When teachers give universal praise to students such as “Good
Job” this is detrimental to students. Telling a student good job for completing
an assignment and good job for getting an A+ on a test is not appropriate. The
two tasks did not take the same skills and efforts, so they should not be
rewarded the same way. This provides the student with a thought that the
teacher is not really caring or paying attention. The praise should be personal
and specific to each situation to be effective.
One problem might be that the child wants to always be seen
as intelligent and never as wrong. They might not want to try a difficult task
that could make them seem unintelligent. The student also might not want to
take a risk that could challenge them because of the fear of failure. This is a
problem because the student is not challenging themselves to learn more. They
are learning the bare minimum just to seem intelligent. If they are not
challenging themselves to learn more difficult tasks, then they are not
reaching their full learning potential.
We should praise children when they do something well by
praising them about their strategies and efforts, not praising them by their
talents at a certain subject. If we praise them about their abilities and
talents they might believe that they have no control. But, if we praise them
about their strategies and efforts the students can see that these can be
changed and controlled. Dweck also says that we should not praise children for
completing a task that is easy for them. We should instead apologize to them for
giving them a task too simple for them.
A lot of times, students tend to choose the easier topic or assignment because it will ensure good grades, and that is not entirely their fault since the American school system puts strong focus on grades. Teachers, though, need to encourage students to reach their highest potential, like Sydney was saying. They need to be there to motivate and encourage students that trying harder tasks is good for them. They need to tell them that it's not always about getting the right answers, but about pushing yourself and fully learning the concepts.
ReplyDelete