Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

It seems, according to some, you should never ever, never praise your child for being intelligent. That is right.... only praise their "effort", not their achievements. "six studies demonstrated that praise for intelligence had more negative consequences for students' achievement motivation than praise for effort. Fifth graders praised for intelligence were found to care more about performance goals relative to learning goals than children praised for effort. After failure, they also displayed less task persistence, less task enjoyment, more low-ability attributions, and worse task performance than children praised for effort. Finally, children praised for intelligence described it as a fixed trait more than children praised for hard work, who believed it to be subject to improvement. These findings have important implications for how achievement is best encouraged, as well as for more theoretical issues, such as the potential cost of performance goals and the socialization of contingent self-worth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)." https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-04530-003

So... what is the take away.... do not encourage your children to cultivate their intelligence, encourage them to just do enough to get by and fit in with the "rocks" in their classes. So, the vegetable who sits next to your child who can not grasp the concept of 1 plus 1 will be rewarded for their "effort" and your child who can explain mathematical physics.... is given a pat on the head. And we wonder why we can not compete educationally with China or Germans... or Japanese.....

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Hi Pennylynn...
How have you been?
Great topic...

Firstly... As an educator from a family of educators let me just express my opinion that the education in the West has encountered some serious problems in the past few decades... The drive to empower our children has led to a lack of discipline, and a sense of entitlement...
This theory of rewarding children for effort rather than success has resulted in an entire generation dev**ed to mediocrasy.. Where more effort is expended tearing successful individuals down than is spent raising oneself up...

Secondly.. As one who works in one of the above mentioned nations allow me to express my knowledge that indeed the West is failing to compete with these nations...
The average parent in China has far higher expectations (and is far more aware) concerning their child's schooling....
But this philosophy of 'protecting one's child from psychological damage' has also begun to permeat throughout China as well... The number of entitled 'little emporers' has increased dramatically and has led to a growing resentment amongst the educational community.... As schooling is free, and class sizes often exceed 50 (or even 60-70) students, a greater number of schools are simply expelling students who are unable to meet the standards (both academic and behavioral) set by the education board...
At the same time... Schools and centers for moral and life sk**ls have become ever more popular...

Thirdly... Children should always be encouraged to try... And to learn to fail with grace... And to succeed with dignity..
Failure is not to be rewarded...
Effort is to be lauded...
Success is to be applauded...

Hope you are in good health... Look forward to reading the other responses...

Your friend, Kyle

debeda

YEP. I worked for an educational foundation for a number of years, during the height of the advent of PC (98-2004) and saw the t***sition from praising and nurturing ability to praising "participation". My take away from it was about education being dumbed down. For instance, the kids that participated were given far more recognition than the kids who achieved. Further, an increasing amount of teachers tended to actually discount kids who consistently did well, and would actually at times say to them it was "easy" for them, in effect discounting their achievements even when they went above and beyond. Also, as a mom with a wide range of ages in my kids (I have 4, born between 1970 and 1985) I also saw the t***sition to victimhood by teachers. Teachers went from being proud of their positions and sincere in wanting to educate, and pleased with their jobs (largely as a group) to whining about not being treated as "professionals" like doctors or lawyers (An example - when in a meeting I suggested that if teachers wanted to be treated as professionals being part of a labor union didnt portray that level of professionalism, one of our Princeton interns "corrected" me and said doctors had the AMA and lawyers had the Bar Association. I looked over at him and asked if he really thought those were collective bargaining entities - he replied "of course". Bad enough, but the other adult educated professionals in the meeting AGREED with him). I could go on and on about this, but will say that many teachers, like everyone else, are coming out of colleges indoctrinated to feeling entitled, and to dislike the notion of "working their way up. Again, not all, but it seems the amount increases exponentially each year.

debeda

GREAT post, Kyle!!!

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

I found yours eerily similar to the situation in Canada...

Though I would like to see educators paid more... Certainly they play a more vital roll than rappers or boy bands...

debeda

Honestly, don't know the pay scale or work hours in Canada, I can only speak to what I know. And teachers in illinois make a VERY good salary and have phenomenal benefits for what is in effect a part time job. There is no more "grading papers at night" cuz they have blocks of time during their work day to do that. There is VERY adequate funds earmarked for "Teachers institute", their retirement is 80% of what they make their last 3 years of working, and their contract calls for a 1038 hour work year (as opposed to the average person at 2080 per year with a 40 hour workweek). In my town, the high school teachers lost ALL of their community support for their strike in 2003 when the district was smart enough to send and publish what teachers had currently and what they wanted. The median wage was $83k per year. And they had all of the above benefits. A few years ago the Chicago public schools were on strike and their sticking point was vacation time. The regular Joes were left thinking ??????????WTH??
As far as entertainers, I have long been astounded at what people are willing to pay to be entertained!

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Wow!
83 thousand a year is twice what a teacher makes in my province...

A good entertainer deserves recognition for their ability... Others... Not so much...

debeda

YEP and that was over 15 years ago. Plus they could of course get "stipends" for extra work like running the parking permit program or some such. That particular program's stipend was 10k per year, BTW. As far as entertainers, sports figures, etc, I think it's ridiculous what they make, but that's all dependent on what us dumb schmos are willing to pay. We the People have far more power than we realize or exercise.IMO