One of the core memories of everyone’s school life is the Annual Function or the Republic Day Celebration. Every kid is rushing from one corner of the school to another in their costume. Every one looking different. The air was filled with excitement and nervousness. Every one wishing their performance to be the best.
In the modern era, for students, class room is not just a storehouse of knowledge, but a laboratory of experience and experimentation. A single mistake is not just a mistake, but the cost of it feels existential and a win is not just lauded, but feels like an invisible armour from one’s own insecurities. Researchers suggest that educational structures have always focused heavily on public performance, which often indirectly conditions children to not just view the failure as a step in learning, but as a report card of their worth.
Why is setting a goal the right way important?
Goal setting is a key motivational process (Locke & Latham, 1984). Every individual in there life pursue multiple goals such as academic goals and social goals, goal choice and the level at which individual commit to attaining the goals influence their motivation to learn(Locke & Latham, 2006). Modern schools mainly focus on limited goals like academic success, or winning particular game rather than long term goals – for example a competition like science exhibition focuses on bringing large number of models, the actual goal of the competition should be the application of science the students have learnt in their class in the process of making model. Aside from the goal content the reason for which the person tries to learn or perform also affects the performance also known as goal orientation.
The two main goal orientation are performance goal and learning goal (Ames & Archer, 1988).
Look Smart v/s Be Smart
The mastery goal (learning goal) mainly aims at learning the new skill and mastering it (Ames & Archer, 1988) while The performance goal focus on doing better than others (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). The education system today focuses on performing better than others rather than performing better and better on certain skill, hence the primary objective of the child becomes to ‘look smart’ rather than to actually ‘be smart’.
Their worth gets tied to their image making their mistakes a threat to their identity. This marks the beginning of their fear of failure. These children start see failure as something that should be avoided at all costs and hence fear from beginning to start new traditions and learn new skills hindering there growth. In some extreme cases if the parental support is conditional they often feel that they are not worthy of love and affection if they fail.
Modern schools mainly focuses on end goal of any challenge – ie exam or school functions. In past the goal of extra curricular activities was improvement in social skills, while today the goal has shifted to flaunting the achievement of students linking it to the reputation of school. The changed goal of schools also affect the goal setting of students, where the final goal becomes to perform the better than others in order to achieved social validation, rather than to learn.
Studies have shown that this belief of marking there self worth to their success or failure affects the self esteem of any individual hence indirectly affecting their performance. These children are prone to anxiety and panic disorder in future.
Effect of Social Setting : why a mistake becomes more important if happens in public ?
School provides a child with their first social ecosystem. In social settings every single action is judged and internalized as a reflection of one’s social standing. This often transforms the fear of failure into a fear of losing belonging. Research in the field of educational psychology shows that children often equate academic success with teacher approval and peer status.
Children are also prone to egocentric cognitive bias – they tend to overestimate how much other people are judging them – The Spotlight Effect. (Gilovich, Medvec, & Savitsky, 2000). The “Barry Manilow T-shirt” experiment proves us with explanation that people consistently overestimate how many people notice their embarrassing moments by more than 50%. For adolescents the fear is often amplified.
The cognitive restructuring of their brain especially regarding social settings and relationships makes them hypersensitive to their social image. (Wentzel and Caldwell, 1997) The adolescent brain shows heightened activity in the reward centers (ventral striatum) when they are in the presence of peers, making the stakes of social judgment feel significantly higher. (Knoll et al., 2015). These children might become hypervigilant to social judgement in their future – constantly search for validation.
Another fear the child has to deal with is fear of rejection. Modern schools in the their pursuit of perfection often tend to prioritise children who are already good in the particular skill. So the children often fear that if they are not perfect they might be replaced or not get another chance.
How does praising a child shapes their unconscious beliefs ?
Every parent and teacher praise their children after their wonderful performance. Does praising a child in certain way affects their understanding of success and failure? Dr. Carol Dweck has conducted study on “implicit theories of intelligence” ie the unconscious beliefs that people hold about their own potential and how do they make them. As per her research these beliefs are building blocks of an individual’s success and failures. According to her research individuals generally fall under two distinct mindsets – The fixed mindset and The Growth Mindset
- The fixed mindset (Entity Theory) : This mindset emphasizes on the basis that talent, intelligence and skills are innate and stable. These abilities cannot change over time and often outweighs the efforts (Carol Dweck). Individuals with this mindset focus on refining what one has rather than developing the potential. As per Dweck’s report there are following consequences to this belief : excessive focus on result, fear of failure, avoidance of challenges, development of defencive response instead of accountability in turn leading to limited opportunities etc. This mindset creates a self – limiting cycle that becomes hard to break with time.
- The Growth Mindset (Incremental Theory) : This mindset states that abilities like Intelligence and excellence can be developed through learning. Efforts can outweighs the nature talent and resilience is important to do so. (Carol Dweck, 1988). This belief leads to following consequences: Embracing Challenges, embracing feedback and trying to improve, seeing failure as a step in learning and using it for improvement, taking accountability for failure etc. This mindset often creates a passion for learning (Carol Dweck, 1988).
A long-term study involving 150 science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) professors and their 15,000 students revealed that classrooms led by professors who believed that ability is fixed showed racial achievement gaps that were up to twice as large as those in classes taught by professors who believed ability can grow. In contrast, racial minority students in classes taught by professors with a growth mindset performed significantly better than their peers in fixed-mindset classrooms (Canning, Muenks, Green, & Murphy; 2019).
In her study Dweck analysed the pattern in which parents praised their children and how ith affected there performance. The study showed that praising children for their Intelligence (e.g. : You are genius, Kid ) actually pushed them towards fixed mindset and being easily couraged by failures, while the children who were praised for their efforts, strategies, focus, and process ( e.g. That was a great way of doing it better, Kid ) developed growth mindset.
In her studies she emphasized on the use of word ‘yet’ – “I can’t do it” to “I can’t do it, yet” – changing the perspective from negative to neutral. Neurological studies (EEG) associated with Dweck’s work show that individuals with a growth mindset have more brain activity in the areas associated with processing errors, leading them to actually process their failure and causes leading to it. Developing a growth mind set in a child is very important as it prevents them from seeing failure as permanent report card of their abilities. It not only protects their esteem and self worth but paves a way for better performance, opportunities and relationships in life.
Read More: The Performance Paradox in Education: When Grades Matter More Than Growth
Conclusion
Schools have been equating a child’s grade and performance to their worth without realising that they are unconsciously teaching children to fear the very mistakes required for cognitive and emotional growth. The goal of education and school functions must be to transform failure from a source of shame into a source of learning and achieving perfection. Fostering the belief that children have unlimited potential, which could be refined with patience and practice. School functions must shift their focus fromattainingg perfection to pleasing the audience and guests, but should focus on the overall development of the child by providing them with a safe space where they can learn.
References +
Canning, E. A., Muenks, K., Green, D. J., & Murphy, M. C. (2019). STEM faculty who believe ability is fixed have larger racial achievement gaps and inspire less student motivation in their classes. Science Advances, 5(2), Article eaau4734
Welborn BL, Lieberman MD, Goldenberg D, Fuligni AJ, Galván A, Telzer EH. Neural mechanisms of social influence in adolescence. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2016 Jan;11(1):100-9. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsv095. Epub 2015 Jul 21. PMID: 26203050; PMCID: PMC4692320.
Savitsky K, Medvec VH, Gilovich T (2000). The Spotlight Effect in Social Judgment: An Egocentric Bias in Estimates of the Salience of One’s Own Actions and
Appearance.February 2000: 78(2):211-222Journal of Personality and Social Psychology https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.78.2.211
Welborn BL, Lieberman MD, Goldenberg D, Fuligni AJ, Galván A, Telzer EH. Neural mechanisms of social influence in adolescence. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2016 Jan;11(1):100-9. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsv095. Epub 2015 Jul 21. PMID: 26203050; PMCID: PMC4692320.
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