Why were the Latino minorities scoring below the Asian minorities in Alhambra schools? No responses.
Not surprising; it’s a difficult subject to approach. Luckily Miss Potter seems to have broken the monotony, kudos and such.
As promised, here was the reason. The Asian kid whom first investigated the problem concluded that Asian parents are more encouraging in education. He published this and of course all the Latinos were like “Hey, wait my parents care plenty. They’re always encouraging me to do my best.” In came mediators with Latino and Asian parents. According to them, both parents encouraged equally, but their methods varied slightly. The Latino parents tended towards “Do your best.” The Asian parents were much more insistent on achieving good grades. Don’t not get As, don’t not be in AP classes. This slight difference in technique represented a large psychological difference in the way kids approached school.
When in little league my parents always said “Just do your best.” But there was always one team that used the “We are the best” approach. Lo and behold they kicked my ass. Was it some sort of amazing genetic stock that somehow grouped itself on that team? Not a chance. “Do your best” does not tend to yield a true best effort. Expecting the best is more defined, and is more likely to actually yield this result. I thought the finding was interesting, confirming something that we kinda know already.
Morgan Elam
General engineering senior