Helping children understand (and battle) traditional perceptions about success

"When young people's sense of self-worth is bound up in the idea that they are smart—a quality they come to understand as a genetic blessing from the sky—at least three bad things can happen. Some students become lazy, figuring that their smarts will bail them out in a pinch. Others conclude that the people who praise their intelligence are simply wrong, and decide that it isn't worth investing effort in homework. Still others might care intensely about school but withdraw from difficult tasks or tie themselves in knots of perfectionism." - Carol Dweck 

How many times have you used one of these ways to describe a student?

• Lazy
• Low self confidence
• Perfectionist

Carol Dweck's work seeks to remove the stigma of "you get an 'A' for effort" as being a negative observation of student accomplishment.  The many examples of failure driving accomplishment only fuels her work.  

Here is a link to an overview of her work.  Watch for my posts about famous "failures" soon. 

Here is an adaptation of her work: