School Is Not a “Cool” Place

By Dorothy RichcloseAuthor: Dorothy Rich Name: Dorothy Rich
Site: http://www.dorothyrich.net
About: Dr. Dorothy Rich is founder and president of the nonprofit Home and School Institute, MegaSkills Education Center in Washington. She is the author of MegaSkills and developer of the MegaSkills Teacher Training Programs. For additional information, see www.MegaSkillsHSI.org.See Authors Posts (3)
 

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I know I should not be bothered by it (or should get over it), but every time my grandchildren say the words, “That’s cool,” my teeth grind a little.  They are not yet at the age when they say “That’s hot.”  When they say something about school is “cool,” I get hot under the collar.

Why do those little words bother me?  I think it’s because “cool” means that not much matters.  Fashion these days dictates that we have to be unflappable and distant and too above the situation to care much about it.

It may be entertaining to be cool, but that is not what school is supposed (or has to) to be.  School is supposed to be about effort and that’s not cool.

Sure.  School should as enjoyable as possible, but mostly school is (or ought to be) about self-discipline and hard work.

So much of what our children are involved in these days is entertainment.  They can get the wrong impression that schools and teachers are supposed to be entertaining as well.  The reality that while teachers need to make an effort not to be boring, schools are not entertainment centers.

The more we learn about school success, the more we realize how uncool school really is.  New research on achievement  underscores the importance of sweaty self-discipline over “cool” native talent.  Research results tell us that self-discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance than intellectual talent.

Studies from Asia over 20 years ago uncovered a difference between American and Japanese students and their mothers, which we can call “the effort gap.”  The mothers were asked to explain why their children do well  or not do well in school.  Mothers could respond from among these choices: ability, effort and schooling. The groups of mothers gave very different answers.

American mothers voted overwhelmingly for ability and schooling.  Japanese mothers voted for effort.  The American kids agreed that native ability was the key, while the Japanese kids said that if they did not do well in math, it was because they were not making a great enough effort.
What’s ironic about the American mothers’ response is that the U.S. is supposed to believe in the Horatio Alger story that hard work, in the long run, pays off, no matter what the odds against you.  Instead, our children seem to be getting a contrary message – that they need the ability first.  I’d like to think we’ve come along way since then, but the signs are not favorable.

We hear about the intensely competitive, hard driving kids trying to get into the best colleges.  But, that is not the story for the larger population.

The message that all our students need is this:  Try to forget about being “cool.”   Believe in effort, even if you don’t succeed at first.  The value of believing in effort over native ability is that students can do something about their level of effort.

Making change for the better, even when it takes sweat to get there, is what’s really “cool,” in school and in life.

Dr. Dorothy Rich, developer of MegaSkills Teacher Training Programs, in over 4000 schools nationally is the author of the MegaSkills  books,  founder of the nonprofit Home and School Institute and former member of the National Assessment Governing Board.  She can be reached at www.MegaSkills.org.