What Makes A Good Student

Great Essays
This essay addresses the question what makes a good student good. The purpose of this paper is to find out what qualities make a student better than another. A great learner must have a desire to learn, be able to stay motivated, have a growth mindset and an internal focus to excel, create goals and rely on oneself. This essay argues that a student with most of these qualities will transcend in life and be successful in their future.

The American school system is considered to be one of the best in the world with it being mandatory to stay in public school until 12th grade. A typical student attends school because it is legally mandatory to attain a certain amount of education in order to pursue a certain career in the future. These students
…show more content…
The author Margaret Talbot discusses the topic of valedictorians. It would seem that anyone who would become a valedictorian at their school would be a great student, but the truth is they may just be a pro at getting the high grades. For example, at one school, a tiebreaker would be used if more than one student had the highest G.P.A. One student “Denny Davies, had learned of this rule, and had quietly arranged to take extra courses during his senior year” (113). His taking of an easy support class just to be a valedictorian, reveals that he is not being a good student in the sense of having a desire to learn. While Davies had the mindset of being perceived as the best, to truly be a great student requires more than just book …show more content…
Students must be open to learning, realize the value of education, and have a positive attitude in order to excel in school. Kyoko Mori, who earned both an MA and a PhD, stated “School seemed as ‘real’ to me as ‘the outside world’ --- only more interesting” (130). When she was a student, most of her peers were just excited to finish school and get on with their lives, but Mori was focused on the learning aspect of school, as she is truly a great student. On the contrary, her peers did not have an open mindset, which in their futures, might hold them back from succeeding and truly learning. In addition, Stanford University 's Dr. Dweck concluded young scholars must “focus on improvement instead of worrying about how smart they are. They work hard to learn more and get smarter. We know that students who learn this mindset show greater motivation in school, better grades, and higher test scores” (Mindset Works). Young people with a growth mindset tend to be more successful because they are open to learning and improving themselves to become the best person they can be. Students who are open to new ideas and have a growth mindset will broaden their horizons resulting in the students becoming exceptional

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    ALEXIE: I can see where Yeats is coming from when he says, “Education is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire.” Growing up, I was never given certain educational opportunities that many American students are blessed with. Being a Spokane Indian boy living with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation in eastern Washington state attending the schools in the reservation school system, a high education wasn’t only uncommon but it was looked down upon. As Indian children, we were expected to fail. We were expected to never reach the level of education that everyone else would reach.…

    • 1669 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To Grade or Not to Grade? “The real threat to excellence is not grade inflation at all; it is grades.” –Alfie Kohn, The Dangerous Myth of Grade Inflation Sullen-eyed, sleepless zombies stagger throughout the endless corridors. Their minds remain blank, except for their one goal: the biggest, juiciest brains. These brains are what they live for.…

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    [....] As we had predicted, the students with a growth mind-set felt that learning was a more important goal in school than getting good grades. [...] The students who held a fixed mind-set, however, were concerned about looking smart with less regard for learning. They have negative views of effort, believing that having to work hard at something was a sign of low ability” (Dweck 3). By providing the two sides of mindset, a growth mindset and a fixed mindset, Dweck was able to make her audience visualize the differences between the two different mindset and see their effects on people’s lives.…

    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    First Generation students dependency on teachers After completing Essays 1,2 and 3, The central concern that I am focusing on is the dependency of first generation college students on others for knowledge. I want to make this visible because majority of the first generation students population undergoes several obstacles in their life that Every student has to have someone strong and educated who is so important that without them the student might not be as successful as he or she is now. In every success story of every first generation college student, there is always one great mind behind the other. That one person who gave guidance and is responsible for the knowledge that each student obtain and the journey they took.…

    • 1006 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Choosing a valedictorian is a tradition in American high schools as it creates a sense of pride in the students who earn the title, but is it always a good thing? In “Best in Class” by Margaret Talbot, she creates a message that the issue of valedictorian isn’t necessarily a bad one, but it can be modified to become a more pleasurable tradition as it creates an unhappiness in a certain group of people rather than giving satisfaction to everyone as a whole. Talbot applies an appeal to logos as well as anecdotes of the experiences of other students in order to portray her message to the audience. Although Talbot doesn’t explicitly state her claim, it can be inferred through her use of logos that she does not support the traditional way of choosing…

    • 750 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Like Prov. 27:17 said “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another” (NIV). Every good student desires a high level of academic excellence that…

    • 1003 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    America’s education system is no longer one of the best in the world. Americans may act like education is the most important asset a person can earn. However, our country is falling way behind many Asian and European countries because children are lacking education in almost every subject. Benjamin R. Barber, author of “America Skips School”, explains what really is wrong with our education in in his essay. The article explains what is wrong with America’s educational system because we are focusing on other inputs but, not school.…

    • 1162 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Oxford American published the essay, “Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here”, in which Dr. Mark Edmundson, as a Yale alumni and English professor at the University of Virginia, persuades incoming college freshmen to choose their passions rather than career fields that will earn them an immense amount of money. Edmundson begins suggesting that students must remain focused and resillent to outside factors in order to assure a successful education. Lastly, the author advises the readers the avoid the guidance of others regarding what they should be accomplishing but rather to use themselves as guidance. While utilizing personal experience and wisdom, Professor Edmundson suggests that in order to receive the richest educational experience…

    • 985 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The first step to success is wanting to succeed. If a student of any age plans to succeed, they need to be willing to put in the required effort, and manage their time to accommodate the countless distractions that life dishes out. Once a student finds what habits fit best for them, and establish a work ethic, then their ceiling as a student and a professional will be high. There is no perfect student. I have a few beers and watch sports while I do my work, but I do my work.…

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    As education is something we take for granted today, the idea that education up until recently, has been considered a luxury – available only to those able and willing to afford it, is surreal to us. As the demand for necessary universal education increased, opinions on schooling have shifted. In Horace Mann 's report for the Massachusetts Board of Education in 1848, he places confidence in the ability of education to be able to give people of all backgrounds an equal opportunity for success. He describes education as “the great equalizer of the conditions of men, – the balance-wheel of the social machinery”. Mann idealizes education as a force that will erase all class divides between people and provide them a sense of individualism.…

    • 1372 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, we are shown different motifs of mental imprisonment against physical imprisonment. In his play the prisoners are chained in the cave and only able to see the shadows. But once, one of the prisoners was freed and he had no understanding of how to function in the outside world and wanted to go back to the cave but forced to go to the outside world. We see this in real life when we look at the American educational system; in High school students are told what to learn, how to learn, and not to go against superiors; When their growing. That is true that they will never forget this in their whole life.…

    • 386 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Many schools in the United States have valedictorians; however, several people have different points of view on if schools these days should have valedictorians anymore. In “Best In Class” written by Margaret Talbot, the author’s use of evidence suggests that Talbot supports those who disagree with the naming of valedictorian by using persona and exaggeration. One way Talbot shows her point of view on valedictorians is by using persona. For example, “Nobody in college cares about your having been valedictorian” (227). This quote explains that having the title of valedictorian doesn’t make a differences when the student goes to college.…

    • 604 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kyko Mori Analysis

    • 515 Words
    • 3 Pages

    An ideal school should have the right educational system along with the right teachers, which help motivate students to learn and become successful. Kyko Mori states, “Being able to go back to school is a particularly American opportunity”. In this article, she mentions the differences between the American education system and the Japanese educational system. She describes from her perspective that the Japanese school that she went to was strict and never gave students a second chance on improving on their weaknesses. Instead they were told to try harder next time.…

    • 515 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    EDUCATION Chapter seven of “American ways” Gary Althen and Janet Bennett (2011) explain to people from other culture who believe education in American culture has a low standards of admissions. According to the authors, American education system has the goal of producing a hundred percent society of a Universal Literacy, so they want everybody to have equal opportunity in education. American law gives power to the states to control and make policies and regulations for education and also decide over the curriculum of public or private schools. In American culture it is mandatory for the states to provide school for every child and make sure the children attend school from lower grade to high school and advance to higher institutions if the…

    • 353 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Growth Mindset Study

    • 1929 Words
    • 8 Pages

    -Over the next two years after tracking the 7th graders the results concluded that students who had a growth mindset overall did better. Compared to students with a fixed mindset who overall didn't do so well. The reason to this was the perspective they had about intelligence as Eduardo Briceno said. 3. Discuss differences in Growth and Fixed Mindsets.…

    • 1929 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Decent Essays