Praise is detrimental to students when they’re given praise
for easy tasks signifying that you think they’re dumb. Children begin to worry about how smart they
seem, and when they fail at a task or have to work harder at something it means
they’re dumb. It’s detrimental to tell
children they’re smart because they then believe it’s an innate quality they
cannot control.
A kid obsessed with improving their intelligence to others
most likely will question their intelligence when faced with difficulties. A student who sees their performance as a
measure of their intelligence will feel denounced when they don’t perform well
and try to hide it. They will not focus
on their efforts at achieving a certain task but rather the fact to show that
they’re smart.
The most effective way to praise children is to praise them
for their effort because it is things that they can control and are able to
enhance for improvement. It’s important
to praise the strategies children use and not their performance that reveals attributes
of their intelligence. It’s important to
praise the quality of their work and not just telling them they’re smart. It gives students an impression that we
expect them to do perfect work. Instead
of praising students for easier work, we should have them do something more
challenging.
I liked your comment on how praising a child on their effort is effective because it is something that they can control. That is important because if a child is praised simply on their intelligence, they feel like there is nothing they can do to change it. If they do badly on a test after being praised consistently on being smart, they will immediately feel as if they are stupid and that the reason they did badly was because they were just not smart enough.
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