Skip Downing's My Lazy American Students

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What is a victim mindset? A victim mindset is when someone is busy blaming other and complaining instead of finding a solution for their problem. On the other hand is creator mindset which is when someone is focused on finding the solution to their problem and taking action. Skip Downing a college professor with a doctoral degree in English and master’s in psychology talks about these different mindsets in his book On Course: Strategies for Creating Success in College and in Life. This book is also about how students’ can become successful and what skills they would need in order to achieve success. Kara Miller teaches rhetoric and history at Babson College which is a private school in Massachusetts. Her article “My Lazy American Students” …show more content…

“My “C,” “D,” and “F” students this semester are almost exclusively American, while my students from India, China, and Latin America have – despite language barriers – generally written solid papers, excelled on exams, and become valuable class participants,” states Kara Miller, a rhetoric and history professor at Babson college, in her article “My Lazy American Students” (1). This means that the American students are not studying enough or not understanding the material. It can also mean that they don’t put much effort into their classes or don’t pay attention in class. Skip Downing, an English professor with a master’s in Psychology, explains in his book On Course: Strategies for Creating Success in College and in Life, “In college, two of the most important ways you’ll collect information and skills are through reading textbooks and attending classes” (25). When you attend classes you are exposed to the material and when you read your textbook you are exposed a second time. This allows you to retain information better. Then, you can ask questions during class on the material you didn’t understand. This will allow you to apply your understanding of the material to exams and might even help you pass the class. This would have allowed Miller’s American students to do better in her class. If you don’t pay attention during class then you’re essentially just cramming the information in your brain when reading the text. In addition, if you only pay attention during class and don’t read the textbook then you will miss out on valuable information not covered in the

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