Reactions from article: "Giving Good Praise to Girls: What Messages Stick"

Katrina Schwartz, journalist for Weblog Mind/Shift, poses an interesting view point when it comes to young girls reactions to praise, how praise is interpreted, and careful ways to "shift" this praise to aid in continued motivation, rather than creating resistance to success. This article was created based on research from Stanford's psychology professor, Carol Dweck's studies on how to praise kids.  Dweck believes that there is a problem with parents and educators merely praising only when a correct answer has finally been reached, without focusing on the process to get there.  Schwartz quotes Dweck as saying, "It's really about praising the process they engage in, not how smart they are or how good they are at it, but taking on difficulty, trying many different strategies, sticking to it and achieving over time."  In surprising findings, Dweck states that this type of praise affects girls more strongly than boys.  Girls tend to believe that "their abilities are fixed, that individuals are born with gifts and can't change" and often times quit tackling these areas of difficulty.  She continues by stating that this is most strong in STEM subjects.  Funny enough, boys often times do not fall victim to this type of mind set for example, rather than "believing math is a fixed ability doesn't hamper achievement - they just assume they have it."  Perhaps this shows evidence that girls lack the self confidence boys have and if it isn't perfect, they merely avoid the task all together.  Dweck offers the suggestion that "if adults emphasize that all skills are learned through a process of engagement, value challenge and praise efforts to supersede frustration rather than only showing excitement over the right answer, girls will be shown resilience."  The key here.... that some failure or set backs are healthy.  Dweck is quoted as saying, "If you have little failures along the way and have them understand that's part of learning, and that you can actually derive useful information about what to do next, that's really useful."  I can't say that I totally agree with Dweck's findings.  Being a female, I feel motivated by praise and enjoy learning from my mistakes to make the next time even better. I don't feel as if I don't succeed I should quit or "shy away" from the task in the future. Perhaps this is, as Dweck's research suggests, the parents role in encouragement from the time of birth and how it affects children's mindset and resilience for future challenges.  I was always challenged to succeed in life and that mistakes happen; however, we need to use these as a learning tool.  Perhaps this is what is missing in education.  In the music world, each task is a stepping stone to the next, therefore, it is crucial to ensure each child is working through the process and learning from immediate feedback.  I think this type of praise should be already occurring across the curriculum to build stronger, more confident students; girls and boys.

Schwartz, Katrina. "Giving Good Praise to Girls: What Messages Stick." Mind/Shift. KQED, 24 Apr 2013. Web. 16 Nov. 2013. <http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/04/giving-good-praise-to-girls-what-messages-stick/