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Top students tend to be competitive, but getting the grades is not what drives them. For students like Stephen George, Bismarck Paliz, Enjolique Aytch or Tyler Emerson, the goal is internal: to do their personal best. "A lot of the time I'm competing against myself," says Stephen. "I'm setting goals and trying to reach them."
Research suggests that when schools or parents put undue emphasis on grades, learning suffers. A recent study of 412 fifth-graders by Claudia Mueller and Carol Dweck at Columbia University found that kids who are praised for their performance and inherent intelligence are less willing to take risks and have trouble weathering any sort of failure. Kids who receive praise for their hard work and persistence tend to blame failure not on a lack of ability but on not trying hard enough. "This encourages them to sustain their motivation, performance and self-esteem," says Dweck.
Alfie Kohn, an educator in Cambridge, Mass., who writes and speaks on behavioral issues, is perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of education's fixation on grades, test scores and class rankings. All this, argues the author of the influential 1993 book Punished by Rewards and a new book, What to Look for in a Classroom, kills off the love of learning and replaces it with superficial, grade-grubbing behavior. Kohn is appalled by parents who try to motivate their kids by paying for good grades: "You can almost watch the interest in learning evaporate before your eyes!"
Kohn's advice to parents: Stop asking your kids how they did in school today, and ask instead about what they did. "If you have five minutes, talk with your kids for five minutes about what unexpected ideas she came across, or how he feels when he figures something out. Help the child forget about grades, so learning has a chance."
FEED THEIR PASSIONS
Like many little boys in the tricycle years, Mike Terry of Evanston, Ill., loved things that go vroom. Cars in particular. But as he grew older, his fascination didn't fade; it just shifted into higher gear. At age 9, he had a transcendent experience: the Chicago Auto Show, 10 hours of "heaven on earth." From that day on, recalled Mike, now 13, in a seventh-grade paper, "the auto show has been named a 'religious holiday' in the Terry family."
Corvette and Ferrari posters grace the walls of Mike's remarkably tidy bedroom. But the depth of his passion is better gauged by peering into his closet. There, carefully filed, are some 100 issues of Car and Driver, Motor Trend and Road & Track magazines, and also four shelves bearing his miniature sports car collection.
Mike's dad Tom, an actuary, used to be worried that his son's obsession with cars was unhealthy or crazy, but then he began to see its intellectual value. "There's processing of information going on, and he comes up with sophisticated relationships. He'll recommend different cars to different families based on their needs," says Terry. "I realized that it's a passion that could translate into other passions as an adult."