Notes

In Western culture, I believe that struggle is downplayed quite a bit when it comes to learning. We are an impatient society, and I feel that educators don't always cater to the students who stuggle the most, academically, because it is more time consuming, and may not be liked by students who do succeed academically. I appreciate how in Eastern culture, they accept struggle and turn it into something of strength, not weakness. Personally, I've always had a struggle with mathematics, and for most of my educational career, my mathematics educators didn't really want to give me the time of day. I would feel very embarrassed for not being able to keep up, so it's nice to know that in Eastern culture, educators are embracing intellectual struggle and associating it with emotional growth. Now, I have also had many amazing educators, and will always remember the extra time they put into me. They believed in me, which allowed me to believe in myself. Students shouldn't feel the need to easily give up, but that's how it is unfortunately. In the future, I'd love to see Western culture embrace struggle and not associate it with weakness. Struggle is a part of everyday life, and if we don't accept that, we are setting ourselves up for failure. Struggling allows us to keep trying, in the hopes of grasping whatever it is that we may be having problems with. I believe that Western culture would benefit if it normalized struggle in an educational environment.