Just for one day
Two articles for you: one from M. Campbell about an online community of real-life superheroes, and an older one from...uh, hmm, oh let's just say it was Jess, about the effects of praise on children. I approached the latter with a certain hesitancy, since I buy into the Lakoff story enough to suspect that there are certain political overtones to the whole backlash against the "self esteem movement." But it was interesting; there are some neat studies described in there, and definite implications outside of parenting.
I have been looking at my referral logs again, and have noticed that the people who found my website while googling something else seem to fall mainly into four categories. So I thought I'd help these people out by addressing their searches:
1) Here are the lyrics to Michael Sembello's "Maniac," Black Sabbath's "Paranoid," and The Police's "Every Breath You Take"
2) To my knowledge, one cannot cut oneself while using an electric shaver, though once I drew blood with my beard trimmer by accidentally poking myself in the mouth. But it seems unlikely that one will ever get anything worse than a mean case of razor neck burn.
3) Violent actions beget violent actions.
4) I'm afraid I don't know where to get a Strange Adventures in Infinite Space torrent, but honestly, it doesn't cost much, and maybe you should support independent video game makers for chrissake.
I have been looking at my referral logs again, and have noticed that the people who found my website while googling something else seem to fall mainly into four categories. So I thought I'd help these people out by addressing their searches:
1) Here are the lyrics to Michael Sembello's "Maniac," Black Sabbath's "Paranoid," and The Police's "Every Breath You Take"
2) To my knowledge, one cannot cut oneself while using an electric shaver, though once I drew blood with my beard trimmer by accidentally poking myself in the mouth. But it seems unlikely that one will ever get anything worse than a mean case of razor neck burn.
3) Violent actions beget violent actions.
4) I'm afraid I don't know where to get a Strange Adventures in Infinite Space torrent, but honestly, it doesn't cost much, and maybe you should support independent video game makers for chrissake.
posted by Evan at 6:51 PM
3 Comments:
It seems like the think about the effects of praise isn't about praise, per se, but about what kind of praise: namely, if you praise natural talents, you get the bad effects; if you praise hard work, then you get good effects. But isn't this precisely the kind of thing we should be praising according to moral and political philosophers? That's kind of a nice bit of support for those guys, who get it pretty bad from the empirical stuff lately.
Also... real life superheroes... awesome? Ish?
I enjoyed the praise article. I try to give specific praise to Esther and really try to reinforce "effort." I can see the results of all this praising and self-esteem in my students - who don't seem to value hard work and improvement for itself. And the most frustrating seem to expect that effort guarantees "A"s. Moreover it seems that most of my students seek only my praise and can't seem to ascertain for themselves whether their work is any good or not - not because they aren't skilled enough to do it, but I think because they have never thought about assessing their own performance. Not when there is an external reward or judgment waiting for them.
As a matter of fact I sent the following statement to a student today because I was frustrated with his email asking if his work would garner my approval:
"It should not be my approval that you seek but your own recognition that you have crafted a solid, analytical argument. When we are critical and rigorous with our own work, we shall find what we are looking for. - That's me trying to sound like a Zen master, in a comic book, channeling a writing instructor."
Evan, I like how you deftly incorporated a number of topics seamlessly into an amuse whole. Well executed.
Matt: That's a very interesting point. While I'll happily agree that the philosophers appear to have gotten the general idea right, it does seem like the psychological question is bound to be much more complex than the one they're asking. That is, whether or not one can only be morally praiseworthy for voluntary actions, it's reasonable to expect that there may be good reasons for praising people aside from their capabilities as agents. One could imagine, for example, that if someone is only praised for her hard work, and never for her intelligence, she may not ever fully recognize the value of the latter, and mistakenly conclude that her highest calling is simply to find the most exhausting work she can, say, on a crab fishing boat or in a coal mine. Jeez okay apparently I'm Dick now.
Sabrina: Absolutely; I've had similar experiences with students. It's an odd situation...if, on the one hand, praise has been devalued for them by its abundance, but on the other, it's the only measure of achievement they have to go by, it's no wonder they often seem so nihilistic
Post a Comment
<< Home