Summary Of Alix Spiegel's Struggle For Smarts

In Alix Spiegel’s article “Struggle For Smarts? How Eastern and Western Cultures Tackle Learning” Spiegel mentions several claims in his articles that surprised me. One of them was how Stigler went to Japan to research teaching methods, the student who was in the fourth-grade class was having troubles with the topic they learning during class and the teacher told him to put it on the board. If my geometry teacher made me go up to the board and do a problem for the bell ringer that I didn’t know how to do, I would be shedding tears right on spot. I would absolutely not be able to do something like that, and the fact that kids can do this without being humiliated is beyond me. I’ll admit it, I have a fear of being wrong in school, especially in mathematics, I won’t raise my hand or say anything unless I get the subject that we are talking about. I don’t know why I do that, but going up in front of the class with the wrong answer is scary.

That really shows the difference between our cultures and some of the Eastern culture, not all of them are like that but the ones that Spiegel had studied. The other quote” ...if struggle indicates weakness-a lack of intelligence-it makes you feel bad, and so you’re less likely to put up with it. But if struggle indicates strength- an ability to face down the challenges that inevitable occur when you are trying to learn something-you’re more willing to accept