In response to my last post, some one posted a link to a New York magazine article on the Power and Peril of Praising kids. There is so much good information in that article that it is going to take me awhile to absorb it. It also helps me see why I worry about our local gifted programs with their emphasis on intelligence and results. Two paragraphs in particular rang true to me because I’ve seen Kiki think exactly this way:
Dweck had suspected that praise could backfire, but even she was surprised by the magnitude of the effect. “Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,” she explains. “They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.”
In follow-up interviews, Dweck discovered that those who think that innate intelligence is the key to success begin to discount the importance of effort. I am smart, the kids’ reasoning goes; I don’t need to put out effort. Expending effort becomes stigmatized—it’s public proof that you can’t cut it on your natural gifts.
Anyway, I recommend that everyone go check out the article. I think I’m going to print the whole thing out and put it in my files just in case the online version eventually disappears
It was an article that illuminated a lot of thing that I’d known previously, but hadn’t quite seen in that light. I really like writing which does that, and am glad that you liked it too.
(Especially as your blog has similar moments of illumination, and I often feel that I should do more to support this than passively applauding as the light passes by).
I wish I had known that when I was younger! I now know what went wrong when I was at school. Shame it is over 40 years too late!
Too True
Thank you for these references. It helps to sum up what I’ve been coming to realize on my own. I am definately one of those “smart kids” that never developed the study and work habits I should have because I didn’t have to at school. I don’t know if my parents saw that or not. (I’m sure they would do better looking back. ah, 20/20 hindsight) Of course, they might not even know now how crippled I sometimes feel as a working engineer without the same ‘grit’ that many of my co-workers do. Sure I can look at a problem and understand it and even come up with the basic idea for how to solve it – probably as quick or quicker than anybody. But actually sitting down and slogging through the grunt work to make the solution happen is torture and almost impossible sometimes. I am fairly successful already, but I just see how much better I could do if I had that other set of skills/abilities also.
My wife, on the other hand, could sit down and study a single subject in college for 8 hours straight, while I was lucky if I could go 8 minutes without a distraction. (I somtimes wonder if I have a bit of ADD.) She may not be as “smart” as I am (but I beleive she is far smarter than she thinks she is – and prettier), but she accomplishes much more than I do because she can work so much harder at it. I hope one day to be able to convince her that her ability to work hard is more of a gift than any extra brains I may have, but so far she doesn’t beleieve me. She doesn’t see that while I may be able to do some things quicker, she is able to accomplish things that I just flat out can’t do.
I am a tremendous consumer of information and stories, and I can understand and recall most of the concepts I just skim over. I can even synthesize data togther and come up with a creative solution. But actaully getting down into the weeds of making the whole thing come together is almost beyond me.
I sometimes feel like a Dilbert comic I saw where Ratbert is sent as a consultant. He presents this grandiose scheme that will solve everything, but when he is asked to get to work on it he replies, “I’m more of an Idea Rat.”
Of course, to be fair, valueing myself based on my ‘smarts’ was not all bad. As a fat, 4-eyed, bookworm, brainer I was not the most socially accepted individual in elementary school, or junior high, and high school wasn’t all peaches and cream either. But because I did have something I was “the best at” I never felt like I was completely worthless. I distinctly remember consoling myself after one incident that the other guy probably didn’t even know what the quadratic formula was. Sad, but true.
yes, they are good articles, brough back lots of bad memories from my childhood. Nothing new or revolutionary, though, but still it’s good to see academia slowly beginning to realize what kids could have told them ages ago: you’re not helping, you’re overloading the pressure quotient.
A good point raised in one of them was teaching gifted children strategies to learn to cope with failure, strategies on how to work and put in effort.
When it came to matters requiring knowledge or “being smart” in my whole family I was the only one always expected to know the answer, seen that of course I’ll do well, I always do, and it was that way since I was a very little kid. The only one who ever warned that I’m going to see my arse, was my granddad.
He was right. I nearly failed high school and dropped out of varsity. Made life very hard for myself, and there are many things that played a role in those years, but the fear I’d developed of failing at academia was one. It was easier for me not to try, than to try and fail. I even walked out of varsity exams after only putting down my name. Safer, see. And I was tired, just exhausted from the pressure. First time in my life I genuinely tried (late high school) to study I only got 65%. Impossible to explain the shock and how much that shook me. I used to get 80-90% while sleepwalking through class. 2nd year university was the first time I ever went to a lecturer after class and admitted I don’t know what’s going on in class. He explained it to me and I did well in his class. But it was a big move for me at the time, realizing it’s normal to admit you don’t know and need help.
Dropping out, I bounced from menial job to menial job, shrugging off all the “why are you working here? you’re too smart, you shouldn’t be doing this.” Yeah, I knew that, but it was easier, there were no expectations to excel, no matter of fact that I would not just do well, but do exceptionally well. It was just easier.
Took me ten years before I went anywhere near an exam again after I dropped out, and then it was only because I absolutely had to.
Got the highest marks overall.
Over time you become aware of and resigned to things like that, but being aware of it doesn’t mean you know how to handle it any easier than you did when you were a kid.
Persistence is not something I’m good at, knowing how to work hard for something is something I’ve had to learn and am still learning, never had to work at anything in my life so it’s a whole new thing.
And the fear of failure never goes away, in the back of your mind is always that little voice: “I used to be smart, everything used to be easy, why can’t I do it anymore? When did it go wrong, when did I get dumb?”
Never goes away. Even with my writing it’s right there, and it’s the hardest thing in writing for me, personally, to get around, the fact that it’s ok to not be brilliant and exceptional every single time (or even right off the bat for that matter, it comes through time and it doesn’t matter if it happens or not), the fact that it’s ok to fail and you’re allowed to feel good about succeeding at something.
And working at it, working at the writing. ooh, boy, that’s a tough one to process, same as persistence:) that old desire to just quit and give up is there every single day, and every day I have to tell myself it’s ok, it doesn’t matter, it’s something you get better at, not something you do well by instinct.
ah, well, that’s a bit of a lifestory you didn;t need to hear:) old bitterness dies hard, I guess.
anyways, yeah, good articles. teach your kids how to handle failure, teach them work and effort ethics and they’ll be good.