9 ms·

IMO, the best questions around revolutionizing school should address whether children should be coerced into learning something. It seems obvious to me that th

IMO, the best questions around revolutionizing school should address whether children should be coerced into learning something. It seems obvious to me that the answer should be yes. So the follow ups should be figuring out how to move a student from an unwilling participant to a willing participant. I think about three strata of students. The stubbornly unwilling, the coaxable, and the eager. It is pretty easy to design education for the eager. And discussing how to optimize that is a completely different discipline than the discussion about how to coax. The discussion about moving the unwilling to the coaxable is another topic on its own. Having a mixed class of unwilling, coaxable, and eager in a classroom with a mantra of "no child left behind" is a huge mistake in the same way it would be a mistake to have one teacher in a mixed classroom for Geometry, Alphabet, and Orchestra.

singpolyma3 4mo ago
I agree this is the fundamental question and disagreement. I certainly don't think coercion is ethical.
- Wowfunhappy 4mo ago
  We "coerce" children to do all sorts of things. We make them go to sleep. We make them learn to use the toilet.
  - b112 4mo ago
    Indeed. Children and not "little adults". They are emotionally and intellectually immature, literally with the brain and body growing into to the capabilities of an adult. And if good habits are not instilled, they will have a difficult life ahead of them. It's far easier to learn those habits when young, than to try to independently course correct as an adult. Not coercing a child towards correct behaviours, is doing them a great disservice. In some circumstances, it's child abuse to not coerce those bahaviours.
    - marcus_holmes 4mo ago
      I think "coerce" is doing a lot of work here. There's a huge difference between a loving parent gently but firmly teaching their kid to clean their teeth every day even though they don't want to, and a brutal schoolteacher beating facts into a class full of miserable kids.
      - b112 4mo ago
        There is a difference. Yet that's the point. Because "beating facts" and "miserable kids" is not necessarily inferred from 'coerced', as opposed to 'gently but firmly', and that's why people are clarifying so. There is in fact little difference between "you have to learn these things" and "brushing your teeth".
- protonbob 4mo ago
  Why not?
  - limagnolia 4mo ago
    Not the poster to whom you are questioning, but I would argue that inspiring and encouraging are much better than coercing, especially if the goal is to educate, as I am skeptical that coercion is ever going to work to get true learning.
- gamerDude 4mo ago
  In a way, I think coercion is a requirement to be ethical. Ethics is determined based on what current society believes to be the right thing to do. We see that there are a variety of different cultures and ethics around the world, which would indicate that humans wouldn't just automatically follow a universal set of rules. Thus to be ethical in your society, usually means you must follow the rules determined by a collective group of your nations ancestors or you will be shunned/jailed/harmed/etc. Which is essentially coercion. "Act this way or be punished."
  - limagnolia 4mo ago
    But there is a difference in behaving ethically and behaving legally. While there may be consequences for behaving unethically (IE "I won't do business with them because I do not feel they are ethical"), society generally only overtly punishes those who do things that are illegal.
    - vkazanov 4mo ago
      It is the other way around. White collar crime might be illegal but most societies would definitely punish a murderer either legally or illegaly. Social stigma is a MUCH more serious thing than legality of action.
- komali2 4mo ago
  I don't either - I'm am anarchist. But, ever hear the saying, "against all authority except mommy?" Kids need some level of coercion just to keep them alive. They have to be made to even eat sometimes.
psadri 4mo ago
If you had the budget for two teachers, I’d utilize them as one teaching in the traditional way, and the other spending 1:1 times with each student (20 students in a class → 1-1:30 hr / student).
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- Vinnl 4mo ago
  If we had budgets that allowed for one teacher per ten students, I imagine many problems in education would already be solved.
  - hunterpayne 4mo ago
    There is no correlation between better educational outcomes and higher teacher pay. Washington has the highest teacher pay and the smallest classrooms yet is below average in educational outcomes. Stop this canard, it just isn't true. US Schools have plenty of money, they just don't spend it wisely. In fact, both Mississippi and Louisiana have better outcomes than Washington state despite the fact they have half the spend per student.
    - WalterBright 4mo ago
      The Washington schools constantly ask for more money so they can teach. I don't see what monetary resources are needed to teach arithmetic beyond a blackboard and chalk. Projectors, videos, computers, tablets, calculators, are all completely useless in teaching math.
      - freeopinion 4mo ago
        Walter, I have a great deal of respect for you. Your math skills are much greater than my own. But you have stretched your statement too far. Flash cards can be very helpful in teaching math. Timed tests for math facts can be very helpful. Both of these can be facilitated with computers or tablets. Animations can be a very useful instructional tool. Even taking a picture of the chalk on the blackboard and putting it online can help students (and possibly helpful parents) review the in-class lecture from home while they do their homework. I don't dismiss your overall point, but don't be too flippant. A video of the lecture can be very helpful.
hn_throwaway_99 4mo ago
> I think about three strata of students. The stubbornly unwilling, the coaxable, and the eager. I have a real issue dividing kids up along these lines. I've found that virtually all young kids love to explore and learn things, and if anything schooling can extinguish this innate desire when it becomes a source of stress.
- FloorEgg 4mo ago
  While my experience relates to learning in higher-ed, I completely agree with those three categories... Though a helpful nuance may be that it's a spectrum, not hard boundaries, and every subject/exercise can have a distinct relationship with the learner and context. When rubber hits the road with a learning objective, I think the two most important axis are: how much does the student want to learn (this), and how easy is it for the student to learn (this)? Both can depend on a variety of factors... For example a masters student paying their own way mid career maybe really wants to learn as much as they can, but a specific research report assigned during a busy work week, and some family emergency, etc. may mean they treat the assignment as "I just need to get this done" instead of "I want to get as much as I can out of this", and one way that can show up is how much they depend on an LLM to do the work for them...
  - jltsiren 4mo ago
    When I was involved in higher education, people talked about three motivations: passing the class, being good at whatever is being measured, and learning the topic. Those were not distinct categories but separate axes, and they were understood to be situational rather than inherent qualities of the person. We didn't care much about the people who scored low on all three axes. Education was free, and if you didn't have the motivation, you were probably better off doing something else. In any case, people who wanted to learn were easy to deal with. The other two motivations could be used to coax the person to learn, but they required different approaches.
    - FloorEgg 4mo ago
      That sounds right to me. I like that model and will remember it, thanks.
tshaddox 4mo ago
Why is it obvious to you that children should be coerced into learning something? Let's say that you have some curriculum C that you think is vital for children to learn, and you want as many children as possible to learn C. Even ignoring ethics, it's not obvious to me that attempting to coerce all children into learning C is the best way to accomplish your goal!
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- Etheryte 4mo ago
  In broad strokes, learning leads to better life outcomes just like brushing your teeth leads to better health outcomes, or any other example you may prefer. Brushing teeth is a chore so a child won't generally pick it up all by themselves without some nudging. If you don't do the nudging you're essentially letting a child be free, yes, but also willingly letting them end up worse off when they're too young to know any better. Learning is the same.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4mo ago
    > just like brushing your teeth leads to better health outcomes This is very context dependent. If you grow up surrounded by a typical western/industrial/post-industrial diet, then yes, it almost certainly does. But you could also change the food environment. Hopefully the analogy/metaphor that connects this to schooling is reasonably obvious.
    - fooo1882992 4mo ago
      So... We need to go back to living in the jungle? You go do that then. Enjoy your slow death from malaria.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 4mo ago
        Where did I say anything about living in the jungle? The food choices having nothing to do with the jungle, but rather: regular, significant consumption of highly processed and most significantly sweetened foods. There were plenty of people in the world before the widespread adoption of sugar as cooking ingredient whose dental health would likely not have been improved by brushing, and they didn't live in "the jungle" but places like ... America, and Japan, and India and ... basically the entire planet.
bwhiting2356 4mo ago
It's hard to convince kids why they should learn advanced abstract math, beyond what is necessary to calculate the tip on a restaurant bill. The number of high school students who will use advanced math beyond high school is very small, but those that do will have high impact, which is both in society's interest and their own interest as high earners. The kids that study and apply themselves, I don't think it's so much that they can see they understand the benefits of linear algebra at the time, it's that their parents and the social network they're a part of sends them signals that this is what they should do to be successful and they're rewarded for doing well in school.
- parpfish 4mo ago
  re: not teaching math to kids is a pet peeve of mine. the number of adults i've met who cannot add two fractions together is depressing. at some point each of them had decided "i'm just bad with numbers, hahaha" and they gave themselves permission to stop trying math. worse, society gives you a pass at not knowing math. we need to apply the same constant social pressure to mathematics skills that we do for learning to read.
  - WalterBright 4mo ago
    When young people ask me why they should learn math, I point out that managing your money requires math, and there are plenty of people who will steal from you if you are unable to recognize it. An inability to understand compound interest is classic.
    - marcus_holmes 4mo ago
      But that's basic arithmetic, and we have calculators to do that. Totally agree that understanding the problem and being able to frame a solution are also needed, but again, that's not hard maths. I think we're more talking about algebra or, really, anything "higher" in maths than arithmetic. Does a solid knowledge of, e,g, Set Theory, give any benefit later in life? And also, if we think that basic financial management is a good thing for kids to learn, why don't we teach that?
bigthymer 4mo ago
Having multiple parallel tracks for different types of students is controversial. Schooling tends to be cyclical with periods with more tracking is popular shifting to periods of less tracking and more classroom mixing. It really depends on what you want to optimize for. More tracking benefits the highest achievers. Less tracking raises the bottom and the average but at the cost of not maximizing the outcome of the top.
- hunterpayne 4mo ago
  "Having multiple parallel tracks for different types of students is controversial." It shouldn't be. The research overwhelming says its a good practice. The type of people who say this type of thing are the exact type of ideologically motivated people who are destroying school systems in blue districts. Ironically this group both hates private schools and creates the environment that pushes parents to pay for private schools. I've personally seen the bad consequences of schools that do this and I know people who aren't here anymore because of it. So please, for the love of god, stop talking about topics you know nothing about.
  - zozbot234 4mo ago
    It's not that easy. The status quo is that having multiple tracks creates terrible incentives among teachers: no teacher wants to teach the "bad" track, so they get stuck with the worst teachers and the worst educational outcomes over time. (This occurs not just because many remedial students have very real behavioral issues that deter the best teachers from engaging with them, but also notably because the progressive education establishment is dismissive of teaching methods that actually help those students learn effectively, and doesn't train general-ed educators in the use of such methods.)
  - bigthymer 3mo ago
    > The research overwhelming says its a good practice. I disagree. From what I've read, the data is more mixed. More tracking optimizes for the top achievers. Less tracking optimizes for the lower and middle. Less tracking probably maximizes average metrics. > The type of people who say this type of thing are the exact type of ideologically motivated people who are destroying school systems in blue districts. Ironically this group both hates private schools and creates the environment that pushes parents to pay for private schools. I've personally seen the bad consequences of schools that do this and I know people who aren't here anymore because of it. I agree. However, I think the counter solution these people imagine is a similar scenario as described here <https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/sd3in2/nope_not_in_the_great_us_of_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/sd3in2/...>. > So please, for the love of god, stop talking about topics you know nothing about. Let's be civil. There is no need to attack me personally. You're welcome to disagree with my ideas, share your opinion, and present support. I think a reasonable person can find support for both opinions.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
itshossein 4mo ago
[dead]
cyberax 4mo ago
Here's the thing. Learning is hard. There's no going around it. You'll need to grind through practice problems, write essays, memorize facts, etc. And you need to do that. It trains your brain. If you simply rely on calculators, LLMs, and Google Search, then you likely can forget about doing advanced science. It doesn't mean that you have to _master_ everything. Far from it. But you need to apply real effort to various subjects to train yourself.
viccis 4mo ago
The answer is, as it's always been, aggressive tracking. Easier said than done because most school administrators and education policymakers base a lot of their self worth out of being "good people" and being liked by everyone. Having to give up on some kids is unthinkable to them. Simply giving up on all of the kids in a way that decouples the outcomes from their direct actions is much preferable and lets them sleep easy.
fuzzfactor 4mo ago
>figuring out how to move a student from an unwilling participant to a willing participant. I've been giving chemistry lessons since I was a teenager, and quite early this became my first order of business after that alone was responsible for turning a D student into a B student in one session. For that first non-mathematically inclined student who was having so much trouble, this had to be accomplished before any of the specific concepts and problems could be properly addressed in the course they were enrolled in. All that was accomplished in two hours was gradual but progressive reversal of attitude, not unlike what I was accustomed to in ramping up to more advanced subject matter, but we never got around to that during the first session. The next week they had a very positive attitude and were going to call me later with some challenging equations for some help. Wasn't necessary, the very next week they got a B on their own initiative, were so excited and passed everything after that with no further problems. It was probably the most thankful student I ever tutored.

singpolyma3 4mo ago

I agree this is the fundamental question and disagreement. I certainly don't think coercion is ethical.

Wowfunhappy 4mo ago
We "coerce" children to do all sorts of things. We make them go to sleep. We make them learn to use the toilet.
- b112 4mo ago
  Indeed. Children and not "little adults". They are emotionally and intellectually immature, literally with the brain and body growing into to the capabilities of an adult. And if good habits are not instilled, they will have a difficult life ahead of them. It's far easier to learn those habits when young, than to try to independently course correct as an adult. Not coercing a child towards correct behaviours, is doing them a great disservice. In some circumstances, it's child abuse to not coerce those bahaviours.
  - marcus_holmes 4mo ago
    I think "coerce" is doing a lot of work here. There's a huge difference between a loving parent gently but firmly teaching their kid to clean their teeth every day even though they don't want to, and a brutal schoolteacher beating facts into a class full of miserable kids.
    - b112 4mo ago
      There is a difference. Yet that's the point. Because "beating facts" and "miserable kids" is not necessarily inferred from 'coerced', as opposed to 'gently but firmly', and that's why people are clarifying so. There is in fact little difference between "you have to learn these things" and "brushing your teeth".
protonbob 4mo ago
Why not?
- limagnolia 4mo ago
  Not the poster to whom you are questioning, but I would argue that inspiring and encouraging are much better than coercing, especially if the goal is to educate, as I am skeptical that coercion is ever going to work to get true learning.
gamerDude 4mo ago
In a way, I think coercion is a requirement to be ethical. Ethics is determined based on what current society believes to be the right thing to do. We see that there are a variety of different cultures and ethics around the world, which would indicate that humans wouldn't just automatically follow a universal set of rules. Thus to be ethical in your society, usually means you must follow the rules determined by a collective group of your nations ancestors or you will be shunned/jailed/harmed/etc. Which is essentially coercion. "Act this way or be punished."
- limagnolia 4mo ago
  But there is a difference in behaving ethically and behaving legally. While there may be consequences for behaving unethically (IE "I won't do business with them because I do not feel they are ethical"), society generally only overtly punishes those who do things that are illegal.
  - vkazanov 4mo ago
    It is the other way around. White collar crime might be illegal but most societies would definitely punish a murderer either legally or illegaly. Social stigma is a MUCH more serious thing than legality of action.
komali2 4mo ago
I don't either - I'm am anarchist. But, ever hear the saying, "against all authority except mommy?" Kids need some level of coercion just to keep them alive. They have to be made to even eat sometimes.

psadri 4mo ago

If you had the budget for two teachers, I’d utilize them as one teaching in the traditional way, and the other spending 1:1 times with each student (20 students in a class → 1-1:30 hr / student).

deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
Vinnl 4mo ago
If we had budgets that allowed for one teacher per ten students, I imagine many problems in education would already be solved.
- hunterpayne 4mo ago
  There is no correlation between better educational outcomes and higher teacher pay. Washington has the highest teacher pay and the smallest classrooms yet is below average in educational outcomes. Stop this canard, it just isn't true. US Schools have plenty of money, they just don't spend it wisely. In fact, both Mississippi and Louisiana have better outcomes than Washington state despite the fact they have half the spend per student.
  - WalterBright 4mo ago
    The Washington schools constantly ask for more money so they can teach. I don't see what monetary resources are needed to teach arithmetic beyond a blackboard and chalk. Projectors, videos, computers, tablets, calculators, are all completely useless in teaching math.
    - freeopinion 4mo ago
      Walter, I have a great deal of respect for you. Your math skills are much greater than my own. But you have stretched your statement too far. Flash cards can be very helpful in teaching math. Timed tests for math facts can be very helpful. Both of these can be facilitated with computers or tablets. Animations can be a very useful instructional tool. Even taking a picture of the chalk on the blackboard and putting it online can help students (and possibly helpful parents) review the in-class lecture from home while they do their homework. I don't dismiss your overall point, but don't be too flippant. A video of the lecture can be very helpful.

hn_throwaway_99 4mo ago

> I think about three strata of students. The stubbornly unwilling, the coaxable, and the eager. I have a real issue dividing kids up along these lines. I've found that virtually all young kids love to explore and learn things, and if anything schooling can extinguish this innate desire when it becomes a source of stress.

FloorEgg 4mo ago
While my experience relates to learning in higher-ed, I completely agree with those three categories... Though a helpful nuance may be that it's a spectrum, not hard boundaries, and every subject/exercise can have a distinct relationship with the learner and context. When rubber hits the road with a learning objective, I think the two most important axis are: how much does the student want to learn (this), and how easy is it for the student to learn (this)? Both can depend on a variety of factors... For example a masters student paying their own way mid career maybe really wants to learn as much as they can, but a specific research report assigned during a busy work week, and some family emergency, etc. may mean they treat the assignment as "I just need to get this done" instead of "I want to get as much as I can out of this", and one way that can show up is how much they depend on an LLM to do the work for them...
- jltsiren 4mo ago
  When I was involved in higher education, people talked about three motivations: passing the class, being good at whatever is being measured, and learning the topic. Those were not distinct categories but separate axes, and they were understood to be situational rather than inherent qualities of the person. We didn't care much about the people who scored low on all three axes. Education was free, and if you didn't have the motivation, you were probably better off doing something else. In any case, people who wanted to learn were easy to deal with. The other two motivations could be used to coax the person to learn, but they required different approaches.
  - FloorEgg 4mo ago
    That sounds right to me. I like that model and will remember it, thanks.

tshaddox 4mo ago

Why is it obvious to you that children should be coerced into learning something? Let's say that you have some curriculum C that you think is vital for children to learn, and you want as many children as possible to learn C. Even ignoring ethics, it's not obvious to me that attempting to coerce all children into learning C is the best way to accomplish your goal!

deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
Etheryte 4mo ago
In broad strokes, learning leads to better life outcomes just like brushing your teeth leads to better health outcomes, or any other example you may prefer. Brushing teeth is a chore so a child won't generally pick it up all by themselves without some nudging. If you don't do the nudging you're essentially letting a child be free, yes, but also willingly letting them end up worse off when they're too young to know any better. Learning is the same.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4mo ago
  > just like brushing your teeth leads to better health outcomes This is very context dependent. If you grow up surrounded by a typical western/industrial/post-industrial diet, then yes, it almost certainly does. But you could also change the food environment. Hopefully the analogy/metaphor that connects this to schooling is reasonably obvious.
  - fooo1882992 4mo ago
    So... We need to go back to living in the jungle? You go do that then. Enjoy your slow death from malaria.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 4mo ago
      Where did I say anything about living in the jungle? The food choices having nothing to do with the jungle, but rather: regular, significant consumption of highly processed and most significantly sweetened foods. There were plenty of people in the world before the widespread adoption of sugar as cooking ingredient whose dental health would likely not have been improved by brushing, and they didn't live in "the jungle" but places like ... America, and Japan, and India and ... basically the entire planet.

bwhiting2356 4mo ago

It's hard to convince kids why they should learn advanced abstract math, beyond what is necessary to calculate the tip on a restaurant bill. The number of high school students who will use advanced math beyond high school is very small, but those that do will have high impact, which is both in society's interest and their own interest as high earners. The kids that study and apply themselves, I don't think it's so much that they can see they understand the benefits of linear algebra at the time, it's that their parents and the social network they're a part of sends them signals that this is what they should do to be successful and they're rewarded for doing well in school.

parpfish 4mo ago
re: not teaching math to kids is a pet peeve of mine. the number of adults i've met who cannot add two fractions together is depressing. at some point each of them had decided "i'm just bad with numbers, hahaha" and they gave themselves permission to stop trying math. worse, society gives you a pass at not knowing math. we need to apply the same constant social pressure to mathematics skills that we do for learning to read.
- WalterBright 4mo ago
  When young people ask me why they should learn math, I point out that managing your money requires math, and there are plenty of people who will steal from you if you are unable to recognize it. An inability to understand compound interest is classic.
  - marcus_holmes 4mo ago
    But that's basic arithmetic, and we have calculators to do that. Totally agree that understanding the problem and being able to frame a solution are also needed, but again, that's not hard maths. I think we're more talking about algebra or, really, anything "higher" in maths than arithmetic. Does a solid knowledge of, e,g, Set Theory, give any benefit later in life? And also, if we think that basic financial management is a good thing for kids to learn, why don't we teach that?

bigthymer 4mo ago

Having multiple parallel tracks for different types of students is controversial. Schooling tends to be cyclical with periods with more tracking is popular shifting to periods of less tracking and more classroom mixing. It really depends on what you want to optimize for. More tracking benefits the highest achievers. Less tracking raises the bottom and the average but at the cost of not maximizing the outcome of the top.

hunterpayne 4mo ago
"Having multiple parallel tracks for different types of students is controversial." It shouldn't be. The research overwhelming says its a good practice. The type of people who say this type of thing are the exact type of ideologically motivated people who are destroying school systems in blue districts. Ironically this group both hates private schools and creates the environment that pushes parents to pay for private schools. I've personally seen the bad consequences of schools that do this and I know people who aren't here anymore because of it. So please, for the love of god, stop talking about topics you know nothing about.
- zozbot234 4mo ago
  It's not that easy. The status quo is that having multiple tracks creates terrible incentives among teachers: no teacher wants to teach the "bad" track, so they get stuck with the worst teachers and the worst educational outcomes over time. (This occurs not just because many remedial students have very real behavioral issues that deter the best teachers from engaging with them, but also notably because the progressive education establishment is dismissive of teaching methods that actually help those students learn effectively, and doesn't train general-ed educators in the use of such methods.)
- bigthymer 3mo ago
  > The research overwhelming says its a good practice. I disagree. From what I've read, the data is more mixed. More tracking optimizes for the top achievers. Less tracking optimizes for the lower and middle. Less tracking probably maximizes average metrics. > The type of people who say this type of thing are the exact type of ideologically motivated people who are destroying school systems in blue districts. Ironically this group both hates private schools and creates the environment that pushes parents to pay for private schools. I've personally seen the bad consequences of schools that do this and I know people who aren't here anymore because of it. I agree. However, I think the counter solution these people imagine is a similar scenario as described here <https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/sd3in2/nope_not_in_the_great_us_of_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/sd3in2/...>. > So please, for the love of god, stop talking about topics you know nothing about. Let's be civil. There is no need to attack me personally. You're welcome to disagree with my ideas, share your opinion, and present support. I think a reasonable person can find support for both opinions.

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]

itshossein 4mo ago

[dead]

cyberax 4mo ago

Here's the thing. Learning is hard. There's no going around it. You'll need to grind through practice problems, write essays, memorize facts, etc. And you need to do that. It trains your brain. If you simply rely on calculators, LLMs, and Google Search, then you likely can forget about doing advanced science. It doesn't mean that you have to _master_ everything. Far from it. But you need to apply real effort to various subjects to train yourself.

viccis 4mo ago

The answer is, as it's always been, aggressive tracking. Easier said than done because most school administrators and education policymakers base a lot of their self worth out of being "good people" and being liked by everyone. Having to give up on some kids is unthinkable to them. Simply giving up on all of the kids in a way that decouples the outcomes from their direct actions is much preferable and lets them sleep easy.

fuzzfactor 4mo ago

>figuring out how to move a student from an unwilling participant to a willing participant. I've been giving chemistry lessons since I was a teenager, and quite early this became my first order of business after that alone was responsible for turning a D student into a B student in one session. For that first non-mathematically inclined student who was having so much trouble, this had to be accomplished before any of the specific concepts and problems could be properly addressed in the course they were enrolled in. All that was accomplished in two hours was gradual but progressive reversal of attitude, not unlike what I was accustomed to in ramping up to more advanced subject matter, but we never got around to that during the first session. The next week they had a very positive attitude and were going to call me later with some challenging equations for some help. Wasn't necessary, the very next week they got a B on their own initiative, were so excited and passed everything after that with no further problems. It was probably the most thankful student I ever tutored.