Read the following quote from an article in the Washington Post and use content from the quote to write a conditional argument. The quote is from the Washington Post Article: In schools, self-esteem boosting is losing favor to rigor, finer-tuned praise By Michael Alison Chandler, Published: January 15, 2012
Education experts have long warned about the dark side of praise.
Alfie Kohn, author of the book “Punished by Rewards,” has said most praise, even for effort, encourages children to be "praise junkies" dependent on outside feedback rather than cultivating their own judgment and motivation to learn.
Michelle A. Rhee, the former D.C. schools chancellor, often recounts a story about how her daughters’ many soccer trophies are warping their sense of their athletic abilities. Her daughters “suck at soccer,” she said in a radio interview for Marketplace last January.
“We’ve become so obsessed with making kids feel good about themselves that we’ve lost sight of building the skills they need to actually be good at things,” Rhee said.
Underlying the praise backlash is a hard seed of anxiety — a sense that American students are not working hard enough to compete with students from overseas for future jobs.
In an oft-cited 2006 study by the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, U.S. eighth-graders had only a middling performance on an international math exam, but they registered high levels of confidence. They were more likely than higher performing students from other countries, such as Singapore and South Korea, to report that they “usually do well in mathematics.”
Praise should be relevant to objective standards, said Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank. Whether it’s given to make children feel good or because “at least they tried,” it’s not helpful if students are still “50 yards from proficient,” he said.
“Winning or losing also matters in the real world,” Finn said. “You either beat the enemy or you don’t. You either get the gold medal or you get the silver.”
Dweck said it is important to be clear with children about what proficient or gold-medal performance looks like so they know what to strive for. (Unhelpful: “You were robbed! Those judges must be blind!”)
But she stresses the importance of using praise to encourage risk-taking and learning from failure in the classroom, experiences that make way for invention, creativity and resilience.
“Does the teacher say: ‘Who’s having a fantastic struggle? Show me your struggle.’ That is something that should be rewarded,” she said. “Does the teacher make it clear that the fastest answer isn’t always the best answer? [That] a mistake-free paper isn’t always the best paper?”
Changing the language of praise can be difficult for adults who grew up thinking that an “A for effort” was a consolation prize.
“They know that everything they do isn’t ‘Magnificent!’ ” Hellie said.
And so her class is becoming accustomed to awkward silence.
The same January morning, another seventh-grade boy struggled to figure out what was wrong with this sentence: Un chico soy inteligente.
One classmate started to answer, but Hellie stopped her. Another classmate volunteered, in newly acquired vocabulary, why the boy needed to persist on his own. “He’s trying to connect pathways in his brain or whatever,” she said.
Finally, the boy understood.
“Soy un chico inteligente,” he said.
“What does it mean?” the teacher asked.
“I am an intelligent boy?”
The class broke into applause.