I think these boards are great at attracting people with ADD.
It reminds me of...ooo look, lightning, I like li...and that reminds me of a hike I took with...and oh crap, forgot to feed the cat....
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Darian Hagan Talks Recruiting
- Thread starter BuffClass90
- Start date
It reminds me of...ooo look, lightning, I like li...and that reminds me of a hike I took with...and oh crap, forgot to feed the cat....
dply
Doble hoja
You stole that right off of the Allbuffs missions statement page.
As an educator, though not on the elementary or pre-K level I would say Nick's definition is a good summation of the professional concensus on the terms. When I got into education in the late 1980's we were just coming off the first big wave of the idea that all problems would be solved if we just "gave kids self-esteem." Schools tried to take aout competitive elements because they figured that if kids never lost they would feel like winners and like themselves. They tried to remove any form of criticism because they didn't want the kids hearing negative feedback. Failure could never happen because the kids would think badly about themselves and have low self-esteem so opportunities to fail were removed.
I didn't buy it then and I buy it even less now. Self-esteem isn't something that is inherent and it is not something that is given. It is something that can be grown and formed by a succession of real successes in situations that present challenges. It comes from overcoming challenges and accomplishing more than the kid thought or expected to overcome. By nature this means that things will be appropriately difficult and the kid will sometimes fail, but that failure can be overcomeand when it is the kid learns that they have it within themselves to overcome things that are difficult.
As educators, and as parents, we cannot give kids self-esteem. We can provide them the opportunities to earn and develop that self-esteem and support them in that task. We can help them to understand a process their successes and the challenges they have not yet overcome but ultimately it comes from within.
Recently, over the past few years I have been more interested in another educational idea that I think is a huge determinant of success, both academically and in life. It is the idea of mindset, which as described by the developers says that kids generally fall into one of two catagories. One of those catagories is the fixed mindset which says they believe that their ability to succeed is based on their inherent talents and abilities. I'm good at math because I'm just smart at that and I'm bad at English because that is just the way I am. This tends to turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy that is very hard to overcome. "I can't do fractions and I never will be able to do fractions because I am just stupid at math so why bother to even try."
The other mindset is the growth mindset which equates success and failure not with talent but with personal actions and effort. This leads to the idea that if a kid puts his/her focus on something and does the right work on it with enough effort they can succeed. The only question then becomes the willingness and interest in putting out the effort. Success is equated with action. "Calculus was hard but I knew if I just did the homework and got some help I would get it and now it makes sense."
The best resource on this is a book that is written for educators but I would also recommend to interested parents. Mindset, The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck. I can also see this book being very helpful to people in management positions who are frustrated with their employees failure or resistance to adapt to change or new challenges.
The really important part with kids is to emphasize the process and the work, to praise or criticize the effort not what could be looked at as inherent characteristics. As an example the response to a kids submission would be "That looks great, you obviously put a lot of work and concentration into that." instead of "That looks great, you are very talented." On the other side the response would be "That doesn't quite meet the quality you can do, did you put the effort into it that you should have." instead of "That doesn't meet the expectations, you aren't very good at this work are you?" The message always needs to be that the results are determined by effort, not by inherent characteristics. We avoid "You're smart" and replace it with "Your hard work shows."
There still are differences in individual talents but the effort usually has a lot more to do with the outcome than the talent. As you say I will never be a Picasso (definately not a DiVinci) but I can get much better than I am. Not every kid can be great at everything but they can be better at what they put the effort into making themselves better at.
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Buffenuf
massive tool
This was a football thre.....Oh look! a squirrel!