I do tend to obsess about this conundrum. As a coach, my players seemed to need negativity in order to change behaviors; in other words, they never seemed to respond to positive feedback. Unless I was roaring epithets from the sideline like a lunatic they made the same mistakes one (long) game after another. To get positive results I felt like I needed to be a monster. I mean, it seems like too many of the people who learn and achieve the most have AWFUL upbringings. Einstein, Oprah, Hemingway. I got pretty good at a sport, for instance, and I attribute it to a horrible coach. He pulled me in front of the whole team and roasted me. I vowed to never let that happen again! (Shoot, just re-lived the pre-teen moment a little there.)
No matter how many times being nice seemed useless, I can't believe that being evil to children is the way to produce great learning.
Which should explain my delight when I came across a Carol Dweck video (thank you Kate Murray!). The basic premise? How we, the educator, interact with our learners matters greatly. Carol quickly explained why my players didn't grow. But it wasn't because I was giving 'positive' praise. Actually, they weren't growing because my praise was, well, BAD. (Again, perhaps they grew when I scared the hormones out of them, but I hated myself.) Going nutshell here, according to Carol Dweck, good praise focuses on effort and process. Ineffective praise focuses on right vs. wrong, whether I'm being nice or screaming.
Carol's findings are staggering. When students are praised for correctness, they get worse over time and avoid taking risks: they become pleasers. Even more significantly, they become LESS correct over time. Conversely, when students are praised for effort and perseverance, they tend to take more risks, try harder tasks and ultimately are MORE accurate, more correct. Well, color me a praiser!
(Ok, odds are you skipped past the video. DON'T. Watch the video. It does a far better job than I do.)
I watched this video and felt immediately changed. Learning takes time; students grows subtly. As I hugged my daughter and for the first time praised how hard she worked in the swimming pool versus how proper her form was, I didn't care if I was right or wrong. I am not sure if there were visible results in her performance. I loved how big her smile was.
And the next day? She crushed her 100 meter lap time . . . for 50 meters. Then she mistimed her breath and swallowed 1/2 the pool. As she came up to me coughing and hacking, I didn't mention once how silly it was to breath water. Nope, 'great effort kid. Great effort.'
No comments:
Post a Comment