I've made a real effort with Ben and Sara to emphasize that they enjoy something, or that they're trying really hard, rather than "Oh, you're so smart!”

Yep, this is exactly it. It’s a hugely important thing to understand as a teacher or a parent, and such the opposite of what my generation was raised with. There were smart kids and mediocre kids and dumb kids--very caste-like--and if you were “smart” but didn’t get something right away, maybe you weren’t as smart as you’d thought. SUCH a different mindset than one that sees failure as an opportunity for growth. The really amazing thing is the research Dweck conducted with elementary school students.Here is the article that really, profoundly shifted my understanding of intelligence and how it was impacting my students: [link]

Along with reading that, if you want to see how you fall in the fixed-growth mindset range? There’s a quiz here: [link]

The one thing I get with Sara a LOT is that she wants to be reassured, or just loves praise. "Do you think I'm a good artist, Mommy?" That kind of thing. And that's more nebulous than grades and academics, certainly, but I always, "Do you like doing art? What's your favorite thing to do?" or something along those lines, to sort of steer her away from the good/bad mindset.

Pix, both those links go to the same page.

Coffee: If you can’t see the whole Scientific American article without subscribing and want to see it, email me. I have a pdf of it and would like everyone to read it. Truly.

Thanks, Hill: link's fixed, but I think you can only see the beginning. Like I said, it’s worth reading and I have a copy if anyone wants to see it.

Here’s a snippet from the article:

In addition to encouraging a growth mind-set through praise for effort, parents and teachers can help children by providing explicit instruction regarding the mind as a learning machine. Blackwell, Trzesniewski and I recently designed an eight-session workshop for 91 students whose math grades were declining in their first year of junior high. Forty-eight of the students received instruction in study skills only, whereas the others attended a combination of study skills sessions and classes in which they learned about the growth mind-set and how to apply it to schoolwork.

In the growth mind-set classes, students read and discussed an article entitled “You Can Grow Your Brain.” They were taught that the brain is like a muscle that gets stronger with use and that learning prompts neurons in the brain to grow new connections. From such instruction, many students began to see themselves as agents of their own brain development. Students who had been disruptive or bored sat still and took note. One particularly unruly boy looked up during the discussion and said, “You mean I don’t have to be dumb?”

As the semester progressed, the math grades of the kids who learned only study skills continued to decline, whereas those of the students given the growth-mind-set training stopped falling and began to bounce back to their former levels. Despite being unaware that there were two types of instruction, teachers reported noticing significant motivational changes in 27 percent of the children in the growth mind-set workshop as compared with only 9 percent of students in the control group. One teacher wrote: “Your workshop has already had an effect. L [our unruly male student], who never puts in any extra effort and often doesn’t turn in homework on time, actually stayed up late to finish an assignment early so I could review it and give him a chance to revise it. He earned a B+. (He had been getting Cs and lower.)”

Other researchers have replicated our results. Psychologists Catherine Good, then at Columbia, and Joshua Aronson and Michael Inzlicht of New York University reported in 2003 that a growth mind-set workshop raised the math and English achievement test scores of seventh graders. In a 2002 study Aronson, Good (then a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin) and their colleagues found that college students began to enjoy their schoolwork more, value it more highly and get better grades as a result of training that fostered a growth mind-set.

Happy birthday, Burrell and Calli!

Oh crap. I am a bad and random Buffista.

Happy Birthday Burrell! Happy Birthday, Calli!

And Allyson, I’m so sorry to hear about your family’s troubles. Brenda, sorry to hear how stressed you are about your own, too.

That's my oldest kid. He's still completely resistant to anything that doesn't come naturally or easily.

I have one of those, but she's been working on overcoming that habit. Best motivator has been athletic endeavors like jumping rope and riding a bike, because she can see for herself the improvement that comes with practice.

The internet tells me that we're having another rapture on Friday. Or the actual one. So I thought I'd check in and see if anyone has rapture plans or what.

I have dinner plans Friday. Not sure which I'd prefer, to be left behind so I can enjoy my dinner or be raptured away so I can avoid my grading.

I've never praised my kids a lot.

I do make sure they feel very loved. I'm not stingy with love.

But especially when they want some ego-strokes for doing something that I think they're supposed to do, I usually just say, "Good job."

Emmett had a lot of success in baseball. He hit a grand slam in a district championship game, hit a game-winner in a sectional championship and tied for the team lead in RBIs on a state championship team. But, the two things I really praised him for in baseball were (a) dealing with his fear of getting hit by the ball in that same season where he had those successes; (b) his catching in the state championship game which was not about talent but all about hard hard work, blocking dozens of pitches in the dirt with the tying run on base.

The one thing I will praise a lot is kindness and thoughtfulness. Otherwise, "Good job."