It seems likely it’s the other way around. If you learned nothing in k-12, why would you have any work ethic at all? Why would you believe going to college was suddenly about learning, when it hadn’t been in 13 years? Why would you suddenly try to master subjects when you’d been told mastery was unimportant, creativity was important; memorization was unnecessary to proper usage of grammatical structures; inquiry based learning was more authentic than taking notes from an expert?

Work ethic comes from internal and external rewards. People work hard when they see that they receive external rewards like praise, awards, high marks, for the end result of their hard work. People work hard when they’ve gotten enough external rewards that they’ve bootstrapped internal ones: like enough success under their belt that they KNOW when they are going to get high marks, or know how to succeed at the assignment, etc. Rob students of learning things to mastery and the work ethic never crystallizes. Give them external rewards for things that don’t deserve it and it never crystallizes either.

“Of course, it may be, as many have said on the Globe’s website, that international students who come here represent their country’s best and brightest – and that comparing them to American students is comparing apples to oranges.

There are, though, the facts. Studies show that American students know less about math, science, and geography than peers in many other industrialized countries.

By rejecting criticism, we are doing a disservice to our students. It is not anti-American to point out flaws in our educational system; it is both patriotic and necessary.”

Look at the performace of immigrant students in k-12 from India and China. Those are not necessarily a self-selecting group. Our local Kumons center, in a white affluent suburb of NJ, is attended by primarily the children of Chinese and South East Asian parents.

Why can’t we acknowledge that the cultural habits of some immigrants demand a strong work ethic?

Which again got me curious. So if it’s a good school, with all these excellent students, why is the teacher whining about white students and praising Asian students? If they’re so selective, why all the losers?

I went and checked Babson’s demographics:

Students come from 64 countries and 44 states and territories. 42 percent of Babson’s students are women – well above the national percentage of female business students. Roughly 13 percent of students are Asian, 9 percent are Latino, 4 percent are Black, and Native American and multicultural students represent approximately 1 percent of the overall population.

Doing the math–and I am a math teacher–83% of the students are white. Probably more than that are American. Just 13% are Asian.

Well, obviously Dr. Miller can’t do much math. Most of her C, D, and F students will be American (and white). Most of her A students will be American, too (and white). There will be a strong selection bias in the international students.

I mean, whoopdeedoo. Does she even know the statistics of her school and how that will play out in her grade distribution?

Look, I’m sorry if I’ve offended your honor by questioning Babson’s relative quality, and I acknowledge that I misread the US News article. However, the gravamen of my charge was not “Babson is a terrible school”, but “what a nasty shrew to write such unpleasant things about her students” and to point out the double standard involved in her being able to do so.

The article is offensive, and an even cursory look at Babson’s demographics make the entire argument moot. She should drink a big cup of shut up and stop making prejudicial remarks about the majority of her students. She should definitely stop calling them lazy. I hope they hold her feet to the fire.

Here are some rankings for Babson:
http://mba.babson.edu/info/rankings.aspx

Babson is an school focused solely on business and is therefore unranked by US News. I am from Boston, and Babson has an incredibly strong regional reputation. In addition, you may have heard of Olin College of Engineering… they have teamed up with Babson to teach entrepreneurship. Babson MBA program is highly ranked, and in subspecialties like entrepreneurship, they are almost always ranked near the top.

I have no affiliation with Babson… just wanted to correct your careless smearing of a strong school just because you didn’t find it US News World Report undergrad rankings.

If I’m reading US News right, Babson College is unranked. There are an enormous number of ambitious, hardworking Indians and Chinese eager for a degree from any US university. The white students forced to settle for Babson might not be as ambitious a crew. So not only selection in the immigrants, but selection in the white students as well. I mean, so long as she’s going to smear white students with a blatantly racist brush, let’s remember where she teaches.

I think the Babson prof is confusing a combination of sucking-up and cultural traditions with genuine enthusiasm. Kids who’ve had helicopter parents aren’t looking for independence, they’re looking for a parent substitute.

And sad to say, many US born students aren’t dazzled by their teachers any more. I’ll agree that plenty are lazy, ill-taught and all the rest, but I’m not so sure that her Shanghai student is the ideal.