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Teachers call Bismarck one of the best students they have ever seen. "He's in the top 1%, not just in terms of ability but in terms of positive attitude, initiative and motivation," says Susan Rocco, who has been teaching math for 24 years. More surprising is that Bismarck is not regarded by schoolmates as a hopeless nerd who hangs only with fellow brainiacs. "He's not a teacher's pet," attests his buddy Ruben Ramirez, a self-described jock. "You'd think with all that work, he'd be boring and uptight, but he's loose and he's real funny." Bismarck, for his part, says he just likes to work hard: "I'm happier knowing I'm doing the most I can and achieving the highest I can."
What Bismarck has in abundance is a quality found in all top students: he takes pleasure not merely in the achievement but in the effort. "Students like Bismarck are not expecting things just to happen for them," notes his chemistry teacher, Bruce Karpe. "They're not expecting to be geniuses. They know they have to do it on their own."
A willingness to work flat-out is a trait found almost universally in the best students, says Karen Arnold, a Boston College associate professor of higher education. Arnold has spent 17 years following the lives of 81 Illinois students who graduated at the top of their class. These valedictorians, she found, relied less on native intelligence than on effort. "They were hardworking. They were persistent. School was at the center of their lives."
How do kids learn this? Usually, it's the same way Bismarck learned: having parents who show through their own behavior that persistence pays. A new book by Judith Rich Harris, The Nurture Assumption, has caused a sensation by claiming that parents matter less than peers in shaping a child. Educators tend to disagree. Parents of good students play an essential part as role models, says Janet Won, acting principal at P.S. 124, an elementary school in New York City's Chinatown that runs a "gifted and talented" program. They've taught their kids to "persevere and ask questions, and shown them that hard work will pay off. When the kids make mistakes, it's looked upon as a chance to learn to do something better, rather than as something punitive." The best students, adds Won, "have parents who have responded to their curiosity, nourished and supported things they're interested in and opened up their world."
THE JOY OF LEARNING
Enjolique Aytch of Atlanta was not fated to be a good student. When she was 10 months old, she suffered a seizure and fell into a coma for 24 hours. Doctors warned her mother Cheryl that Enjolique would probably be mentally disabled. Cheryl didn't buy that prognosis. She was convinced that both Enjolique and her older brother Richard were "naturally intelligent" and that all she had to do was offer the right stimulation. "Babies have such a thirst for knowledge! If you can capture their imagination right then, it seems to last forever, but if you let that window close, it's lost forever."