Praise Can Be Dangerous (Jan. 21)

In the reading "Caution Praise Can Be Dangerous" they discuss different types of praise. Many educators believed that if they were to raise the self-esteem of their students then their academic achievement would go up as well (Dweck, 39) Researchers found that not to be true at all. Praise needs to be handled properly so it is not a negative force (39). The praise can make them passive and rely on the opinion of others to feel good about what they have done (39). When students were given easy tasks and praised for them it made them feel dumb (39). Children that were praised felt that if they had to work hard at a task they were dumb or if the failed at a task they were dumb (Dweck, 40). The more adaptive students weren't worried about their intelligence (40). There was a study that praised children for the work they did and praised other students for the effort they made (40). After the different types of praise was give to each student they were then asked if they would like to do a task they were going to succeed at or a task they had to work at and may not succeed (40). Most of the students that got praised for their effort went for the harder task, where as the students that got praised for their work went for the easier task. The students that received praise for their work felt that intelligence was something you had or didn't have (Dweck, 41). The students that got praise for their effort felt that their skills, knowledge and motivation was something they had control over (Dweck, 41).

After reading I realized that the way I praise children needs to change. I get very excited for children when they succeed, but I need to pay attention to their effort they made and praise that as well. I never would have thought the way I praise a child would affect them that much. This reading made me see things in the eyes of a child.