In 2017, I contributed this article entitled “Great Effort” to Playtimes Magazine when I was working with students from the age of 4 to 11. The article perhaps is even more relevant today with students in Hong Kong having to switch to remote or in-person learning in a moment’s notice, while juggling extracurricular activities, studying and preparing for their futures, all as a global pandemic continues.
Now as I work with older students in the Transition Years at CDNIS, I have developed even more conviction that it is crucial we instill our young people with a growth mindset. Students with a fixed mindset often struggle with accepting mistakes. They might be paralysed with shame when they receive a test score that is lower than they expected. They don’t know what to do next because “they’ll just never get it.” Meanwhile, students with a growth mindset steadily improve because they choose to see mistakes as an opportunity for growth. This phenomenon is backed by years of research applied to more than just educational settings. I hope that you will read this introduction to process praise and adapt it to your language at home. The intention is not to move the goal or expectation you have set for your children, but to perhaps look at how we’re getting there with our words.
Great Effort – Growth Mindsets and Process Praise – Playtimes Magazine, May 2017
