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Growth Mindset

Why does how I say what I say matter?

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I often wondered why marks mattered to me so much while I was at school. I was extremely studious even though I was not passionate about my subjects. I was not pressurised into studying by my parents or my teachers. While my friends were goofing around, I was glued to my text books.

My interests have changed over time and I have struggled to incorporate these changes into my life. I enjoyed math and chemistry in school and philosophy in college and literature, farming and gender studies while at Sholai. I started playing tennis after many years and hope to learn to dance in the near future as well. Many times, I have felt uninspired to explore new interests because I fear failure. I continue to dream about learning new languages and playing an instrument.

Is it too late or is it never too late?

Imagined Dialogue

I share an imagined dialogue with various thinkers to shed light on some of the aforementioned questions.

Q: What do you think about the emphasis that schools put on success? If we do not succeed at school and in our examinations, our futures may be jeopardised.

J. Krishnamurthi: As long as success is our goal we cannot be rid of fear, for the desire to succeed inevitably breeds the fear of failure. That is why the young should not be taught to worship success. (1)

Q: When we shift the focus away from success, what do we see?

John Holt: A child exploring the world, free of praise and blame, is learning a lot by exploring the world. Do not think in terms of success and failure but of effort and adventure. It is only when pleasing adults becomes important that the sharp line between success and failure appears. (2)

Q: What if a child exploring the world keeps making mistakes and going wrong?

Ken Robinson: What we do know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this.
We stigmatize mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities. My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.How can we encourage children to take risks and make mistakes? (3)

Q: So as educators, how can we be careful about when and how we correct a child’s mistakes so that we do not kill their sense of adventure and creativity?

John Holt: I spoke at a PTA meeting recently, and repeated the story of Lisa giving the name "cows" to a class of animals including cows, horses, and sheep. I explained that we did not correct her because it would be discourteous; because we were too pleased to hear her talk to be worried about "mistakes"; and because, realizing that she had done some bold and powerful thinking, we did not want to do anything to make her doubt its worth or discourage her from doing more such thinking in the future. I also emphasized that correction was in fact not needed, that the child was soon able, by herself, to get her names and classes straightened out.

In the same way, it takes children some time to get used to the shapes of letters and words, to the point where they can see at a glance that this word is like that one, and this other word almost like it, and this other word altogether different. So we must give them plenty of time and not be surprised or upset by what looks like slowness, or stupid mistakes. When children, having looked for a long time at two words on a page, without seeing that they are the same, suddenly exclaims, "Oh, I see, they are the same!" we must not think that what they have done is trivial. We must realize that the child has made a real and important discovery.

And the point of this to us as teachers is that we don't always have to be in such a big hurry to correct children's mistakes. We can afford to give them time to notice and correct them themselves. And the more they do this, the better they will become at doing it, and the less they will need and depend on us to do it for them. The less they have to depend on us, the faster they can teach themselves.

One of the most important things teachers can do for any learner is to make the learner less and less dependent on them. We need to give students ways to find out for themselves whether what they have done is correct and makes sense.

When we constantly find the need to point out mistakes and correct them, a child’s capacity to self-check and self-correct will die out instead of developing. (4)

Q: So, praise can be harmful for children as well?

Jim Taylor: Excessive praise lowers the bar for children. Kids who are overpraised may not push themselves to improve. Excessive praise can also make your child feel that your approval and love are conditional on their performance and achievement. Too much praise can create “praise junkies” who crave the approval of others. These children may come to depend on the evaluation and judgment of others rather than learning to form their own opinions of their abilities. Excessive praise can also create extreme pressure.

As children begin to rely on approval from others, they become terrified of losing this approval. Consequently, they may avoid challenging activities and become self-conscious rather than confident.Intrinsic motivation can decrease as a result of excessive praise.Ultimately, children who receive too much praise may learn to conform instead of innovating. They’re less likely to be creative and self-directing, and they may feel crippled by pressure.

They may also choose activities based on what they think will please their parents and earn them the praise they’ve come to need. For these reasons, it’s important to praise our children sparingly. (5)

Q: To praise our children mindfully, what should we be aware of?

Henderlong and Lepper: When children think your praise is insincere, they assume you feel sorry for them, are manipulating them, or don’t understand them. If this is the case, they will dismiss the praise, making it ineffective. Insincere praise can be more than just ineffective; it can be damaging.

When children know they haven’t done well and are praised anyway, they will wonder why people feel the need to lie to them about their abilities and achievements. They may assume that praise is being used to cover up the fact that they're incompetent or that something is “wrong” with them. Additionally, you don’t want to give your child false praise that will make them think they don’t need to improve or try harder next time.

When our children do poorly, our instinct may be to praise them to make them feel better. These good intentions will backfire and make your child feel worse, so offer sincere praise only when it’s earned. (5)

Q: What should we be praising in our children?

Carol Dweck: Person praise is ability-oriented praise, like, “You’re so smart!” or, “You’re very artistic.”Process praise means praising effort, strategies used, thoughtful concentration, self-correction, etc.Of these two types of praise, process praise is far more effective. Researcher Dr. Carol S. Dweck explains that person praise can result in a fixed mindset, while process praise results in a growth mindset.This is because person praise makes children believe that qualities like intelligence are fixed characteristics that don’t change over time.

As a result, these children develop a fixed mindset and may avoid challenges that will test their abilities.On the other hand, process praise encourages children to challenge themselves, take risks, make an effort, and continue learning and growing. These children develop a growth mindset, understanding that intelligence and ability can increase with practice and effort.

Overall, personal praise and the fixed mindset it creates can diminish intrinsic motivation and perseverance. If a child with a fixed mindset encounters a difficult challenge, they're more likely to give up. They will believe that they’ve reached the limit of their abilities. (6)

Additional Media

Citations

(1). Education and the significance of life by J Krishnamurti

(2). How children fail by John Holt
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(3). Do schools kill creativity? by Ken Robinson

(4). How children learn by John Holt

(5). The ultimate guide to praising your children by Ashley Cullins

(6). Mindset - Updated Edition: Changing The Way You Think To Fulfil Your Potential by Carol Dweck

Thinking Rhizomatically

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