Self Esteem A New Framework

Staff INSET Day28th April 2014

The traditional view;

“We need to praise children on all occasions, shielding them from failure wherever possible so as they will not feel bad about themselves. This will have a long term impact on their self esteem”

Self Esteem: What is it?

“Self Esteem is not about success, it might prop up the embarrassment of failure but that is not self esteem”

Freedom from Failure

Quote from Guy Claxton

“If you are not in a fog you are not learning”

Guy Claxton

However some of the robust feedback given to children challenged my traditional “Candy Floss” view of Self-Esteem

Yet… The children seemed to have good self esteem

Views of Year 6 : General Views

When I receive robust feedback…

“I am happy with it because it means you can improve your work and it will make you better. I feel impressed with myself because I feel I can do more”

Quotes from Year 6 Children

When I receive robust feedback…

“If he tells you that you can do better then he believes you can and he expects you to achieve even more than you have and that makes me feel good about myself. If teachers always tell you your work is good then you feel like you can’t do better but you can always do more. You could become the best in the class”

Quotes from Year 6 Children

When I receive robust feedback…

“If he tells you then it means that he thinks you can do better, he has faith in you and believes you can work to a high standard and that makes me feel good about myself”

Quotes from Year 6 Children

It makes us work harder the next time because we know what the expectations are and if we don’t want to have to do it again we know what to avoid”

Quotes from Year 6 Children

“Sometimes teachers say that work is good when it isn’t and that makes me feel weird. Also if they say it is good then you wouldn’t try harder next time because you have reached the standard. In fact when they say it is good and I know it isn’t it makes me feel like they have not read it properly and that they don’t care much”

Quotes from Year 6 Children

When I receive robust feedback…

“Being criticised feels OK because I know he thought I could do better. It puts on pressure because he is expecting you to do better”

Quotes from Year 6 Children

When I receive robust feedback…

“If the teacher says your work is good all the time it stops you trying harder”

Quotes from Year 6 Children

When I receive robust feedback…

“When he criticises my work I think it is because he believes in me and knows me. If I tried really hard then I would be cross if he said it could be better and I would feel let down. If I tried hard I would get angry if I was told it was wrong and I might not change it”

Quotes from Year 6 Children

In a straw poll 17 out of 20 “enjoyed” the criticism given and had no problem with it

All agreed that criticism about a piece of work where 100% effort had been put in was a no go area and would not be appreciated

Underlying all their views was the relationship between teacher and child that was key

Views of Year 6 : General Views

The children were feeding back to me the antithesis of what I had believed. They felt that “criticism” boosted their self esteem because contrary to what I had always thought they saw this as an expression of the adult’s faith in them.

My own thoughts

Self theories: Their role in motivation,

personality and development

Carol S. Dweck

High ability children less likely to suffer from low self esteem

Success at school fosters good self esteem

Praise, especially praising intelligence, promotes good self esteem

Children’s confidence in their intelligence relates to good self esteem

(Pages 1-2)

Challenges to perceived norm

Self esteem is not an internal quality fed by easy success and diminished by failures.

It is not something we give to people by telling them about their intelligence. It is something we equip them to get themselves by engaging in learning.(Page 4)

A different view of self esteem

A Bit of Theory…Self Esteem: The Facts Choice of easy or hard tasks. Why? Self esteem is not related to intelligence Self esteem is not related to confidenceSelf Esteem: The Future Is it possible to change a child’s self esteem? How do we use praise and criticism constructively? What impact should this have on our teaching and

learning?

Structure of the Presentation

A Bit of Theory

Entity Theory – Intelligence is a fixed commodity

Incremental Theory – Intelligence is cultivated through learning (Pages 2-3)

A bit of theory!

The major divide between those with high and low self esteem is their view of intelligence

Helpless: Where children’s confidence drops when undertaking a task perceived as difficult.

Mastery: Where children rise to the challenge of perceived difficulty and develop learning strategies and perseverance.

(Dweck uses the terms interchangeably with low/high self esteem)

Glossary

Performance Goals

Focus on child’s perception of their own intelligence, thus a need to avoid failure

Leads to strategies that involve avoiding any chance of making a mistake

Emphasis on measuring ability

Performance Goals v Learning Goals

Learning Goals

A goal to increase competence A desire to get smarter whatever the

perceived failures along the way Emphasis on finding new strategies

Performance Goals v Learning Goals

“Often children see these two goals pitted against each other and will therefore often have to make a choice of which path to follow

The child’s perception of the goal will determine and fashion a “helpless” (low self esteem) or “mastery” (high self esteem) response”

Performance Goals v Learning Goals

To what extent do you agree or disagree with these statements: Strongly Agree Agree Disagree Strongly Disagree

Thinking About How We Think

1 Intelligence is something people are born with that can’t be changed.  2 No matter how intelligent you are, you can always be more intelligent.  3 You can always substantially change how intelligent you are.  4 You are a certain kind of person, and there is not much that can be done to really change that.  5 You can always change basic things about the kind of person you are.  6 Musical talent can be learned by anyone  7 Only a few people will be truly good at sports – you have to be “born with it.”  8 Math is much easier to learn if you are male or maybe come from a culture who values math.  9 The harder you work at something, the better you will be at it.  10 No matter what kind of person you are, you can always change substantially.  11 Trying new things is stressful for me and I avoid it.  12 Some people are good and kind, and some are not – it’s not often that people change.  13 I appreciate when people, parents, coaches, teachers give me feedback about my performance.  14 I often get angry when I get negative feedback about my performance.  15 All human beings are capable of learning.  16 You can learn new things, but you can’t really change how intelligent you are.  17 You can do things differently, but the important parts of who you are can’t really be changed.  18 Human beings are basically good, but sometimes make terrible decisions.  19 An important reason why I do my school work is that I like to learn new things.  20 Truly smart people do not need to try hard.  

Answer Key

Final Score

Choice of Easy or Hard Tasks

Study 1: 12 Problems

All children were given 12 problems

8 easy to solve4 relatively unsolvable

They were then categorised into those with an entity view of intelligence and those with an incremental view

(p 6-10)

Low Self Esteem Quickly denigrated their abilities “I guess I

am not very smart” – but they had just answered 8 questions easily

High Self Esteem When difficulty arose they did not blame

themselves in fact they blamed nothing

Study 1: 12 Problems

Low Self Esteem 1/3 of the children did not think they would

be able to answer the easy questions if asked again

High Self Esteem They remained confident. 2/3 expressed

confidence that they would succeed, none of the low self esteem group did

Study 1: 12 Problems

Low Self Esteem They remembered 5 successes – in fact

they had scored 8

High Self Esteem The high esteem group tended to

embrace failure with relish “I love a challenge”

Study 1: 12 Problems

Low Self Esteem Their strategies in the easy questions were as

good as the other group but in the latter questions they resorted to things like guessing

High Self Esteem 80% of this group showed improved strategies

when working on the harder questions. In fact some children actually solved them.

Study 1: 12 Problems

Low Self Esteem Children gave up work on the problems very

quickly

High Self Esteem They did not consider themselves to be

failing they simply dug deeper “I should slow down if I am to figure this one out”

Study 1: 12 Problems

Low Self Esteem In other studies the children could not do

identical “easy” questions after they had failed on the more difficult questions

High Self Esteem By definition the implication from the study

is that this made no difference to the high self esteem group

Study 1: 12 Problems

Conclusion

The low self esteem group saw both their intelligence and their self worth as being on the lineThe high self esteem group were not seeing failure as an indictment of themselves so the risk was not great

Study 1: 12 Problems

The children had undertaken the question that neither Jon or I could get right. They had spent a whole lesson (seemingly) achieving nothing.

I interviewed them individually after the lesson to catch their views of the challenge and their own self esteem

Views of Year 6 : Maths 2006

There was not one child who felt discouraged by the experience

They had all thoroughly enjoyed it, even though they were unable to solve the task

When quizzed as to whether they felt this was frustrating a few said they would have liked to have solved it but for most it did not seem to matter

Views of Year 6 : Maths 2006

From what I could discern there was little that led me to believe the children had found this a negative experience for their self esteem.

In fact when questioned their response was a sort of “What’s that got to do with it” approach

Views of Year 6 : Maths 2006

Children were given the option of choosing from a selection of 3 tasks:

1. Easy; Easy enough to not make mistakes2. Hard; Hard but possible for children to

achieve3. Hard, New and different; You will make

mistakes but you will learn something

Study 2: Choose a task

Entity80% chose the two Performance based tasks50% choosing the easier of the two

Incremental60% chose the challenging task

Study 2: Choose a task

If I had to choose between getting a good grade in class or being challenged I would choose…

Incremental: 68% chose the challengeEntity: 65% chose good grade

Study 2: Choose a task

Isn’t Self Esteem related to Intelligence

There is a general notion that the more intelligent you are by definition shielded from issues of self esteem and it is therefore the less able that need support

Research does not bear this out, indeed the most vulnerable group discerned by Dweck were higher ability girls

Study 3: Isn’t Self Esteem to do with Intelligence?

All children given Science material to learn.

All scored well and there was no discernable difference between the abilities of any of the children within the group

They were then asked to apply their learned knowledge in a fresh test

Study 3: Isn’t Self Esteem to do with Intelligence?

The incremental children:

Scored higher than the children with performance related goals

They produced, on average, 50% more written work

They more readily applied original material to new tasks

Study 3: Isn’t Self Esteem to do with Intelligence?

“ The key to self esteem does not relate to how confident one feels about oneself tackling a given task”

But…Rather your view of intelligence and whether it is fixed (therefore every task measures one’s ability) or malleable (therefore every task has the ability to increase intelligence)”

Study 3: Isn’t Self Esteem to do with Intelligence?

Self Esteem and Confidence

“As a society we have come to believe that this (praise) will raise student’s confidence. And confidence we believe is the panacea.

Self Esteem and Confidence

“We believe that if students have confidence in their ability all else will follow. They will feel undaunted by difficult, never doubting themselves when they meet obstacles. But our research shows that, somewhat unexpectedly that confidence doesn’t help them when they meet with difficulty”

(page 51)

Self Esteem and Confidence

Dweck took two groups of bright girls

1. One were given successes and few failures to seemingly boost self esteem

2. The second group were given challenging tasks alongside “attribution training”

Self Esteem and Confidence

The success group made no improvement indeed they seemed to be worse in perceiving every failure as a reflection of their ability

The retrained group improved to the extent that they were showing better performance even after failures. They also articulated new strategies they had developed in scenarios where they faced potential failure

Self Esteem and Confidence

“What was perhaps more fascinating was that the teachers (who didn’t know which students were in which group) told me that some of the students who had often been given less work so they wouldn’t feel overwhelmed, were now requesting more work. They also stated that the pupil’s were persisting in tasks.”

(page 57)

Self Esteem and Confidence

“In our research we have found that the students with the most striking history of success are often the most, rather than the least vulnerable. These are the bright girls.”

They held a more entity approach to intelligence than bright boys, who in turn were far happier in a risk taking environment

Self Esteem and Confidence

The girls saw the need to apply effort as a sign that they lacked intelligenceThe boys saw effort as a necessary pre-requisite to fuller understanding

This can lead to “self handicapping” where children don’t apply themselves to protect themselves against their own theory that to work and fail is a measure of one’s own intelligence.

Self Esteem and Confidence

“Primary schools typically provide a low-key environment in which the work tends to be carefully paced and teachers try to keep failure to a minimum. If vulnerable children do not encounter difficulty they will not be hampered in their achievement”

(page 29)

Self Esteem and Confidence

Is it possible to change a child’s self esteem?

Evidence suggests that children’s views about intelligence can be changed quite radically and quite quickly through a shift in classroom/school ethos and culture.

Studies with children as young as Reception age show a clear correlation between a change of class ethos and a change in children’s views.

Potential to Change

Children were given two passages on Helen Keller and Albert Einstein. One of them suggested that they both achieved through natural ability whilst the other inferred that they had succeeded in life through application and effort

In follow up work “Students who read the entity theory passage were significantly more likely to select a performance based task”

(page 23)

Potential to Change

Aronson taught incremental theory to his Black American underachieving undergraduates.

Those taught it showed gains in:1. Their attainment scores2. Their enjoyment of school3. Their perception of themselves as academically

orientated

Potential to Change

How do we use praise and criticism constructively?

“85% of parents believing praising a child’s ability when they do well is something necessary for a child’s self esteem”

“However this seems only to instil in children a sense of “contingent self worth” i.e. they feel worthy only when they succeed and feel worthless when they fail”

Shallow Praise

If we tell children “they are smart” then this only seems to place a greater degree of pressure upon them to fulfil expectations

If we tell them they are not intelligent then they will undoubtedly be discouraged

But to praise their effort, to talk around their particular successes not only shows more concern and value for their work but instils in them a sense that they can achieve further.

Shallow Praise

There is a strong correlation between children who have a “contingent self worth” and those who have an entity view of intelligence.

In a test where children had to tell others their scores 100% of the incremental based children told the truth whilst 40% of the entity children exaggerated their own scores.

Shallow Praise

Is there no place for “Person” or “Trait” praise?

Yes the same as there is a place for “Great Story” at the end of a piece of writing sometimes but it is not the norm nor something that will improve writing.

Where a true incremental ethos is set then one off statements lack the impact to be totally destructive.

Shallow Praise

What impact should this have on our teaching and

learning?

“These beliefs lead us as adults to lie to children – to exaggerate positives, to sugar coat negatives, or to hide negative information entirely. We fear that negative information and or criticism will damage self esteem”

(Page 127)

Dangers of False Views on Self Esteem

“How can we as adults facilitate this kind of self esteem? By emphasising learning, challenges, effort and strategies. We can show children how we relish a challenge by waxing eloquent when something is hard; we can talk about how good an effortful task feels; we can model the exciting search for new strategies and when children work on their own tasks we can encourage these attributes in them”

(page 129)

Teaching and Learning

This form of teaching has two obvious repercussions for classroom practice:

1. Telling the truth: There is a need to be transparent with children. The issue of self worth is no longer whether you are top or bottom of the class but “How can I achieve of my best?”

Teaching and Learning

Points of note:

I have long believed that if you gave each child the register and told them to grade the children in order of intelligence they would do it as well if not better than us.

The Duplicity of this approach

2. The collegiate approach to learning: With an entity framework the children match their performance and gain their self worth from evaluating themselves against their peers. Research shows that a failure in a peer is often used to enhance a child’s own self esteem by comparisonWith an incremental view there is no conflict with your own esteem and the performance of others.

Teaching and Learning

The “emergent” teaching style delivers all children needs in this regard It hands learning back to children The self esteem is derived from their own success There is no need to compare with others as the

key is based on creating their own understanding Peers can easily become team members in the

process of discovery

Teaching and Learning

The “didactic” teaching style delivers nothing children need in this regard

It sets up a body of knowledge that children can/cannot attain thereby creating a can/can’t do culture.

Children anxiously compare with their peers to see whether they have “got it yet”

There is only one level of success; understand or not understand

To criticise is detrimental because it implies the teaching is clear therefore the fault lies with the child’s intelligence

Teaching and Learning

A Final Quote

“Achievement is largely the product of steadily raising one’s levels of aspiration and expectation.”

Jack Nicklaus