Laird 1 Shannon Laird D.

Watkins Comp II T/R 9am 10 September 2013 Raising the Bar Mark Rose once wrote that, Students will float to the mark you set, unfortunately, schools set this mark at various spots on the academic pole. At some institutions, the mark is clearly stated and teachers make their high standards known immediately. Other institutions however leave it up to the student to set the bar high for themselves. This sort of self-reliance can pose a problem for students lacking confidence. Upon my initial reading of Mark Roses quote, I agreed with it wholeheartedly, but at second glance I realized that it was not necessarily true. For me personally and the majority of others, I do believe that we will push ourselves to the mark that is set. The mark can be set by a number of factors, teachers, the school, students, family, ones environment, or even oneself. I went to a small college preparatory school from the third grade until the end of my senior year and graduated with only 77 other students. Not only did the school set my mark, but the students in my grade and classes did as well. My school did not rank for colleges and because most everyone in my class had a 3.5 or higher, it could sometimes be challenging to stand out to a university that many other students in my class were applying to. In order to stand out to universities we had to push ourselves as hard as we could, not just in academics but in extra curricular activities as well. As seen in the video 2 Million Minutes, most students in India and China do not spend much time doing extra curricular activities, and if they do it is only for a minuscule

Laird 2 amount of time compared to their school studies (2Million Minutes). I feel like goals set should not just include academics, but non-scholastic activities as well. It was stated in that same video, that we Americans do not push ourselves as hard as most students in India do, due to our economic stability (2 Million Minutes). I believe this to be untrue. I came from a steady and financially stable environment and was able to rise to the challenge I set for myself. Although I was fortunate enough to be able to grow up in a stable environment and meet my goal, I know that there are students in the opposite position that I was in. There are plenty of students who do not come from an economically stable background, that do not have that family pushing them to make something out of themselves, or do not have the fight to push themselves to make a better life than what they had growing up. In this case, the mark is set very low, so they do not try hard, or they do the bare minimum to get by. Like I said I do think that this statement has some fault. I do believe that there is always an exception. Sometimes a student is in the same position as the one my dad was in growing up. He grew up in a poor town, and had a very rough childhood. Even though he had minimal amounts of encouragement from his family, fellow peers, or teachers, he set his own mark. He was determined to be able to provide a better life for himself and his family than the one he had growing up. He did this by pushing himself every day and rising above the bars set for him. Sometimes though there is the case like the video talked about, where a student has a stable economic background and does not feel the need to take school seriously. There are also always those students who just do not care what the standard is and do what they want, although for the majority of the time I do agree with the statement, Students will float to the mark you set.

Laird 3 I believe that my own personal experiences have helped push me to exceed what I thought was possible, and that I am in the majority of students who rise to the mark that is set for them. Being transferred from a private Catholic school to a college preparatory school was definitely a struggle at first. I remember receiving my first D and F in the third grade, which was something that was very difficult for me to handle. Even though I had this set back, I soon enough was caught up with the rest of the students in my grade due to the help and support from the faculty at my school and my family. I was very lucky to have the encouragement and the motivation from my teachers to continue to strive and work hard, because I know that these days a lot of the schools are lacking in motivation for the students. In our education system today, how to motivate students to strive and work hard is something that seems to be only surface deep. I believe that the majority of the motivations in schools are from the teachers wanting the students to make them look good. It seems that a majority of teachers only teach students what the students need to know for state exams and not so much what they need to know in college or in life in general. Even authors Eric Hanushek and Paul Peterson once stated in an article: Under the educational accountability rules set down by the federal law No Child Left Behind, each state may set its own proficiency standards, and most have set their standards well below the world-class level (Peterson). This only goes to show just how much of a lack of encouragement there is in the educational system in the U.S. Even for those institutions and parents that do motivate their child, I think there can be different types of motivation. For those students who are all about sports, I definitely feel that there is more of an incentive placed on the student to do

Laird 4 well in sports rather than in school. Because there can sometimes be so much emphasis put on those students to excel in that sport, the main reason for why the student goes to school gets lost in something that unfortunately for the majority of those student athletes will not benefit them in the future. I believe that there needs to be a balance of motivation in our education system between learning what students need to learn for college and getting good grades, and the extra curricular activities they participate in. I think that by being able to do well in both academics and non-scholarly activities it will help students learn time management and show a good work ethic. I have been able to develop a good work ethic by traditional motivation, such as getting good grades, as well as being able to learn how to manage my time by participating in both academics and non-scholarly activities. I luckily have known from a young age what I wanted to do with my life. As it turns out getting into dental school, all while maintaining a 4.0 is more challenging than I initially thought. Fortunately I am not alone; I have had my parents by my side constantly encouraging me to succeed to my best ability. I have found that traditional motivation has worked for me, but institutions have that responsibility of setting the bar high in order for students in all environments to go after and achieve their goals. I however was very fortunate to attend a school with faculty that set the bar high by stressing the importance of academics from the beginning. I also set my own goals, by doing so I made it possible to achieve that 4.0, therefor showing that for the most part students will rise to the mark that is set for them.

Laird 5 Works Cited 2 Million Minutes. Prod. Robert A. Compton. Dir. Chad Heeter. Broken Pencil Productions, 2008. Youtube. Web. 5 Sept. 2013. Peterson, Eric A. Hanushek,Paul E. "Why Can't American Students Compete?" The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, 28 Aug. 2011. Web. 10 Sept. 2013.