How do we convince students to believe in their capacity to learn?
In earlier blogs I have argued that inherited talent is not a fixed capacity. All of us have the capacity to achieve high levels of performance in domains of knowledge that we are passionate about. The critical factor is sustained effort and strategically designed efforts. With sustained Deliberate Practice all of us can learn far more than we realize.
But that leaves the question of what are the antecedents of the capacity for sustained effort. I believe that for most of our students one of the answers comes from the insights of social psychology. Group identity has the power to shape behavior and performance. Positive role models, both as personal mentors and in the form of group identify play a large role in telling us what we are capable of doing.
Here is a story, part fiction, part fact.
A seventh grade girl comes home from school furious and upset about her math teacher. She screams to anyone who will listen, “He is such an idiot. No one can understand anything he explains in class. I can’t possibly do my homework.” Fortunately her wise old uncle is visiting. He is a retired math teacher and offers to help her with her homeworkWhat do we learn about the capacity for sustained effort from this story? First, who we think we are has a huge impact on what we think we can do. As long as we think we cannot do it, we won’t work at it. When we are convinced that we can do it, and with the guidance of a skillful teacher, we will be able to work at it until it gets done. Both experiences, negative and positive, are self-reinforcing.
“I can’t possibly do the homework. There is nothing you can do. I’m just stupid in math,” she screams as she runs up the stairs to her bedroom and slams the door behind her. The whole house shakes from the slamming door.
The wise old uncle slowly climbs up the stair, knocks on her door, and talks to her from behind the closed door. “You can’t possibly be stupid in math,” he says. “You remember your aunt, (She had died seven years ago.) well she was very smart in
math. In fact she was an engineer.” The wise old uncle was actually stretching the truth. The aunt was good at math, just not quite an accomplished engineer.
From behind the door the uncle hears a faint, “Yes I remember her.”
“Well, you know how much of her personality and intelligence you have inherited from her! If she was good at math, then you cannot be stupid at math,” he persuasively argues. Again faintly from behind the door he hears, “Well o.k., but I still hate math!”
“That is fine,” the wise old uncle says. “ You can hate it if you want, but you know you can do it. Why don’t you come out of your room, and I will help you with your homework.”
The girl comes out, and within fifteen minutes the uncle was able to explain the work and the girl realized she wasn’t so stupid in math.
Second, who we think we are is “socially constructed.” All of us carry around in our heads ideas of what group we belong to and what we have inherited or learned from our group. These messages can be damaging when they come in the form of stereotypes that undercut our potential, such as “girls are not good at math.” “Russians are good at chess.” We often call these messages, stereotypes, and work to debunk them. However, the human psych is programmed to believe in group membership and characteristics, it is not enough to debunk negative messages. As parents and teachers, me must also consciously, explicitly, strategically, and consistently present to our children messages in the form of stories and role models that embody the capacity for accomplishment.
Because, the wise old uncle was able to socially construct a positive myth that enabled the young adolescent to believe in herself. He freed the girl from her defeatist self-perception and re-constructed a positive self-mage: she inherited a math talent. Should we not create the group identity that all SFDS students, because they are at SFDS, are “good at math” and therefore capable of high levels of accomplishment?
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