Tips memuji kanak-kanak

Salah satu rancangan kegemaran ak, HonmaDekka TV yang ke udara setiap hari Rabu jam 2100 ini menghimpunkan beberapa pakar akademik dari pelbagai bidang daripada psychology sehingga ke neurology untuk membahaskan penemuan terbaru dalam bidang masing-masing.. Baru-baru ini ak terpanggil untuk berkongsi dalam entri kali ini tentang isu memuji kanak-kanak dengan betul.. Kajian yang dijalankan oleh Claudia M. Mueller dan Carol S. Dweck daripada Columbia University ini diterbitkan pada tahun 1998; namun masih ramai termasuk ibu bapa sendiri masih melakukan "kesilapan" yang sama dalam memuji anak-anak anda.. Pernah terfikir kenapa ramai yang sejak kecil dilabel genius atau bijak tapi bila besar ramai yang lingkup? Mungkin salah satu faktornya boleh didapati melalui maklumat dibawah:

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...In her own research, Dweck has shown that these mindsets have important practical implications. Her most famous study, conducted in twelve different New York City schools along with Claudia Mueller, involved giving more than 400 fifth graders a relatively easy test consisting of nonverbal puzzles. After the children finished the test, the researchers told the students their score, and provided them with a single line of praise. Half of the kids were praised for their intelligence. “You must be smart at this,” the researcher said. The other students were praised for their effort: “You must have worked really hard.”

The students were then allowed to choose between two different subsequent tests. The first choice was described as a more difficult set of puzzles, but the kids were told that they’d learn a lot from attempting it. The other option was an easy test, similar to the test they’d just taken.

When Dweck was designing the experiment, she expected the different forms of praise to have a rather modest effect. After all, it was just one sentence. But it soon became clear that the type of compliment given to the fifth graders dramatically affected their choice of tests. When kids were praised for their effort, nearly 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. However, when kids were praised for their intelligence, most of them went for the easier test. What explains this difference? According to Dweck, praising kids for intelligence encourages them to “look” smart, which means that they shouldn’t risk making a mistake.

Dweck’s next set of experiments showed how this fear of failure can actually inhibit learning. She gave the same fifth graders yet another test. This test was designed to be extremely difficult — it was originally written for eighth graders — but Dweck wanted to see how the kids would respond to the challenge. The students who were initially praised for their effort worked hard at figuring out the puzzles. Kids praised for their smarts, on the other hand, were easily discouraged. Their inevitable mistakes were seen as a sign of failure: Perhaps they really weren’t so smart. After taking this difficult test, the two groups of students were then given the option of looking either at the exams of kids who did worse or those who did better. Students praised for their intelligence almost always chose to bolster their self-esteem by comparing themselves with students who had performed worse on the test. In contrast, kids praised for their hard work were more interested in the higher-scoring exams. They wanted to understand their mistakes, to learn from their errors, to figure out how to do better.

The final round of tests was the same difficulty level as the initial test. Nevertheless, students who were praised for their effort exhibited significant improvement, raising their average score by 30 percent. Because these kids were willing to challenge themselves, even if it meant failing at first, they ended up performing at a much higher level. This result was even more impressive when compared to students randomly assigned to the smart group, who saw their scores drop by nearly 20 percent. The experience of failure had been so discouraging for the “smart” kids that they actually regressed.

The problem with praising kids for their innate intelligence — the “smart” compliment — is that it misrepresents the psychological reality of education. It encourages kids to avoid the most useful kind of learning activities, which is when we learn from our mistakes. Because unless we experience the unpleasant symptoms of being wrong — that surge of Pe activity a few hundred milliseconds after the error, directing our attention to the very thing we’d like to ignore — the mind will never revise its models. We’ll keep on making the same mistakes, forsaking self-improvement for the sake of self-confidence. Samuel Beckett had the right attitude: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”

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Narrated `A’ishah: 

The Prophet took a child in his lap ... and then the child urinated on him, so he asked for water and poured it over the place of the urine. Embarrassed, the father sprang forward. "What have you done, you silly boy?" he shouted. He shoved his arm forward to grab the child away from Muhammad, his red face showing his anger. Fear and confusion showed in the face of the child. Muhammad (SAW) restrained the man, and gently hugged the child to him. "Don’t worry," he told the over-zealous father. "This is not a big issue. My clothes can be washed. But be careful with how you treat the child," he continued. "What can restore his self-esteem after you have dealt with him in public like this?".

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参考文献 (References)

[1] Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation and Performance (link)

[2] Why Do Some People Learn Faster? (link)

[3] Jason Moser (link)

[4] Islam and Children (link)

p/s 修士論文 (Master thesis) pon x siap lagi.. boleh ada masa dok baca 論文 yang xde kaitan ngan bidang sendiri.. haha~