Student achievement in school is as much about self belief and confidence, as it is in academic endeavour and aptitude. Whether it involves preparation for NAPLAN testing or Years 3,5,7 and 9, or Queensland Core Skills Tests for Year 12, or assessment of any kind for each of the Year Levels, students need to believe that they can achieve well and have the confidence in their own ability, that comes from setting ‘learning’ goals rather than ‘performance’ goals. Learning goals requires students to practise and focus on improving their ability rather than setting a goal of achieving an ‘A’ result.
According to Bandura (1999) and other researchers, how people behave and achieve can often be better predicted by the beliefs they hold about their capabilities, what he calls self efficacy beliefs, than by what they are actually capable of accomplishing, because these self-perceptions help determine what individuals do with the knowledge and skills they have.
Researcher and author, Frank Pajaras (2003) has found that judgments of personal efficacy affect what students do by influencing the choices they make, the effort they expend, the persistence and perseverance they exert when obstacles arise, and the thought patterns and emotional reactions they experience.
A strong sense of confidence, for example, may serve students well when writing an essay because it engenders greater interest in and attention to writing, stronger effort, and greater perseverance and resiliency in the face of adversity. Confident students are also likely to feel less apprehensive and have stronger feelings of self-worth about their writing.
Clearly both teachers and parents should pay attention to students’ perceptions, because it is the perceptions that may more accurately predict students’ motivation and future academic outcomes. Working with students to point out their successes and achievements will help boost their confidence. Yes it sounds simple, but it does require ongoing reinforcement by both teachers and parents, of actual accomplishments. ‘Over the top praise’, contrary to some people’s beliefs, does not build self confidence in the student.
Student achievement, as well as their confidence and competence, improves with practice, and also by setting some clear and concise goals as well as by timely feedback on their work. Students respond more confidently to small progressive steps towards an end goal and will achieve at a higher level with this strategy. Difficult and daunting challenges tend to discourage students, de-motivating them and causing them to lose confidence in their own ability. So it’s important to build confidence over time with small successes in order for them to achieve at a higher level.
There is an excellent article on the topic of Supporting Students’ Confidence as Learners with more detailed advice, at the following URL address:
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=gD7_VSNmu7cC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA5&dq=achievement+and+confidence+of+students&source=bl&ots=nUUtMhtxHU&sig=bjOi-4Dpe9-JhT-dWFrdtS5GIZ8&hl=en&ei=64ipS6mhIZDc7AP_qyuBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CBkQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=achievement%20and%20confidence%20of%2students&f=false
Remember:
“Our aspirations are our possibilities."
(Samuel Johnson).
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
There was a time.....
Parenting was never meant to be easy. Effective parenting takes tons of love, understanding, patience, empathy, sympathy, care, concern and firmness. Yes, firmness. Young people need boundaries and they need parents to be specific about what they can and can’t do. As someone who has three grown adult children and with over 30 years teaching young people, I know firsthand how difficult it can be to stay firm on matters of principle, moral standards, discipline and boundaries. It’s not easy and I would be the first person to admit this!
Parents are subjected to relentless pressure to give in to their children’s demands and threats. This pressure comes not only from their own children but also from family friends, other people’s children, mass advertising on television, music video clips on Saturday morning television, movies, radio shock jocks, the internet, social networking like Facebook and msn; the list is endless. The barrage and onslaught can overwhelm even the hardiest of parents.
Don’t get me wrong, I see the positives of some of these media too, but let’s face it, somewhere over recent years, momentum has swung away from the adults and parents at home and moved more towards appealing to and satisfying the needs of youth. It’s not surprising then, that young people can have an overstated opinion of their place in the world, in the scheme of things and even in the home.
Values and standards are by no means sacrosanct, yes they do change over time, but over the last twenty years there has been a worrying trend. Some battle weary parents, or parents who don’t even try to make a stand, take the line of least resistance in dealing with issues of good behaviour, appropriate standards, and boundaries. Some parents find it difficult to simply say ‘no’ to their children – ‘anything for a quiet life’ seems to be the unwritten law of the household.
There was a time:
• When parents were in charge of what happened at home
• When denying a child some material possession or ticket to an event was seen as an opportunity to teach frugality and discrimination;
• When not having or doing what everybody else was having or doing was seen as a good thing;
• When a consequence at school was followed by a consequences at home, and the teacher was always right. (Educators tell us that it is rare when a parent thanks a school administrator for imposing discipline or punishment);
• When a child would not dare to scream and shout at a parent with impunity.
As parents at CCS, you have made a deliberate choice to send your sons and daughters here for nurturing, excellence in learning opportunities and for the values, moral and ethical standards, good manners which we believe will better prepare them for the future.
At CCS we know each child well and work with you the parents to bring about the best possible outcomes for every single student. This means that we have very fair and firm expectations for all students and we do have consequences for those students who do not meet our expectations. We need your support in ensuring that the same values and standards at our school are your expectations at home.
Please contact us if you are concerned about any pressure that your son or daughter might be expressing about ‘what everyone else is doing, and why can’t they do it too.’ We will work with all parents and support you in ensuring that your son and daughter understand fair and reasonable expectations and the right of the parent to make the decision, not the child.
I give you the commitment that we, as a school community, will work with parents to instil values of good character in your son or daughter. Yes, I agree with you, effective parenting is not easy, but I ask all parents to consider the following:
• Who makes the decisions in your household?
• Are you consistent and fair in your expectations of your son or daughter?
• Are you making decisions for the right reasons or are you being worn down by constant arguments and upsets?
• Do you discuss the reasons for your decision?
Noted psychiatrist Jung once said:
If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.
(~C.G. Jung, Integration of the Personality, 1939)
Parents are subjected to relentless pressure to give in to their children’s demands and threats. This pressure comes not only from their own children but also from family friends, other people’s children, mass advertising on television, music video clips on Saturday morning television, movies, radio shock jocks, the internet, social networking like Facebook and msn; the list is endless. The barrage and onslaught can overwhelm even the hardiest of parents.
Don’t get me wrong, I see the positives of some of these media too, but let’s face it, somewhere over recent years, momentum has swung away from the adults and parents at home and moved more towards appealing to and satisfying the needs of youth. It’s not surprising then, that young people can have an overstated opinion of their place in the world, in the scheme of things and even in the home.
Values and standards are by no means sacrosanct, yes they do change over time, but over the last twenty years there has been a worrying trend. Some battle weary parents, or parents who don’t even try to make a stand, take the line of least resistance in dealing with issues of good behaviour, appropriate standards, and boundaries. Some parents find it difficult to simply say ‘no’ to their children – ‘anything for a quiet life’ seems to be the unwritten law of the household.
There was a time:
• When parents were in charge of what happened at home
• When denying a child some material possession or ticket to an event was seen as an opportunity to teach frugality and discrimination;
• When not having or doing what everybody else was having or doing was seen as a good thing;
• When a consequence at school was followed by a consequences at home, and the teacher was always right. (Educators tell us that it is rare when a parent thanks a school administrator for imposing discipline or punishment);
• When a child would not dare to scream and shout at a parent with impunity.
As parents at CCS, you have made a deliberate choice to send your sons and daughters here for nurturing, excellence in learning opportunities and for the values, moral and ethical standards, good manners which we believe will better prepare them for the future.
At CCS we know each child well and work with you the parents to bring about the best possible outcomes for every single student. This means that we have very fair and firm expectations for all students and we do have consequences for those students who do not meet our expectations. We need your support in ensuring that the same values and standards at our school are your expectations at home.
Please contact us if you are concerned about any pressure that your son or daughter might be expressing about ‘what everyone else is doing, and why can’t they do it too.’ We will work with all parents and support you in ensuring that your son and daughter understand fair and reasonable expectations and the right of the parent to make the decision, not the child.
I give you the commitment that we, as a school community, will work with parents to instil values of good character in your son or daughter. Yes, I agree with you, effective parenting is not easy, but I ask all parents to consider the following:
• Who makes the decisions in your household?
• Are you consistent and fair in your expectations of your son or daughter?
• Are you making decisions for the right reasons or are you being worn down by constant arguments and upsets?
• Do you discuss the reasons for your decision?
Noted psychiatrist Jung once said:
If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.
(~C.G. Jung, Integration of the Personality, 1939)
Living in Harmony: Is it the Impossible Dream?
Living in harmony sounds like a wonderful concept, don’t you think? Some would say: ‘too good to be true’ while others, more optimistic, believe that ‘anything is possible’. Glendinning notes that:
If we cannot envision the world we would like to live in, we cannot work towards its creation. If we cannot place ourselves in it in our imagination, we will not believe it is possible.
Living in harmony is not a dream; rather, it is something that we can all strive to achieve. We can achieve this, not only in our own home, but at school and in the wider community too. Acting on our beliefs, in effect, becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, because deep in our subconscious we either believe that something is possible or we don’t. Every word, every action is influenced by our thinking. If we believe harmony is possible then all our communication and actions will reinforce this, and if we don’t, then it is highly unlikely that we will live harmoniously.
Breaking down prejudices, developing greater global understanding, bringing people together from different faiths, or different cultures can be a powerful way to unite people of the world but of course it doesn’t guarantee harmony. Starting in our ‘own backyard’ is perhaps the surest way to start this process of mutual understanding and empathy. What is harmony anyway, if we don’t learn to accept and value differences between people?
I once believed that I really did understand what it was like for immigrants arriving in a new country and to a new school but I was wrong. Yes, very wrong. The full appreciation of what it felt like to look and sound different hit me when I made my very first trip to China. Not only did I have people pointing at me (a combination of fair colouring and being tall), I was also at a complete loss to understand what was being said to me and couldn’t speak the language. I felt different and I was different and this was very confronting at the time and reinforced the fact that being a ‘worldly’ person and travelling the world did not mean that I felt comfortable in a different country – I felt very alien. I certainly did not feel like I was part of a global village.
The idea of a ‘global village’ is an oxymoron. An oxymoron pulls together two conflicting concepts that are at odds with one another or at the simplest level – opposites, like ‘bitter sweet’. On one hand we acknowledge that the world is shrinking. Consider the time it takes to travel from one country to another, or the nanosecond it takes for communication and images to be transmitted from one side of the globe to the other. Yet, on the other hand, there still exists an incredible diversity in culture, language and beliefs, which runs counter to the village concept which embodies like culture, like beliefs and common language. Lakhdar Brahimi makes the point:
In the globalized world that is ours, maybe we are moving towards a global village, but that global village brings in a lot of different people, a lot of different ideas, lots of different backgrounds, lots of different aspirations.
We are very fortunate to have a School which values cultural diversity and embrace the different perspectives that a multicultural community brings. Tolerance, empathy and shared understanding are the key qualities that transcend all cultural differences and leads to greater harmony amongst our students, our parents and our nation. As Robert Alan says:
Cultural differences should not separate us from each other, but rather cultural diversity brings a collective strength that can benefit all of humanity.
If we cannot envision the world we would like to live in, we cannot work towards its creation. If we cannot place ourselves in it in our imagination, we will not believe it is possible.
Living in harmony is not a dream; rather, it is something that we can all strive to achieve. We can achieve this, not only in our own home, but at school and in the wider community too. Acting on our beliefs, in effect, becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, because deep in our subconscious we either believe that something is possible or we don’t. Every word, every action is influenced by our thinking. If we believe harmony is possible then all our communication and actions will reinforce this, and if we don’t, then it is highly unlikely that we will live harmoniously.
Breaking down prejudices, developing greater global understanding, bringing people together from different faiths, or different cultures can be a powerful way to unite people of the world but of course it doesn’t guarantee harmony. Starting in our ‘own backyard’ is perhaps the surest way to start this process of mutual understanding and empathy. What is harmony anyway, if we don’t learn to accept and value differences between people?
I once believed that I really did understand what it was like for immigrants arriving in a new country and to a new school but I was wrong. Yes, very wrong. The full appreciation of what it felt like to look and sound different hit me when I made my very first trip to China. Not only did I have people pointing at me (a combination of fair colouring and being tall), I was also at a complete loss to understand what was being said to me and couldn’t speak the language. I felt different and I was different and this was very confronting at the time and reinforced the fact that being a ‘worldly’ person and travelling the world did not mean that I felt comfortable in a different country – I felt very alien. I certainly did not feel like I was part of a global village.
The idea of a ‘global village’ is an oxymoron. An oxymoron pulls together two conflicting concepts that are at odds with one another or at the simplest level – opposites, like ‘bitter sweet’. On one hand we acknowledge that the world is shrinking. Consider the time it takes to travel from one country to another, or the nanosecond it takes for communication and images to be transmitted from one side of the globe to the other. Yet, on the other hand, there still exists an incredible diversity in culture, language and beliefs, which runs counter to the village concept which embodies like culture, like beliefs and common language. Lakhdar Brahimi makes the point:
In the globalized world that is ours, maybe we are moving towards a global village, but that global village brings in a lot of different people, a lot of different ideas, lots of different backgrounds, lots of different aspirations.
We are very fortunate to have a School which values cultural diversity and embrace the different perspectives that a multicultural community brings. Tolerance, empathy and shared understanding are the key qualities that transcend all cultural differences and leads to greater harmony amongst our students, our parents and our nation. As Robert Alan says:
Cultural differences should not separate us from each other, but rather cultural diversity brings a collective strength that can benefit all of humanity.
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