• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts

The Educators Room logo

  • Start Here
    • Impact Statements: Teacher Expertise
    • Newsletter
  • Browse Topics
    • Content Strategies
      • Literacy
      • Mathematics
      • Social Studies
      • Educational Technology
      • ELL & ESOL
      • Fine Arts
      • Special Education
      • Popular Topics
        • Teacher Self-Care
        • Instructional Coach Files
        • Common Core
        • The Traveling Teacher
        • The Unemployed Teacher
        • The New Teacher Chronicles
        • Book Review
        • Grade Levels
          • Elementary (K-5)
          • Middle (6-8)
          • Adult
          • New Teacher Bootcamp
          • Hot Button Topics
            • Menu Item
              • Principals' Corner
              • Charter Schools
              • Confessions of a Teacher
              • Interviews
              • The State of Education
              • Stellar Educator of the Week
            • Menu
              • How to Fix Education
              • Featured
              • Ask a Teacher
              • Teacher Branding
              • Current Events
  • Podcasts
  • Courses
    • Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout- An 8 Week Course
    • Becoming An Educational Consultant
    • Teacher Branding 101:Teachers are The Experts
    • The Learning Academy
    • Books
    • Shirts
  • Education in Atlanta
  • Teacher Self-Care
  • The Coach's Academy
menu icon
go to homepage
subscribe
search icon
Homepage link
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts
×

October 13, 2016 Instruction & Curriculum

By Not Allowing Your Children to Fail You Are Making Their Brains Smaller

  • About the Author
  • Latest Posts

About Christina Gil

Christina Gil was a high-school English teacher for sixteen years, but she recently left the classroom to follow a dream and move with her family to an ecovillage in rural Missouri. She believes that teaching creative writing helps students excel on standardized tests, that deeply analyzing and unpacking a poemis a fabulous way to spend an hour or so, and that Shakespeare is always better with sound effects. When she is not hauling water to her tiny home, she can be found homeschooling her two kids or meeting with her neighbors about the best way to run their village.
  • Homeschooling: Making Education Natural Again - October 28, 2016
  • Six Reasons Why Tests Suck - October 20, 2016
  • I Remember When Teachers Were Allowed to Teach Their Passions - October 14, 2016
  • By Not Allowing Your Children to Fail You Are Making Their Brains Smaller - October 13, 2016
  • Why Poetry Is So Great for Teaching Growth Mindset - October 7, 2016
  • Deliberate Practice and Growth Mindset - October 5, 2016
  • Seven Steps to a Fresh Start for your Class - September 23, 2016
  • How to Integrate Literacy into the Non-ELA Classroom - September 21, 2016
  • How To Do A Focused Writing Bootcamp - September 16, 2016
  • You Probably Shouldn’t Be a Teacher If... - September 12, 2016

Dear Parent or Guardian:

This letter is to inform you that your student will likely fail soon. They might not fail a class, or even a quiz or a homework assignment, but they will fail at something.  They will also make mistakes, get feedback on those mistakes, and then make some new mistakes.

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="yes" overflow="visible"][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="no" center_content="no" min_height="none"]You must let your children fail. Click To Tweet.

In fact, if you don’t let them fail, you will be prohibiting them from growing their brains. This is not something that educators have invented because we want to hurt your child’s feelings or prevent them from being admitted to college, or make them get a bad grade. This is based on brain science, and it has been scientifically proven to be true.

When human beings fail or make mistakes and when we see those errors as a way to grow and learn and get better, we literally grow new neurons and connections between already existing neurons.  When we focus on performance or results instead of the process, when we hold ourselves back out of fear of failure, or when we refuse to try something challenging because we are afraid of making a mistake, we keep ourselves in the same place.  Our brains will not grow as much or as quickly, and we will not acquire new skills or knowledge.

Growth Mindset

It is therefore, essential that you and your child learn about what it means to have a growth mindset.  The term “growth mindset” was coined by psychologist Carol Dweck.  In one study, she formed two groups of seventh graders based on their attitude towards learning.  One group agreed with the statement that intelligence is something that is fixed at birth—you’re either smart or you’re not. The other group was formed by students who believed that we can get smarter.  She tracked those two groups over the next few years and she realized that the second group, the students who believed that intelligence was not fixed, our-performed their peers, the ones who believed that intelligence was fixed, even though they started out with pretty much the same abilities in math.

When we hold ourselves back out of fear of failure we stay in the same place Click To Tweet

In another study, Dweck looked at a new group of kids, this time in a lab environment.  She and her colleagues gave them puzzles, and when the kids did well on the puzzles, they praised them.  But this time, rather than looking at the groups’ already-formed views on intelligence and learning, they influenced their views.  They told one group that they had done well and they must be good (or talented or smart) at puzzles, thus instilling in that group a fixed mindset about their puzzling abilities.  They told the second group that they had done well because they had worked hard or put a lot of effort into finding different solutions to a puzzle—thus instilling in that group a growth mindset about their puzzling abilities.

What happened next is fascinating.  When they asked the fixed mindset group if they wanted to do a challenging puzzle, the majority said no.  They were so afraid to undo the image they had of themselves as being good at puzzles, that they preferred to stay with the safe easy puzzles—the ones that had won them the praise the first time.  The second group, however, overall relished the new challenges.  In effect, the group that had developed a fixed mindset about their puzzle abilities had checked their own learning out of fear of looking bad.  That simple praise, a few words spoken to the children, had influenced them that much.

In the next step in the study, having asked the kids if they wanted a challenging or easy puzzle, researchers gave them all difficult problems to solve so that they could see how they reacted to this challenge.  The fixed mindset group actually did worse then they had originally done, while the growth mindset group continued to develop.  And then, when asked about how they had done, the fixed mindset group lied about their results over three times more often than the other group.

So, now that you understand how it all works, we have a few favors to ask of you:

Please don’t ever praise your child for being “talented” or “gifted” or “smart” or “really good” at something.  We know, this is not easy.  You have some amazing kids, and they do amazing things—it’s hard not to be amazed.  What you should praise them for instead is for working hard, for putting in a lot of effort, for not giving up, for finding a new solution to a problem that they thought they couldn't do.  You should remind kids that anyone who is good at anything has found success because of practice, and if they ever tell you that they “aren’t good at” something or “can’t do” something, just add “yet” to their statements.  And then help them find some possible solutions.

Praise your children for working hard, for their effort, for not giving up Click To Tweet

You should also let them take on challenges that they might not be able to complete, and let them fail and make mistakes whenever possible.  You should keep reminding them that the uncomfortable feeling we all feel when we try to do something new, something difficult, or something that feels really hard, is the feeling of growth.  We can grow our brains by taking on new challenges.  (By the way, this includes you as well, so let them see you trying new things and taking on new challenges, and setting goals.)

Remember that we all have a fixed mindset about some areas of our lives and a growth mindset about others.  This doesn't just apply to math problems or puzzles—we can have a growth mindset about relationships, or even social problems.  And we all have the possibility to change out attitudes and grow our abilities, skills, and brains in the process.

Thank you for working with us to educate your child.

Sincerely,

The Teacher

14686621_861735137292978_1921353824_n[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Related posts:

Yes, Failure IS An Option Deliberate Practice and Growth Mindset Why Poetry Is So Great for Teaching Growth Mindset How to Teach Parents to Help their Children Develop a Growth Mindset
« [Podcast S2E10] The Microaggressions of Mispronouncing a Student's Name
I Remember When Teachers Were Allowed to Teach Their Passions »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

The Educator's Room was launched in 2012 to amplify the voice of educators. To date, we have over 45+ writers from around the world and boast over twelve million page views. Through articles, events, and social media we will advocate for honest dialogue with teachers about how to improve public education. This mission is especially important when reporting on education in our community; therefore, we commit our readers to integrity, accuracy, and independence in education reporting. To join our mailing list, click here.

What we do

At The Educator's Room, we focus on amplifying and honoring the voice of educators as experts in education. To date, we have over 40 staff writers/teachers from around the world.

Popular Posts

  • A Q&A with Baltimore Teachers Union President, Diamonté Brown
  • 6 Reasons to Use Read-Alouds Daily
  • The Secret Ingredients of Lesson Planning
  • The Exhaustion of Black Educators on Another "Day After"

Featured On

Buy Our Books/Courses

How to Leave Your Job in Education

Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout

Using Your Teacher Expertise to Become an Educational Consultant

Check out our books on teaching and learning!

The Learning Academy

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Accessibility Policy

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Contact

  • Contact
  • Services
  • Media Kit
  • FAQ

 

Copyright © 2021 The Educator's Room.