<p><a href="http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/%5B/url%5D">http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/</a> </p>
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Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test. The "smart" kids took the cop-out.
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<p>This has implications for parents helping children prepare for college, I think.</p>
<p>Classic risk-averse behavior. They will be the ones, in a few years, posting on CC asking which classes/tests are easiest, what ECs colleges are looking for, and complaining about the athletes/URMs/legacies getting a few extra brownie points.</p>
<p>An insightful article. I have found the line to be a challenge for me as a parent. My D is both creative and bright. She tested much higher than both of us did. What I have tried to install in my D is the concept that one can only do their best-whatever "best" is for that person. I have worked hard with her teachers to keep her enganged in the learning process, so that she would not zone out. We wanted her to stay with her peers rather than skip grades, so she could also develop her social skills. It does mean thinking outside the box when keeping the student involved with their intellictual development-it can't simply be "because I said so". It may also explain the high number of kids with autism-because essentially the child just "zones out".because its all too easy.</p>
<p>Interesting article, but awfully simplistic. I have often told my kids they are smart, but maybe 8 time out of 10 that's followed by some sort of caveat that you don't get any moral credit for being born talented -- it's what you do with it that counts. And lots in their lives -- very much including, but certainly not limited to the college application process -- tells them that there are few less desirable reputations than that of being a smart slacker. I hope that they have gotten the message that they are smart, that they should believe in and trust their own intelligence, but that their very smartness imposes on them an obligation to push themselves and to see how far they can take it.</p>
<p>My kids responded somewhat differently to that message, by the way. The older one -- who was something of an academic star at a very early age -- challenges herself a lot in areas she finds interesting, but "cheats" a little in other areas. For example, she chose a college with a demanding core curriculum that forced her to take more science and math than she would have liked, and that was something she valued highly in her college search process, but she actively sought out easy courses to satisfy those science and math requirements, while taking very challenging English courses. She also stopped trying to be the best in her non-favored courses beginning around 8th grade, when she had a terrible experience in an accelerated math class. She decided that Bs in math were just fine, and stayed on the accelerated track only to get out of a year of math in HS.</p>
<p>My son was more of a middle-of-the-pack student until 7th or 8th grade, and he really bloomed when he went to a high school with lots of explicit competition and near daily feedback in the form of grades. All of a sudden he was a star, not just part of the star's entourage (his middle school girlfriend was really, really a star, making him seem way more pedestrian than he should have by comparison). He very much internalized the message that you are not really smart unless you are acing an all AP/IB/Honors/substantive curriculum; he enthusiastically pushed himself beyond what I thought was reasonable. And there was no subject he felt like slacking off on. If he couldn't be the absolute best in Physics, he wanted to stay as close as possible to the leader so that maybe his superiority in History would close the overall gap, if not in class rank then in God's mind. On the whole, he is more praised now than my daughter, but all that praise comes with a price. He is much less comfortable than she saying, "THIS is what I choose to focus on"; what he focuses on is what other people tell him is important. There is no area where his achievement surpasses what his sister can do in her favored fields. And, while it hasn't affected his behavior much so far, I can see a certain fear of failure building up. He has so much invested in his status that it's getting hard for him to keep risking it all. </p>
<p>The college application process has been much harder on him than it was on his sister: He is furious at the lack of automatic reward for his overall success and his "stats", and fearful that no one will respect him if his college isn't as prestigious as people expect. He is like a praise junkie -- more than willing to jump higher and run faster to get more applause, but panicked and desperate if the applause isn't immediately forthcoming.</p>
<p>Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test. The "smart" kids took the cop-out. </p>
<p>-- just a contrary thought: maybe the smart thing WAS to pass on some dumb test...</p>
<p>That's interesting....I guess I'm supposed to be one of those smart, no effort people. I never really had to put much effort into things in high school, but because I got such good grades and I didn't play a sport, people assumed that all I did was sit around at home and study, which I absolutely hated because I didn't want them to think I was a big nerd. My parents were forever telling me I was smart, but it was just sort of a general statement...other people would get rewards for getting an all-A report card but I just got "All As? Good." (or "You got a B? Why? Why wasn't it an A?") My parents really aren't all that smart so maybe they honestly believed it, or maybe they just thought that's what you should be saying...my mom has a friend who will call her kids dumb if she thinks they've done something dumb, and my mom's always complaining about how absolutely horrible and mean she is to do that.</p>
<p>When it came college time, my mother honestly believed that I was "sooo smart" I could go to any college in the country that I wanted. Well, I knew that was definitely untrue so I guess I kinda took it the opposite way and ended up applying to mostly schools that could've been considered safety schools. I probably could've gone to a much better school, but then I knew nothing about the whole admissions game either, so maybe not.</p>
<p>Interesting. I'm emailing the link to my kids. From an early age they (and their classmates) have seen through the self-esteem movement that espouses "everyone's a winner" and "you're all special." And yes, they grew up in a NYC suburb.</p>
<p>A fascinating article and I would love to see a follow up. Anyone here who has read my postings knows that I have said many times that learning entails hard work and that I love those students who do in fact work hard. I just never realized that praising a students smarts might have a deleterious impact on their education.</p>
<p>I know as a parent I have told our son that he was smart but more often I told him that all I expected was that he do the work as good as possible. The final grade? Ehh. Maybe this is the reason that after studying very hard and getting a D on his DSA midterm, a course considered to be one of the department weedouts, he stuck with it and rallied to get an A! My wife and I were extremely proud of and happy for him.</p>
<p>To me, the most interesting aspect of this research is that learners who believe they can improve their ability through effort are right. Our local newspaper reported on one case today </p>
<p><a href="http://www.startribune.com/1592/story/998431.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.startribune.com/1592/story/998431.html</a> </p>
<p>a boy I have had the privilege of meeting in person. He uses the term "mindset" (one of researcher Carol Dweck's pet terms, indeed the title of her</a> popular book on her research findings) to motivate his team, which had a crushing dominance of the whole state this year, even over other teams with more "natural" advantages.</p>
<p>"To me, the most interesting aspect of this research is that learners who believe they can improve their ability through effort are right."</p>
<p>This is why I believe that music lessons and sports are great for teaching kids that no matter how "good" you get, you are always ridiculously inept. There is no such thing as mastery. There's always more to learn. </p>
<p>There are no 90% A's. Getting 1 out of every 10 notes wrong is never acceptable. Just when you think you have it knocked, someone comes along and knocks the wind out of you by making you look ridiculous swinging at a curveball. Humility is a good thing.</p>
<p>Thanks for posting this interesting article.</p>
<p>As a parent I have never been overly liberal with self-esteem boosting, knowing my older kids were too smart to be fooled by gratuitous praise. I'm not mean either, but the accomplishment had to be very good with respect to their abilities for me to get really excited. They were disgusted with the PC self-esteem nonsense at school and definitely saw liberal praise from a teacher as code for "you're dumb, but we don't want you to feel bad so we're telling everyone how well you're doing / we're giving you this bogus award."</p>
<p>My third child has moderate learning disabilities. She doesn't fully understand the implications of them yet, but I continue to stress that she's behind the other kids academically and has to work very hard to catch up. When I want her to practice math, let's say, and she balks, I remind her that she's not where she should be at school and that seems to work well for now. I praise her when she pays attention, does problems with me, and makes progress that I deem acceptable for her. We know a number of special ed. classmates whose parents try to convince themselves that their children are actually geniuses in disguise just waiting to take off their masks and reveal themselves to the world. They don't seem to be making as much progress as my daughter, though of course there could be many reasons for that. I do know, however, that these kids have no idea yet that they aren't really intelligent and will be in for a huge shock in a year or so when they figure it out on their own or some kid clues them in. Telling my daughter she's smart would be doing her a disservice, because she isn't. The best we can hope for is that being hard-working compensates for that somewhat, so making a good effort is what I stress.</p>
<p>tokenadult,
Glad you posted this. I just opened my copy of the magazine tonight to read it. I have always thought of myself as "mean mom" for not praising my kids constantly over the smallest accomplishment. Now I know I was right. ;)</p>
<p>I completely agree with this article.</p>
<p>(I always thought that that was pretty obvious - if someone is not happy with your doing "okay" it means they expect you to better... if they are "proud of you" for it, it means they didn't think you could do it) earnest undeserved praise is a slap in the face</p>
<p>The study did not take into account the social aspects of praise. If someone says "you're smart" you're socially obligated to say "no I'm not" (though it did cover the idea of "keeping up appearances" - which I personally have to remember not to get caught in, it's so tempting) I think that this study was presented in a way that the social aspect doesn't have any large influence on the data, but it would be an interesting thing to look into.</p>
<p>Can this article apply to highschool kids? o.0</p>
<p>I think it makes perfect sense...sadly, in the context of myself!</p>
<p>I'm a firm believer in praise. (This article supports that.) I think the article was "obvious" though, and I think I could have predicted the result. You have offered the child in the first group a standard for success based on something he has no control over. The group who is praised for something they can control does better. This is a "duh" to me. The article isn't saying don't praise. It's saying praise the right thing. </p>
<p>Some of the results will come naturally to bright kids -- they can figure out themselves that they are smart, they don't need to be told. If they feel strokes solely because of innate intelligence, they will avoid anything that might change someone's opinion of them. It is something that parents of gifted children need to recognize. If their identity is completely based around their "quickness" they will find challenges very scary. </p>
<p>The article implies that we can "control" our children by how we praise. I believe this is true to a certain extent, and gives us a responsibility to praise our children for not only working hard, but for being kind, doing the right thing, making good choices. The reverse - criticizing our kids for "being stupid" - also has logical results.</p>