The Drive to Learn: What the East Asian Experience Tells Us about Raising Students Who Excel

Countless books and articles have offered remedies for the poor learning outcomes of American schoolchildren. Virtually all of these publications share one thing in common: They propose improvements in the policies and practices controlled by adult educators. Grove believes that our children’s poor learning cannot be totally the fault of educators. Our children are active participants in classrooms, so if there’s a problem with how well our children are learning, then we as parents might be at fault. To discover what our part is and explore what can be done about it, Grove draws on over 100 anthropological studies of children’s learning and child-rearing in China, Japan, and Korea. They reveal that those children, even the youngest ones, are highly receptive to classroom learning. Why do they come into classrooms with attentive and engaged attitudes? How did they acquire the drive to learn? Can American parents benefit from knowing how Chinese, Japanese, and Korean parents think about and carry out child-rearing? The Drive to Learn explores these questions.

Table of Contents:
Preface Why I Wrote This Book How I Came to Write This Book Receptive to Learning Acknowledgements Introduction An Overview of How This Book Proceeds The Plan of This Book About This Book Chapter 1: Daring to Seek Answers The Question, Restated The Parts of the Paradox Reviewing Step 1 of the Discovery Process Chapter 2: Evaluating Eyewitness Reports Questioning Eyewitness Reports Passiveness in Class Rote Memorizing How Step 2 Advanced Our Discovery Process Chapter 3: Exploring Motivations The Agony of Defeat Why Motivations Differ How Step 3 Advanced Our Discovery Process Chapter 4: Analyzing Determination From China to America Deep Meanings of Learning How Step 4 Advanced Our Discovery Process Chapter 5: Assessing Emotional Drive Self and Family Mothers and Motivation Self, Emotion, and Drive to Learn How Step 5 Advanced Our Discovery Process Chapter 6: Thinking Like a Sociologist Learning in Different Societies Learning to Be Competent; Learning in School The Episode with the Key How Step 6 Advanced Our Discovery Process Chapter 7: Thinking Like a Historian Taming Students in America Taming Students in East Asia Explaining East Asians’ Drive to Learn How Step 7 Advanced Our Discovery Process Chapter 8: Revealing How Parents Think The Outward Focus of the East Asian Family Two Approaches to Raising Children How the Chinese Talk about Parenting How the Japanese Talk about Parenting Cheerleaders and Coaches How Step 8 Advanced Our Discovery Process Chapter 9: Revealing What Parents Do Maintain Very High Expectations…Consistently Intervene to Insure that High Expectations are Met A Revealing Study of Mothers and Children How Step 9 Advanced Our Discovery Process Chapter 10: So What Should We Do? What Are Our Options? So What Should Families Do? Parenting with Guan: Seven Commitments to Your Child Chapter 11: Responsibility and Creativity Responsibility Creativity A Note About the Online Annotated Bibliography Conclusion Bibliography [standard, non-annotated] Endnotes

About the Author :
Cornelius N. Grove has maintained a fascination with the cultural factors that affect children’s ability to learn in school since receiving his Ed.D. from Teachers College in 1977. The managing partner of the global business consultancy Grovewell LLC, Cornelius is co-author of Encountering the Chinese (1999, 2010), author of entries on pedagogy across cultures in two encyclopedias (2015; 2017), and author of The Aptitude Myth (2015).

Review :
Due to the consistent comparison of public education in America to the education of students in other nations, test results have been known to identify Chinese, Japanese and Korean educational practices to be superior. [This book] explores why the students in these countries demonstrate high dedication to educational attainment. . . . The book takes on a different perspective from most books that identify reasons for the decline in educational performance of students in America. Most research studies the practices of educators or teachers. The author of this book studies the personalities and perspectives of students to understand the learning outcomes and create theories to improve student achievement and performance. . . . This book provides high expectations and mindsets that are simple to implement. I would recommend this book to any educator or parent in need of effective strategies and practices to improve student attitudes towards the importance of education.