I am French and got a top education by French standards (two Grandes Ecoles (the equivalent of Ivy League in the US) and a PhD). I worked really hard to get it, especially to get into the first school due to the completely crazy and unique French system (prépas - two years of suffering taken from your young life).
My son who is 14 had very, very average marks last year. He is a very bright and capable boy so I was really dissapointed. This year he is top of his class with an average mark of 18/20.
As you can imagine, I am all happy and everything and I told him that I am proud etc. - all the right things a parent says.
To what he told me that the marks in the class he is in this year decide which high school he will be admitted in. And he wants to be admitted to the best one.
So he obviously started to work hard to get good marks. That lead to the best high school. Where he will be probably average until the marks start to have a meaning again etc.
I was initially bemused at this approach, so far from the work ethics his father tried to instill in him.
And then, after some thinking, I think he is right (which is a major change in the way I was thinking). Grades are nothing more than a gateway to the future and ultimately do not mean anything more.
So I'll push one step beyond that, and say that it's important to be able to pace your work to achieve the level of result that you want. By the end of my time in college, I could almost tell how much effort I needed to put in for each 0.1 out of 4.0 of my GPA. The mirror, then, is that I also need to instill in my kids a sense of high standards.
My son who is 14 had very, very average marks last year. He is a very bright and capable boy so I was really dissapointed. This year he is top of his class with an average mark of 18/20.
As you can imagine, I am all happy and everything and I told him that I am proud etc. - all the right things a parent says.
To what he told me that the marks in the class he is in this year decide which high school he will be admitted in. And he wants to be admitted to the best one.
So he obviously started to work hard to get good marks. That lead to the best high school. Where he will be probably average until the marks start to have a meaning again etc.
I was initially bemused at this approach, so far from the work ethics his father tried to instill in him.
And then, after some thinking, I think he is right (which is a major change in the way I was thinking). Grades are nothing more than a gateway to the future and ultimately do not mean anything more.
So "hard work" when it makes sense to do so.