From: galeni	Date: May 23rd, 2008 07:29 am (UTC)		(Link)

Woot! Sounds like a good week all round. And congratulations to Miss E!

	From: autojim	Date: May 25th, 2008 04:17 am (UTC)		(Link)

It was, and I'm proud of the kid. There were moments where I wasn't sure this would happen. Fortunately, she figured out that she needed to get her act somewhat lined up and was mostly self-motivating after that.

She's a good kid, and a reasonably bright one, too (she gets THAT from her mom, IMGDO, and not necessarily her father -- and remember I share no DNA alleals with this child). But she needs the appropriate motivation to apply herself to her studies.

	From: galeni	Date: May 26th, 2008 06:05 pm (UTC)		(Link)

(Begging mode on) what motivation did you apply?! My daughter is having problems motivating herself because she thinks she knows something (she's very smart) but when it comes to tests and remembering it she's dreadful but she won't study harder and I'm going slightly bonkers. Again, great kid, but doesn't push herself HARD for anything that I can see. Advice? (begging mode off) Probably I'm not a great example because I don't have any grand passion like you do.

	From: autojim	Date: May 28th, 2008 02:43 am (UTC)		(Link)

Motivation? Ha! If I knew, I'd tell you after making you sign and NDA, 'cause then I'd market it.

She still sucks at tests. It's unfortunately deeply ingrained at this point and there's not much I could ever do to un-do the damage her early elementary school "teachers" did ("If you all don't do well on the MEAP, I'll lose my job!" coupled with teaching only to the MEAP, how to regurgitate memorized rote answers and nothing of how to set up and actually SOLVE problems). (MEAP = Michigan Education Assessment Program or something like that.)

One of the reasons (okay, there were MANY reasons, but this is one of them) that my aunt the HS math teacher retired, even though she's still extremely passionate about teaching and now teaches at the local community college and still tutors, is that the administrators kept telling her to teach only to the standardized tests, not teach properly. She was *always* a tough mark, but you came out of her class knowing something (I was never her student; friends of mine were, though, not knowing until later that she was my aunt).

I firmly believe it is far more useful to the student to know how to pick out the key information, and if there's a problem to be solved, know how to use the key information to set up and solve the problem. It's adaptable to a variety of subjects, and imminently applicable in real life. Which is kind of the point, really. Miss E is a lot better about it now than she used to be, but I suspect it'll take her a little bit at the community college before the "CLICK" of the switch happens for her. Which is absolutely the point of the community college in this case.

Her mother is formidable proof that a community college isn't for flunkies -- she's got 3 associates degrees, and then went on to a bachelor's when she could afford to complete it, and is a couple months away from her master's and another month from that starts on her doctorate, which she's already be accepted for.

The key to motivation for me is simple: figure out a way to make a living doing something I love doing. What are your daughter's long-term interests (as opposed to passing fancies)? Google-fu; find careers that play to those interests. It's easier now to find vast quantities of information than it ever was when I was coming up. Then point her in that general direction and turn her loose/give her a nudge. Make it clear that she needs to find a way to make her own way in the world -- you'll always be Mom, but the idea of raising kids is that they grow up to become productive adults.

I did do one thing -- Miss E, when she did well, felt great about it. When she did poorly, she felt awful. So we talked about the differences -- how did she prepare when she did well compared with how she prepared when she did poorly? Okay, so now you know what you need to do to get that great feeling. Eventually, she also picked up on needing to do well to get accepted into the colleges she wanted to apply to. It didn't quite pan out the way she thought (like many an area student of... middling academic performance around here, she played the Ferris State University card: "They have a great X program!", thinking that her positively ancient parents would not be aware of Ferris' perpetual listing near the top of the "Top Party Schools" lists...) in that arena, but she did at least make it to the end and graduate.

	From: neutronjockey	Date: May 23rd, 2008 02:17 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Ahhhh yes, the Ford F$ckus front-end. I remember it well...

...well enough to not want to work on another one.

	From: autojim	Date: May 25th, 2008 04:14 am (UTC)		(Link)

Ahh, not that bad, really. Biggest problem I had with the left front was my own damn fault -- I had to undo, reposition the compressors, and recompress the spring a couple times until I got the compressors in places where they'd grab enough of the spring yet not interfere with either the spring base on the strut or the hat that goes on top.

Now I think it needs shocks. ::chortle:: I have... Plans... for that. ;)