How children succeed

Introduction

The commonly held story about the children and their success usually involve intelligence. The story assumes that success belongs to those children who attain the highest marks on tests from the preschool admissions all the way to SATs. However, the argument by Paul Tough holds a different narration about the reason behind a child’s success. He draws from the research from economics, psychology, and neuroscience to show that those qualities that most determine this success have little relation with character but mostly linked to curiosity, skills such as grit, optimism and conscientiousness. These qualities can all be included under a basic category of character. He further makes very important points which include how poverty relates to this success and the importance of non-cognitive qualities in attaining it. To drive the point home, Tough refers to college conundrum which he defines as a large number of students in the United States just as the value of college degrees has increasing. I recognise that Tough looks to the reason why some children are able to persevere and complete school to their success while others fallout to their failure.  This leads to the education gap being experienced in the communities

Analysis and research

Paul Tough’s persistent concern is about the existing gap in the society, especially between the children who were brought up in poor families and those raised in wealthy ones. He seeks to cast away the notion that children coming from poor communities cannot succeed. His basic idea is that regardless of the IQ of the child, they can attain excellence through perseverance and hard work. He tries to portray the extremes of childhood in America, where rich children have a safety net which is drawn so tightly to appear as a harness while the poor children have nearly nothing to prevent their failure. In relation to the college students’ success in education, the writer outlines the results of two research works done in nearly sixty-eight college concerning the concerning the performance of students. After detailed academic information was analysed by researchers, they found surprising facts about those students that drops out and those who complete college successfully. The phenomenon on college-drop out was attributed to a problem many students being unrealistically ambitious or more so those who are from low-income backgrounds (Tough, 149). Moreover, the insistence by the school and college guidance or admissions officers for the low-income, low-IQ students to attend the intellectually demanding colleges put too much pressure on these children. Upon realisation that they do not have the intelligence required to succeed in these schools they end up dropping out. However, another close look into these data those students from low-income backgrounds did not actually stretch their academic abilities beyond the limit. The researchers found out that these students were actually attending schools that were below what their level when related to their performance in standard-tests and GPAs. They did not find this phenomena among the wealthy children, but concluded that it exclusively impacted on teenagers that were disadvantaged (Tough, 151). Furthermore, they found out that a student’s score in standard tests for college admission was not the most accurate determinant of them completing college successfully. The only such evidence was shown in the public universities that are highly selective. Rather the students’ determinant in his success was found to be their high-school GPA (Tough, 152). In my view, this research findings looks quite remarkable but discouraging. Remarkable because they shows that the success of student is not determined by ones low-incoming background and encouraging because something inherent from one’s childhood character determines their success in completing college education.

I perceive that though much of Tough focus is on the travails of both the poor and the affluent groups, the plight of the underprivileged child is what compels his emotions and interests. The keen and sensitive observation of the poor child and their mentors help to bring out the story of underprivileged individuals who attain their goal against great odds. The captivating story of Kewauma Lerma, a teenager from Chicago, who grew up in the care of an incompetent single mother (Tough, xxii).  The teenager seemed capable of ignoring the daily disgraces of life full of poverty in their area and rather focused much of her attention on a vision of a more prosperous future. The teenager says how she always dreamt of being among the business ladies walking down with her briefcase while attracting everybody’s attention. The ability of Kewauna to organise her huge non-cognitive capacity for a prize too distant to be termed as theoretical was quite remarkable to Tough. He observes her as she gets into college and works very hard while there. He also observes that Kawauna had no idea of any business lady having a brief case or any college graduate apart from her teachers (Tough, xxii). I therefore relates Kawauna’s resilience and hard work to Walter Mischel’s experiment of marshmallow, but in this particular case the offer being the option to have one marshmallow currently or work hard for the four years in college while sacrificing and struggling, the finally something more worth than two marshmallows .She choose something more worth than a marshmallow, napoleon, even having not tasted any of such before.

I believe the writer want to point out that many underprivileged children do not manage the resilience of equal measure with that of Kewauna due to their troubled lives at home.  Prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain which most affected by stress in early life and is critical self-regulatory activities of any type both cognitive and emotional. Hence, those children raised up in the stressing environment experience hard time while trying to concentrate, being composed, following directions and rebounding from life disappointments. This normally affect directly their school performance. Distraction by uncontrollable impulses and negative feelings makes it hard for them to learn. I perceive the writer as intending to show that while children can be protected by attentive and responsive from environmental stresses, the adults in the lives of these poor ones cannot provide such care since they have problems burdening them. However, the resilient and hardworking ones always find a way out in attaining success in their learning. I maintain that their character offers them ability to focus on intended goals while ignoring the stresses in their poor surrounding and against all odds, they manage to succeed in completing their college education. Thus, cogitative ability plays a minor role in determining the success of a child as compared to the effects of the child upbringing, which involve the surrounding environment and the adults in the child life as they are growing up. On the other hand, there may also lack a parenting connection among rich kids, though later in the adolescence when the push for success is more intense. For both rich and poor children, parenting is matters a lot. Research have shown that the parental upbringing of a child as a great impact on the ability of a child to successfully complete their education. It has also been indicated that a persevering trait instilled in a child by the environmental factors help the child to adopt to the pressures of the learning environment so that they are able to work their way to college completion (Bellibaş and Şükrü, 692).

Studies also show that socio-economic status of parents has solid predictors of academic achievement of a child and college completion. Students coming from the low social-economic status attain performance that is below those from well off backgrounds. It is however, noted that this disparity does not curtail the progression of these kids through school or college. Scholars have also identified other factors that relate to social economic measures that and which explains the growing gap between achievements of children from these divergent groups (Bellibaş and Şükrü, 692). They have noted demographic changes as one such factor, which involve changes in the family structures such as rising cases of absence of fathers and households that are led by single mothers. Varying education achievements of the parents is another factor that determines their parent income that is necessary for providing a good environment in which the children are brought up. The gap in the community structural development is also another factor as seen in the gap between college achievement between the white and black students (Heafner, Tina and Fitchett, 238). The varying availability in resources and the upbringing backgrounds between these students has seen many white students completing students than the black ones.

Proposal

In order to solve this problem, I suggest that there should be adequate effort to try to close the social-economic gap that exist in the community. By narrowing the income gap between the parents, children will be predisposed to favourable factors that will instil the desire to work hard to complete their school and college education. Moreover, it has been proved increasing the curiosity of the students to gain more ideas and information is a factor that can serve as a catalyst for engaging student in purposeful learning. Curiosity relates to learning process as a way of motivation especially when questions are used to power it. To cultivate curiosity I suggest that the teachers should start by being curious themselves, through asking of questions relating to their content and such questions that the students would like to be able to look for answers. I consider that this kind of curiosity would flourish where in an open classroom environment. That way students would be able to ask questions out of their curiosity and the teacher can look at where such questions can lead.

Conclusion

Tough directly ascribes to the notion that children’s success is not dependent on the amount of knowledge that is pumped into their brains but rather on their ability to develop various qualities that relate to personal attributes and character. He further insinuates that the background in which the child was brought up determines their resolve to press on towards completion of college and the success thereof. I therefore argue that improvement in socio-economic status would reduce education gap and student motivation would make them eager to successfully complete their education.

Works cited

Tough, Paul. How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. Internet resource.148-196

Bellibaş, Mehmet Şükrü. "Who Are The Most Disadvantaged? Factors Associated With The Achievement Of Students With Low Socio-Economic Backgrounds." Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice 16.2 (2016): 671-710. Academic Search Premier. Web. 21 July 2016.

Heafner, Tina L., and Paul G. Fitchett. "An Opportunity To Learn US History: What NAEP Data Suggest Regarding The Opportunity Gap." High School Journal 98.3 (2015): 226-249. Professional Development Collection. Web. 21 July 2016.