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I'm having a hard time focusing on my work this afternoon, having just read this article on the effects of praising your children. One of the most striking things about it is the extreme difference that several studies have found between the performance of students praised for their intelligence, and those who are praised for their effort.

I think that my parents have always subscribed to this theory-- not because they're psychologists, but because they've always had very high expectations for me (to the point where they sometimes seem surprised when they're met). Obviously, there are big disadvantages to this approach, but I never received straight As. I think that this was one of the best preparations that I could've had for a life spent as a permanent student -- I've never had a paralyzing fear of Bs and Cs, and I've received tons of them. I've never obsessed over grades. I never hung out exclusively with the smart kids in high school. As a result, I think that I've had a much easier time of it than many of my peers, because I've never had to face the fear (which the above article discusses) of exposing myself as not smart. The approach that I was given for difficult subjects was that anyone can master them -- it just might take a whole lot of practice, a whole lot of repetition, and a whole lot of trial and error, and it might go a lot more slowly for you than the person sitting next to you.

On the other hand, I see the results of constant "you're-so-smart" all the time in the classroom. One of the reasons why I enjoy teaching freshman composition is that you can, and do, reward students for effort, instead of the writing skills that they've entered college with; every essay has three mandated drafts, and for each one I point out specific things that they do well, and specific things that they can work to improve. As a result, there's at least one student every semester who -- as a self-identified "bad writer" -- gets a high grade due to consistently working his/her ass off, and one student who -- as a self-identified "good writer" -- goes through a miniature breakdown because their teachers and parents have always told them that they were good writers, but after comparing themselves to their peers they're seeing that's not true.

The words "you're so smart" have never been in my personal lexicon. Then again, have you met my cats? I'm sure that telling them "we love you because you're so cute" has given them an entirely different set of problems.

Great article! What's interesting is that in a way, the praise for effort mimics a good performance review at work - rarely are you ever told that you did a good job without being told why. And vice versa. Good preparation for the real world I guess.

This is a great post. It explains so much about that snake pit of a high school I went to, and why those kids acted that way. My parents were always telling me I was smart, but I had figured out by junior high that smartness is irrelevant to most of my life. I tried real hard to downplay test results and grades for Pete-the-Seldom-Mentioned and his siblings. They were trained to give their best effort, which is usually much harder than just getting good grades.

You are giving your students a great life lesson. I hope they appreciate it!