement' system is broken. Just like performance review systems in most companies. Schools should take a leaf out of the HR policies of companies like Netflix [1] and do away with formal judgement/performance review processes. [1] http://hbr.org/2014/01/how-netflix-reinvented-hr http://hbr.org/2014/01/how-netflix-reinvented-hr
- gizmo686 13y ago
  >Often, such suggestions for reform are mistaken for 'give them the choice to study what they want'. On the contrary, throughout secondary school, students should necessarily be taught all subjects and forced to sit through all classes. I think there is room for both. Require students to take 'basic' classes in all subjects (up to whatever level of competency you require), but also require them to take advanced classes in subjects of their choice. In addition to furthering their knowledge of their own interest, these classes also provide a much better opportunity for students to learn how to research, study, write, ETC, because they can do all of those things on a topic that interests them. Additionally, having just a few such classes can change the perception of school from a place you have to go, into an opportunity to learn that happens to require you to learn some things you are not interested in.
chipsy 13y ago
My form of rebellion was to disengage and fail. I was a huge bundle of nerves about it every time, but secretly I wanted to have the experience of feeling the consequences and knowing what it actually _meant_ to screw up. I've remained pretty obstinate about this even in my adult life. I like to fail until success is inevitable.
guelo 13y ago
One solution is for businesses to stop playing their game. At my startup we refused to hire from Harvard or Stanford or MIT. We didn't hire ex-googlers either for that matter.
- tokenadult 13y ago
  Google is now very aware, by its internal research, that school credentials matter very little for success at Google.
  - adam419 13y ago
    How are you aware of this?
    - Malician 13y ago
      They announced it. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-data-may-not-be-such-a-big-deal.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-b...
  - FLUX-YOU 13y ago
    Are we talking seasoned engineers or interns? Heh.
- tensor 13y ago
  Refusing to hire only based on name is as bad as hiring only based on name.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
pirateking 13y ago
Trying to get a 0.0 GPA in a quarter/semester/year really is a worthy challenge. Much more difficult than you would think. I tried 3 separate times - closest I could get (without dropping from classes) was a 1.0. I believe being spoiled by many of the finest computer, console, and arcade games of our time, as well as being a heavy book addict, made me bored of the "correct" way to play school at the rather early level of 2nd grade. So I started looking for ways to play the game to make it more fun. In high school, hearing the words "wasted potential", were like a trophy to me. It showed the teacher respected my knowledge (which I obtained for my own pleasure and proved at will by getting random A+s), but frustratingly knew it was not a result of the system they were paid to run. The few really awesome teachers I had, did not get this treatment. I could sense their love for knowledge, either in the way they were actually passionate about the subject they taught, and/or the way they treated students with respect. For these extremely rare few, I was willing to pretend to play by the school rules out of mutual respect for the teacher, not the game. Unsurprisingly, many of these truly awesome teachers were fired or forced to transfer schools. The highly competitive high school had too many parents complaining to the school board about their kids being given a B, and even tried to convince the teachers to erase records of cheating (they being honorable ambassadors of knowledge, of course refused). This was the final proof to me that the system was a joke. "Wasted potential", I learned was a reference to the potential of the system to use you to perpetuate itself. It had nothing to do with your own potential future, which was always your own great responsibility (thank you Uncle Ben). I had 127 recorded absences in 12th grade. I still graduated, as I expected - the only thing more important to the school than student attendance, was public appearance.
- jaxn 13y ago
  I "earned" a 0.6 for a semester in college. It was a very fun few months.
- spc476 13y ago
  In college, I thought that the "Native American Literature" course sounded interesting (note: I was majoring in Computer Science, and thought that the Native American Lit course was about Native American oral legends written down). Nope. It turned out to be "Modern Fiction Written by Authors Who can Claim Native American Heritage". Only two tests---a midterm and a final. I took the midterm, and ended up with either a D or an F (I don't recall the exact grade, except it was not good). I showed up for the final, read the question, realized I had absolutely no desire to even bother answering the essay question; I got up and left the classroom. My final grade for the class: C. Sheesh.
diminoten 13y ago
What did she say to the 10th grader, though? All this pontificating about the state of our education system and the problems with our super achievement-oriented culture aside, what do you actually tell a 15 yr old who's deathly afraid of failure?
- charlieflowers 13y ago
  Exactly. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is what I want to find out. Anyone with anything valuable and relevant to say about this, please speak up.
brandonhsiao 13y ago
I remember in high school the only things I ever learned well were things that weren't taught there, or that I'd learned myself before going in. I'm still trying to recover from the hit I took in subjects like math and physics; I loved both when I was younger. Like many others I happened to be lucky to have discovered computers before going into high school, or I know AP Computer Science would've killed those for me too (haven taken it). College dropout now. School's never "worked" for me. But I was born into a family where blindly grades were everything, and I'm pretty sure this had more of a negative than positive effect on me.
jhk24 13y ago
Brilliant article. The paradox of creativity and success is embracing failure.
f1g 13y ago
Great article. The obsession with academic success is partially the result of what Academia has done over the years for its own survival: that the key is a prestigious education.

199 points by tokenadult 13y ago

This piece reminded me of an earlier NYT piece, where the author suggested that students drop out of STEM because of the low grades they receive compared to similar peers in other faculties.[1] It is somewhat strange that students in different fields are compared through the lens of a grading system which does not reflect the subject matter differences, or the grade inflation which has affected each field differently. [1] http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/why-students-leave-the-engineering-track/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/why-students-le...

Balgair 13y ago
Thank you for the NYT article link. It is a fact that grade inflation occurs in the humanities at many school. Earlier posters state that Harvard Biz. School only give 5% of the class a C. My brother incurred this problem when applying for grad school in the medical field. He was a physics major, arguably one of the hardest majors on most campuses, and got a proud 3.0 based on a strict bell curve. Top 15% of the class is pretty nice. However, in the bio field, with GPA inflating a C to a B, this made him seem totally average. Many schools just rejected him outright based on this (he thinks) What to do? A standard has to be set, and as been. But professors can do as they please. Inflating grades has all the wrong incentives, which is why it happens. Schools give high GPA, kids give alumni dollars back with better jobs, repeat. However, now you can't compare the kids as the metric is borked. garbage in = garbage out.

jrs235 13y ago

Amen. Getting an A- in 9th grade may have been the best thing that may have happened to me in high school. It relieved me of the pressure to get straight A's and "compete" for the top of the class. I no longer had to be driven by an external factor. In college I realized how awful things were (for those that were driven by grades). You could look around and see zombies sitting in desks. Most weren't interested in learning or thinking critically... just worried about getting the "right" answer and "good" grades. I remember the first time I "failed" and got detention in high school... it was my senior year. Thank goodness I hadn't gotten it earlier because after experiencing it, it wasn't all that bad. In fact I actually sat down and got my homework done then. Life's too short to worry about grades and failure and we only make childhood shorter by placing this pressure on our children so early.

nsxwolf 13y ago
Getting an F in the 9th grade had a somewhat different effect on me. I was initially shut out of all the non-remedial math classes after that, and over the next couple of years I fought to get into the regular or accelerated classes. The reaction was always along the lines of "Why? You've already blown it, you're not getting into a good college... just stay where you are, it will be easier for you". I did eventually get into the classes I wanted to, but they were right - I didn't get into a good college. It's interesting to have a system where you can be told you've ruined your life at 14.
- jrs235 13y ago
  That's an interesting point. My example was more like the article's dilemma... not being perfect. Your's involved an actual [F]ailure. What is a "good" college? I understand going to some colleges will give you a leg up in the "business" world. HNers and programmers tend to ride the meritocracy train and if one hops on board then the only thing that "should" matter in the eyes of HN peers is what you produce and your results. So don't get a standard job at a typical company working for the "man" where your resume has to make it through HR BS, instead start your own thing? I agree, a system where you can be told you've ruined your life at 14 is BS. I don't know the circumstances surrounding your F. Regardless, the fact that adults gave up and give up on a youth is somewhat revealing about the culture and beliefs they have... sad.
  - nsxwolf 13y ago
    I bounced around from a (non-elite) state school, to community college, and finally ended up with a CS degree from a fairly mediocre accredited private university. I had a pretty bad attitude about education after my high school experiences, so I just fancied myself as some sort of autodidact that does things his own way without concern for the "system, man". I've done well for myself as an engineer, so I feel that I cam out of it all ok. But now that I have kids, I don't really want to pass on my bad attitudes onto them, so I guess I'm facing some of the issues this article discusses.
    - 13y ago

InclinedPlane 13y ago

I'm always reminded of an essay by, I think, pg about how school works the opposite of real life. In school you are effectively judged by your failures, and thus are encouraged to avoid failing since it will bring down your grade point average. Moreover, the impact of your successes is capped, and at a fairly low level due to grade inflation. Once you've achieved an A/4.0 there is little incentive to put in more effort. In real-life, however, things are reversed. Being mediocre yet diligent at doing busy work in a variety of subjects, which is precisely what earning a 4.0 implies, is not terribly valuable. Instead what matters is excelling at a small number of things, perhaps even only one. The conceit of our educational system is that the way it works encourages students to become "well rounded", but it does nothing of the sort and works stronger against doing so than towards. Students are discouraged from developing passion, discouraged from exploration, discouraged from putting forth more than the minimum amount of effort, discouraged from developing their own interests and their own points of view.

matteotom 13y ago
This is probably the one thing I've hated most about school for the last 7+ years (since middle school; I'm a HS senior now). At the beginning of a term, I'd always get at least one teacher that says "you all have As now, and you can keep that as long as you don't mess up." (It's usually worded a bit nicer, but that's the idea.) I HATE that mentality. It means, to keep an A, I have to be on the top of my game for every test, every assignment, and every class. It means that if I screw up and stay up late before one test, I might mess up my grade for the rest of the semester. It means that one night can ruin my perfect 4.0 (which I gave up on after freshman year), thus "ruining" my chances of getting into my college of choice. Luckily, I decided after freshman year that the difference between a 3.8 and a 4.0 was not worth the huge amount of extra diligence it would require. And that has paid off: instead of wasting time on HW and studying, I've spent my time learning Python and C and Linux administration and dozens of other potentially useful skills (that haven't helped much in college applications, but will be useful in and after college). EDIT: Something else I wanted to add to this: I've thought about this a bit, and I think one of the big problems is how our grading system is structured. Like I said: if you mess up, you're (in theory) done. My ideal system would be the opposite (mostly). At the beginning of (high) school, a student starts with 0 in each subject. From there, school would be similar to an RPG: classes would have a prerequisite "level" required, and each class would gain points toward "leveling up." In each class, each assignment would be worth a number of points, and the total points earned at the end of the term would determine the points earned for the course. In order to graduate, a student would need certain "levels" in each subject. This would not punish nearly as much, allow the best students to progress faster, and allow slower students to take it more slowly. I haven't written this down before now, so excuse any glaring holes it may have.

ef4 13y ago

One of the ironies here is that it's actually much easier for the smartest kids to excel in school if they have a healthy level of disrespect for it. Intrinsic motivation is the dominant factor. A student that's actually driven by curiosity and a desire to master everything he or she can is tens or hundreds of times more effective than someone acting out of extrinsic motivation -- the carrots and sticks of grades and punishments. It is so much easier to learn this way that the other kids who are just slogging it out seem to be moving in slow motion. Staying far enough ahead of them to get good grades takes very little effort when you've actually internalized that learning is something you do for fun. The real trick of course is igniting the desire in the first place. Which has been obvious for at least two millennia: "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited." - Plutarch

tokenadult 13y ago
Good on you for attributing the saying to Plutarch. http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/28/mind-fire/ http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/28/mind-fire/ Yes, to your substantive point, learning is easy (comparatively) when the motivation is intrinsic. Trying to preserve intrinsic motivation in my four children is why I keep slogging along in homeschooling. I had no competitive sports involvement in my youth, nor did my wife, but we've encouraged our children all to be involved in our local soccer club, and I LOVE that they have had early experience in shrugging off defeats and continuing to improve their skills on the field. One loss (or even a bunch of losses) does not end a playing career.
- ef4 13y ago
  I have been building up a quote file for many years. :-) And I'm a homeschooling parent too, though my son is still quite young and we will play it by ear. For me, it was Scouting more than sports that gave me something meaningful to succeed and fail at. There are many good ways beyond classrooms.
psbp 13y ago
The smartest kids I knew were those with very intellectual, but hands off, parents. I always thought it was misguided to advice parents to demand homework be done at a certain time or enforce certain metrics (test scores, volunteer hours, etc), rather than just having intelligent conversations about, well, anything!

zwieback 13y ago

How many kids like this are there, really. I keep reading these articles but I'm not sure how representative they are. I live in a town with a demographic that should be 100% trapped in upper-class white-ville angst but I don't actually meet very many parents or kids like this. Maybe it's Oregon, my in laws in the Bay Area are more prone to this kind of behavior.

ronaldx 13y ago
It may be as much a product of the school system. In my local area, schools are formally ranked by their average grades. This means they spend 13 years encouraging kids to believe that taking easier subjects (with better pass rates for the school) is in their own best interest.
dinkumthinkum 13y ago
A tremendous amount. This is really a very nice version of how things work in many Asian countries. One or two questions on an exam India decides the date of many kids, what's worse is that most agree with culture that a particular exam score is who they are and it's not really questioned. I think it is very simple minded.

applecore 13y ago

I suspect these parents aren't actually conflicted, but are reasoning through their own fears of failure by projecting it onto their children.

joelgrus 13y ago

I grew up as one of these "terrified to fail" kids. Now I have a kid of my own, and one of my primary parenting goals is that she not end up like that.

kaybe 13y ago
How are you planning to do that? (Honestly curious.)
- ssully 13y ago
  They way my parents did it for me was by identifying what I really enjoyed and what I had no interest in. They would encourage and push me to try new things and do what I was interested in, both in and out of school. When I did bad in school they would always ask if I tried my best, based on my answer they would push me accordingly. Their way of handling poor grades completely eliminated grade anxiety for me. Instead of freaking out when I failed I would try to identify why I failed and how to improve that.
- joelgrus 13y ago
  Mostly by encouraging her to regularly try things that are well above her capabilities or that have low probabilities of success, and then being totally accepting/encouraging if/when she fails at them.

dethstar 13y ago

The thing the girl said reminded me of my little nieces and nephews. They are in either Highschool or jr high, whenever I've asked them what they want to study, or do in life they just say "something easy". By easy it doesn't mean not challenging or that requires no effort, it means that they are certain they're going to pass, that's all they care about. And since they haven't experimented/looked in other fields, for fear of failing, they are also not sure what they want to do at all. When I talk to their mother, she just wants them to be teachers like her, because she could probably get them a job. So yeah, it is pretty harmful. Let them fail.

mathattack 13y ago

There's a saying at Harvard Business School... (I didn't attend, so I'm not namedropping!) The A students become professors. The B students work for the C students. The academic society forces this focus on high grades across all subjects that is unhealthy. But what's a student to do? If you can't get into a top school with a couple of Bs, life gets tougher. If you want to major in Computer Science, any school is fine. If you want to major in Philosophy, you had better get into a top 10 school. And once there, you'd had better get top grades because you'll need to go to graduate school. The problem is even larger than the author suggests. If you're in a large city, to get into the nice high school with the fancy IB program, you might need straight As in junior high. And that junior high school may have competitive admissions. It's a wonder that any creativity survives!

nswanberg 13y ago
The wonderful thing about today's society is that making a living off of creativity doesn't require these credentials. I'm not sure where he went to high school, but Johnny Lee (the man behind the Kinect and Google's Tango project) went to the University of Virginia for undergrad, and after that went to CMU and then on to create some interesting hacks and products. The University of Virginia is probably a good school but not the place a parent who believes credentials are an end in themselves would choose to send their kid to be a successful engineer. I bet its extremely rare for a person to both be very well credentialed and also very successful in their field (where the field does not explicitly depend on credentials--the Supreme Court is a counterexample).
- sanderjd 13y ago
  I don't think this generalizes as well as you think it does. Even in technology, credentials haven't become un-important, just less so, and I think it's the furthest along that path. I suspect most of these kids want to be successful doctors, lawyers, scientists, (non-software-) engineers, or "traditional" business management rather than hackers, and credentials are still the way to do those things, and will be for the foreseeable future.
  - 13y ago

knappador 13y ago

Make it twice as hard and require half as many points. Getting 100% at anything signals the end of learning, not the beginning of mastery.

gizmo686 13y ago
In my high school, tests were used to make sure that we understood enough to move on. Assessments were project/writing based.

kator 13y ago

I have six kids, my goal in life is to teach them to make good decisions. I always tell him to embrace originality in mistakes. Make them big, creative, interesting mistakes. Learn. Move on.

namenotrequired 13y ago
That's great, I love that. How do you show them that you practice what you preach? I don't have kids myself but I can imagine that to be the hardest part.
- kator 13y ago
  I've started several businesses over the years and they get to see the good and bad sides. I'm also very frank about mistakes I've made in my life and about things that went well. To me it's less about preaching and more about teaching.. :-)
mokus 13y ago
I like that, and hope to encourage the same in my kids (currently too young to "get it"). If you're making the same mistakes as everyone else, you're not learning by example. If you're not making mistakes at all, though, you're not learning by experience either.

deleted 13y ago

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shas3 13y ago

The key problem with schools is that they teach you to not just respect authority, but also to defer to it. In the real world, conforming and deferring to authority only makes you mediocre. In order to succeed, one needs to develop the mental framework to question authority and challenge the status quo. The current schooling system, for the most part, does not encourage the development of such a mentality. As someone who grew up in India, I am all the more sensitive to the role of authority. Thanks to massive density of population, weak economy, and cultural norms, Indian institutions promote the worst forms of deference to authority. However, rather than culture, in countries like the US, the schooling system is the primary source for teaching people to conform to their peers' expectations and to defer to authority. The American society, in general, is quite different from the hierarchical structure that exists in American schools. In the real world, you have more freedom to question authority. Life is also different for adults because they are often more mature than kids, and are in positions where they have more choice than in the school. Schools should thus change to mirror the society, while still understanding the fact that school students are mostly immature. Often, such suggestions for reform are mistaken for 'give them the choice to study what they want'. On the contrary, throughout secondary school, students should necessarily be taught all subjects and forced to sit through all classes. But, be careful to note that this does not necessarily imply that they should be judged on all these courses. The key problem in modern schools is that the 'judgement' system is broken. Just like performance review systems in most companies. Schools should take a leaf out of the HR policies of companies like Netflix [1] and do away with formal judgement/performance review processes. [1] http://hbr.org/2014/01/how-netflix-reinvented-hr http://hbr.org/2014/01/how-netflix-reinvented-hr

gizmo686 13y ago
>Often, such suggestions for reform are mistaken for 'give them the choice to study what they want'. On the contrary, throughout secondary school, students should necessarily be taught all subjects and forced to sit through all classes. I think there is room for both. Require students to take 'basic' classes in all subjects (up to whatever level of competency you require), but also require them to take advanced classes in subjects of their choice. In addition to furthering their knowledge of their own interest, these classes also provide a much better opportunity for students to learn how to research, study, write, ETC, because they can do all of those things on a topic that interests them. Additionally, having just a few such classes can change the perception of school from a place you have to go, into an opportunity to learn that happens to require you to learn some things you are not interested in.

chipsy 13y ago

My form of rebellion was to disengage and fail. I was a huge bundle of nerves about it every time, but secretly I wanted to have the experience of feeling the consequences and knowing what it actually _meant_ to screw up. I've remained pretty obstinate about this even in my adult life. I like to fail until success is inevitable.

guelo 13y ago

One solution is for businesses to stop playing their game. At my startup we refused to hire from Harvard or Stanford or MIT. We didn't hire ex-googlers either for that matter.

tokenadult 13y ago
Google is now very aware, by its internal research, that school credentials matter very little for success at Google.
- adam419 13y ago
  How are you aware of this?
  - Malician 13y ago
    They announced it. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-data-may-not-be-such-a-big-deal.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-b...
- FLUX-YOU 13y ago
  Are we talking seasoned engineers or interns? Heh.
tensor 13y ago
Refusing to hire only based on name is as bad as hiring only based on name.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

pirateking 13y ago

Trying to get a 0.0 GPA in a quarter/semester/year really is a worthy challenge. Much more difficult than you would think. I tried 3 separate times - closest I could get (without dropping from classes) was a 1.0. I believe being spoiled by many of the finest computer, console, and arcade games of our time, as well as being a heavy book addict, made me bored of the "correct" way to play school at the rather early level of 2nd grade. So I started looking for ways to play the game to make it more fun. In high school, hearing the words "wasted potential", were like a trophy to me. It showed the teacher respected my knowledge (which I obtained for my own pleasure and proved at will by getting random A+s), but frustratingly knew it was not a result of the system they were paid to run. The few really awesome teachers I had, did not get this treatment. I could sense their love for knowledge, either in the way they were actually passionate about the subject they taught, and/or the way they treated students with respect. For these extremely rare few, I was willing to pretend to play by the school rules out of mutual respect for the teacher, not the game. Unsurprisingly, many of these truly awesome teachers were fired or forced to transfer schools. The highly competitive high school had too many parents complaining to the school board about their kids being given a B, and even tried to convince the teachers to erase records of cheating (they being honorable ambassadors of knowledge, of course refused). This was the final proof to me that the system was a joke. "Wasted potential", I learned was a reference to the potential of the system to use you to perpetuate itself. It had nothing to do with your own potential future, which was always your own great responsibility (thank you Uncle Ben). I had 127 recorded absences in 12th grade. I still graduated, as I expected - the only thing more important to the school than student attendance, was public appearance.

jaxn 13y ago
I "earned" a 0.6 for a semester in college. It was a very fun few months.
spc476 13y ago
In college, I thought that the "Native American Literature" course sounded interesting (note: I was majoring in Computer Science, and thought that the Native American Lit course was about Native American oral legends written down). Nope. It turned out to be "Modern Fiction Written by Authors Who can Claim Native American Heritage". Only two tests---a midterm and a final. I took the midterm, and ended up with either a D or an F (I don't recall the exact grade, except it was not good). I showed up for the final, read the question, realized I had absolutely no desire to even bother answering the essay question; I got up and left the classroom. My final grade for the class: C. Sheesh.

diminoten 13y ago

What did she say to the 10th grader, though? All this pontificating about the state of our education system and the problems with our super achievement-oriented culture aside, what do you actually tell a 15 yr old who's deathly afraid of failure?

charlieflowers 13y ago
Exactly. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is what I want to find out. Anyone with anything valuable and relevant to say about this, please speak up.

brandonhsiao 13y ago

I remember in high school the only things I ever learned well were things that weren't taught there, or that I'd learned myself before going in. I'm still trying to recover from the hit I took in subjects like math and physics; I loved both when I was younger. Like many others I happened to be lucky to have discovered computers before going into high school, or I know AP Computer Science would've killed those for me too (haven taken it). College dropout now. School's never "worked" for me. But I was born into a family where blindly grades were everything, and I'm pretty sure this had more of a negative than positive effect on me.

jhk24 13y ago

Brilliant article. The paradox of creativity and success is embracing failure.

f1g 13y ago

Great article. The obsession with academic success is partially the result of what Academia has done over the years for its own survival: that the key is a prestigious education.