We can all be tiger students, as long as we want to be.

The topic of American students vs. Chinese and Indian students has been of major interest to me ever since I saw 2 million minutes a few years ago and especially after the TIME magazine article about Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother was published last year. I decided to write a feature about Asian student lifestyles in the school newspaper last year. When I began reporting, I hypothesized that the key to success for Asian students was the pressure from their parents. The responses I received from four Asian students, as well as their parents, expressed that many Asian students grow up with a hard work mentality. They appreciate the amount of effort that their parents had to dedicate in order to come to work in the United States, and they hope to live up to the high expectations of their parents. The students overwhelmingly responded that their high grades and test scores came as a result of self - motivation. This is what 2 million minutes and "For once, blame the student" are arguing. I agree that American students can definitely learn from our Asian counterparts because of their exceptional dedication to their schoolwork and their drive to succeed, but we must also remember that within our American schools, we are comparing a large heterogeneous group of Caucasian students to a select group of Asian students who are descendants of a select group of very intelligent and hard working Asian immigrants. At the same time, I do realize the cultural difference in work ethics displayed in 2 million minutes. While Asian students are taught to focus solely on their academic work, American students have a much wider variety of activities and distractions. As a personal example, I don't spend nearly as much time on my homework as I could on a regular afternoon because I might have rehearsal for the musical, a meeting for a school club, or a set of emails that I need to send regarding one of my leadership roles. This does not make me any less dedicated to my school work, it just gives my life some balance and allows me to apply myself in a setting outside of school. I think this balance is what many of the students in 2 million minutes are lacking. Social life, sports, and extra curricular activities are an important part of the high school experience.
But don't get me wrong, I agree completely with Mike Rose and Patrick Welsh when they  frown upon the lack of motivation and focus that many American students have. I love the following quote from I Just Wanna Be Average, "Bullshit, of course, is everything you - and the others - fear is beyond you." I feel that too many American students focus too much on the present and not enough on their future. I believe that oftentimes, the slackers are afraid of what is ahead of them: college, a job, the need to make a living for oneself. They would rather go to that party instead of working on their Mopro because they can deal with the consequences later. I think that the difference between someone who barely gets by in school and someone who succeeds in AP classes is not only their level of intelligence. It is whether they view high school as simply a memorable experience or as preparation for something much bigger in their future.