Belief in Yourself

This week’s article summary is Whether or not You'll Be successful in School Comes Down to One Surprising Factor.

The article made me think back to when I was a student and who and what influenced me.

In my elementary years, I politely followed the teacher instructions. I don’t recall being asked to do much analytic, critical thinking (it wasn’t the norm back then), so I obediently completed my school work, mostly worksheets. School was pretty easy and I was mostly an A student (principally for being compliant).

In 7^th grade I hit a wall: new school, higher expectations, much more homework (including learning to study), essay writing (and coming from an elementary school that hadn’t emphasized writing, I floundered). I was mostly a B- student. 

In high school, I worked fairly hard but higher level thinking eluded me. I took honors classes (because my parents made me) but performed in the bottom half of those classes. Again I was mostly a B- student.

It wasn’t until college that  I finally began to see that learning required active engagement on my part in forming opinions about the content and concepts of the courses I took. I became a much more assertive student in class. I asked more questions if I was confused. I was no longer abashed to tell the professor I was lost or to add my perspective during class discussions. I’m sure Piagetian formal operational thought played a role, yet incrementally I began to gain much more self-confidence in myself and in my academic abilities. Tests and writing assignments became opportunities to show off what I thought and had learned. While I never became a straight A student, I moved into A-/B+ range. 

As you’ll see in the article below, an important key to school success is self-belief in your abilities. 

Before college I had many great teachers who definitely tried to help me become more confident in my abilities, yet it wasn’t until college that the key to learning hit me like an epiphany. Until I felt I could be a good student, I couldn’t be one.

Research shows preceding years of school form the foundation for subsequent success in school. And the belief is one’s abilities and self-confidence to overcome challenges begins at Trinity.  Like me, it may not manifest itself in our students until long after Trinity, yet don’t underestimate the work we are doing to develop their confidence in themselves.

As we move into the ‘normalcy’ and routine of school next week, keep in mind our goal to build self-confidence in our kids, yet as Kelly Gfoerer pointed out last week in our Positive Discipline sessions ‘significance and belonging need to be built with contribution; otherwise all you have is entitlement.’

Thanks for a wonderful first two days of school and enjoy the weekend!

Joe

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In order to be successful, many people believe, one must be passionate. 

Passion makes challenges enjoyable. It bestows the stamina necessary to excel. However, there are telling counter examples where passion doesn’t seem to be a necessary ingredient for success. 

One such case is academic success. 

You might think that successful students should be passionate about their schooling, and that this passion for school would account, at least partly, for why some students succeed and why some don’t. But this isn’t right. 

My research has found that there is in fact no relationship between how well students do academically and what their attitude toward schooling actually is. A student doesn’t need to be passionate about school to be academically successful.

Based on the recent PISA test scores and surveys, simple and direct correlations between students’ academic achievement and their attitudes toward school were near zero. The near-zero result was replicated in the PISA 2003, 2009, and 2012. There were no differences with respect to students’ socio-economic backgrounds. Gender did not affect the finding, and it holds for both developing and developed countries. This means that in most countries, academically able students do not hold their schooling in high regard. Similarly, academically less able students do not necessarily have low opinions about their schooling. There’s simply no connection. 

If there is no real relationship between academic achievement and attitude, then what motivates bright students to achieve academic success? It certainly isn’t from an abundant passion for school.

The answer is that it comes from within. Other PISA-based research has suggested that what sets academically able and less able students apart is self-belief about their own strengths and weaknesses. Students’ self-belief in their own problem-solving abilities is far more important than their perception of school itself.

This is a problem. Students’ attitude to school should matter for a number of reasons. If students find it difficult to see the direct benefits of their schooling, if they think that their school has failed to meet their expectations, and if they perceive that their academic skills are learned outside of school, it is possible that this will affect their views of formal institutions later in life. And indeed, many people have a pessimistic view of the role that formal institutions play – a view that very well could have stemmed from school experiences during formative years. 

What can be done? Adults responsible for making decisions about schooling need to be more cognizant about the long-term influences that the school experience can exert on students’ attitudes and beliefs. A stronger emphasis must also be given to the inclusion of hands-on group activities that emulate what they may do in life once they graduate. Whether students are able to see the link between their present and future may have critical consequences for society.