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Good Habits

Don’t look now but the 2010-2011 school year is already underway. DODEA schools are back in session and most school systems across the country have welcomed teachers back with students to follow in a few days or weeks. I like to think about each new school year as another opportunity to learn.

Here at the MCEC office we are taking an opportunity to learn too. We are learning about good habits and that is what I want to share with you in this blog. Through a happy connection with Carol Gray and the Thrive Foundation, we have been learning about www.stepitup2thrive.org , one excellent website full of excellent ideas and good habits.

Here are some good habits that you and your students can work on for this school year and I think you will find that they may change your lives in very positive ways.  Take a look at what Thrive has to say:

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Why do some people reach their full potential, while others of equal talent, do not?

After three decades of extensive research, Dr. Carol Dweck asserts that:

• Success is directly related to people’s beliefs about their intelligence and talent.
• Those who believe their gifts and intelligence are innate and carved in stone have a “fixed mindset”,
• Those who believe that their abilities and intelligence can be developed through effort and practice have a “growth mindset”.
• The effects of one’s mindset on life choices and resulting achievements are profound.1

Fixed Mindset

Children and adults who believe that intelligence and talents are fixed tend to be concerned about proving their abilities, rather than learning. This belief causes them to interpret mistakes as threats to their ego rather than as opportunities to improve. Mistakes defeat their self-confidence because they attribute errors to lack of ability, which they feel powerless to change. Consequently, in order to decrease the likelihood of making mistakes, and increase the likelihood of demonstrating their skill or intelligence, these individuals tend to avoid challenges.2

Youth with a fixed mindset often avoid making a concerted effort in their endeavors - in the classroom, on the field, or in pursuit of personal goals, fearing that hard work indicates a lack of ability or intelligence, which prevents them from reaching their full potential.3

Growth Mindset

Youth with a growth mindset, on the other hand, tend to demonstrate the kind of perseverance and resilience required to convert life’s setbacks into future successes. They believe intelligence and skills can be developed through education and hard work. They want to stretch themselves and learn. Challenges are motivating rather than intimidating, as they present opportunities to grow their skills and intellect, enabling them to work towards audacious goals and achieve their full potential.

Another significant difference between individuals with growth and fixed mindsets is in their ability to accurately self-assess. Those with a growth mindset are more “open to accurate information about their current abilities, even if it’s unflattering”, because they believe they can develop and improve. “Since they’re oriented toward learning... they need accurate information about their current abilities in order to learn effectively.” Those with a fixed mindset, however, tend to have distorted or unrealistic views of their abilities. 4

Mindset

2“The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.” Dr. Dweck

Research: Junior High Transition

A 2007 study by psychologists Carol Dweck and Kali H. Trzesniewski, of Stanford University, and Lisa Blackwell, of Columbia University, proved that students with a growth mindset were destined for greater academic success, and were likely to outperform their fixed mindset peers (of comparable academic standing). The researchers followed 373 students for two years during the transition to junior high school, a time when the workload increases and grading is more stringent, to determine how different mindsets affect math performance.5

As predicted, students with a growth mindset:

• felt that learning was a more important goal than getting good grades
• “they held hard work in high regard, believing that the more you labored at something, the better you would become at it...
•  Confronted by a setback such as a disappointing test grade, students with a growth mindset said they would study harder or try a different strategy for mastering the material.” 6

The students who held a fixed mindset:

•  were more concerned about demonstrating intelligence and had less interest in learning
•  “They had negative views of effort, believing that having to work hard at something was a sign of low ability
•  they thought that a person with talent or intelligence did not need to work hard to do well
• attributing a bad grade to their own lack of ability, they said that they would study less in the future, try never to take that subject again and consider cheating on future tests.”7

“Such divergent outlooks had a dramatic impact on performance. At the start of junior high, the math achievement test scores of the students with a growth mindset were comparable to those of students who displayed a fixed mindset, but as the work became more difficult, students with a growth mindset showed greater persistence. As a result, their math grades overtook those of the other students by the end of the first semester, and the gap between the two groups continued to widen during the next two years”, demonstrating how a growth mindset can have a long-term impact on one’s success.8

While Dweck recognizes that people differ in intelligence and ability, research is converging on the conclusion that accomplishments are typically the result of years of passion and dedication and not something that flows naturally from a gift. American Idol’s Jennifer Hudson, Thomas Edison, Jerry Rice, and Mozart were not simply born with talent; they cultivated it through tremendous and sustained effort. Consequently, if we foster development of a growth mindset, we can empower youth to love challenges and believe in effort, thereby helping them to achieve their full potential.9

Implications for Practice

“Such lessons apply to almost every human endeavor. For instance, many young athletes value talent more than hard work and have consequently become unteachable.” Similarly, many youth accomplish little in their work without constant encouragement to maintain their motivation. Adult guides can help youth develop a growth mindset to increase a youth’s motivation to reach goals, with tactics that include:

MINDSET

“Believing talents can be developed allows people to fulfill their potential.” Dr. Dweck

“Simply learning about the growth mindset seems to mobilize people for meeting challenges and persevering.” Dr. Dweck3

Here are some habits you may want to work on for the new school year. I think you’ll find that applying this research will be a good habit you’ll want to keep:

• Teaching youth about growth versus fixed mindsets through self-assessment and discussion.
• Discouraging labels (such as “smart” or “dumb”) that convey intelligence as a fixed ability.
• Praising effort, strategies and progress, not intelligence or abilities.
• Presenting youth with opportunities to be challenged, conveying that challenging activities are fun, and that mistakes help them learn and improve.10

 

 

4 References

1. Blackwell, L., Trzesniewski, K., & Dweck, C. (2007). Implicit Theories of Intelligence Predict

Achievement Across an Adolescent Transition: A Longitudinal Study and an Intervention.

Child Development, Vol. 78, No. 1, pp. 246-263.

2. Chen, M. (2007, March 16). Smart Talking: Tell Students to Feed Their Brains. Edutopia.

Retrieved February 17, 20009 from http://www.edutopia.org/tell-students-feed-their-brains

3. Dweck, C. (2006) Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books.

4. Dweck, C. (2007, November 28). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific American Mind.

Retrieved February 17, 20009 from http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-toraising-

smart-kids&print=true

5. Rae-Dupree, J. (2008, July 6). If You’re Open to Growth, You Tend to Grow. New York Times.

Retrieved February 17, 20009 from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/business.

Footnotes

1. Dweck, C. (2006) Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books. p.

4-7.

2. Dweck, C. (2007, November 28). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific American Mind.

3. Dweck, C. (2007, November 28). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific American Mind.

4. Dweck, C. (2006) Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books. p. 11.

5. Dweck, C. (2007, November 28). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific American Mind.

6. Dweck, C. (2007, November 28). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific American Mind.

7. Dweck, C. (2007, November 28). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific American Mind.

8. Dweck, C. (2007, November 28). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific American Mind.

9. Dweck, C. (2007, November 28). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific American Mind.

10. Chen, M. (2007, March 16). Smart Talking: Tell Students to Feed Their Brains. Eutopia.

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My goodness, where did summer go?  It seems like the kids just got out of school, with the lazy days of summer stretching out ahead of us. And yet, here it is the start of August with all those back to school things to purchase. Have you gotten your registration packet in the mail? Even though both of my kids are returning to the same district, I am still required to fill out three pages of information on each child.

Like me, some of you may be returning to the same school system this year. Others have PCS’d to a new area and new schools.  Even if you are within the same district your child may be switching from elementary to middle or from middle to high school. These are all important transitions for which to prepare.

Back to School brings $$$ to my eyes. New clothes, new supplies, new uniforms – new everything, it seems. While these checklists are important, don’t forget those items that are not as obvious.

If you are starting a new school do you have transcripts from your former school? Are IEP’s and student portfolios up to date? www.SchoolQuest.org has individual profiles for each student to equip them with a customized plan. Spending just 5 minutes filling out the question returns a wealth of knowledge from the convenience of your own computer. You will be sure to uncover some information you had encountered. This will all work together to help you plan the best school career possible.

I’d like to share some ideas that have helped us smooth the transitions.

·         Take time to go on a tour of the new school building. This will help you envision your child’s day and helps your student feel a little more comfortable with the new environment.

·         Many times schools will offer an orientation for new students, and if not, take the lead and request an orientation.

·         If your student will be changing classrooms throughout the day, walk through their schedule and locate their classrooms to give them a head start on the first day of school.

·         Take advantage of all the new school has to offer. Attend Meet the Teacher night, and gather all the phone numbers and names that you can – these will come in handy.

·         Create a file at home where school information is stored so it is easily accessible at all times.

·         Make learning the new school a family adventure and accompany your child when appropriate.

www.SchoolQuest.org and www.MilitaryChild.org are there throughout the year. Our goal is to serve you. We have researched topics that are especially pertinent to military families such as schools and life transitions. Come in and be our guest!

-          posted by Amy Soupene, the MCEC’s SchoolQuest Program Manager

               

 

 

The MCEC 2010 Annual Conference is less than fifty days away! And while we have some exciting sessions and speakers in the line-up, don’t forget about the MCEC Pre-Conference – a chance for some in-depth training prior to the start of the conference.



The MCEC Pre-Conference will be held July 20 from 7:30 am – 4:30 pm and July 21 from 7:30 am – 10:00 am. The $75 fee includes two breakfasts, one lunch, and all publications and course materials.



The 2010 Pre-Conference features four main tracks to follow.



•   Track One is the Transition Counselor Institute (TCI), Phase I or Phase II.

•   Track Two is the Special Education Leaders Institute (SELI).

•   Track Three is the Living In the New Normal Practicum (LINN-P) on Tuesday morning and afternoon, using Wednesday morning to focus on the Concurrent Workshop Session.

•   Track Four is made of three purely Concurrent Workshop Sessions of your choosing (each Concurrent Workshop Session is three hours long).

Concurrent Workshop Highlights

For those Pre-Conference attendees interested in the Concurrent Workshop Sessions, the following titles will be offered. (See the complete list of Conference Workshops and Descriptions here.)

•    Beyond PowerPoint: Activities and Icebreakers for Presentation and Group Work (Donna Earle & Stacye Parry)

•    Comprehensive Behavioral Service for Military Children: A Pilot Project (Jen Crockett, Ph.D. [Kennedy-Krieger Center])

•    Junior Student 2 Student: A Peer-Based Answer to the Military Child's Transitioning Challenges (Bill Lawson & JS2S Advisors)

•    Play - National Exuberance (Kathleen O'Beirne)

•    Sharpening Your Tools for Dealing with Difficult Situations (Jan Jordan & Mary Pat McCartney)

•    What Can a Speed Limit Sign, a Parachute and Custer's Last Stand Teach Us about Effective Leadership? (Paul Callen)

In addition, we have four more titles that focus on children with unique learning needs:

•    Parents, Students, and Schools... A Special Education Thinking Partnership (Kathy McKinney & Sharon Neill)

•    Making the Connection: Working with Parents of Children with Language-Based Disabilities (Holly Baker Hill, Ed.D. [UTSA] & Cassie Boatwright [LISD])

•    Special Education Basics (Rud Turnbull, LL.M./J.D.)

•    Preparing for Transitions (Ann Turnbull, Ed.D.)

You can raise a significant amount of money without much effort at all… just by searching and shopping online. 

Just go to http://goodsearch.com/ and be sure to enter Military Child Education Coalition (MCEC) as the charity you want to support.   You only have to enter this info once - your computer should remember it.  Use it just as you would any search engine and get quality search results from Yahoo.  The MCEC gets a penny from every  search you do.   That doesn’t seem like much, but it adds up fast!  They even have a downloadable toolbar. 

You can also go to www.GoodShop.com  and in the box that says "who do you support?" type in MCEC and click the verify button, then shop, shop, shop.  The MCEC gets a portion of whatever you spend, at no cost to you!   Virtually every online retailer is available through GoodShop, so when you buy online, just do the tiny extra step by going through GoodShop to get to your favorite online stores including Amazon, Overstock, Expedia, AT&T, Barnes & Noble, 1-800-Flowers, Target, and literally hundreds more.

And please—spread the word! 

- posted by Hannah Garcia, New Mom and Development Research Manager for the MCEC

Did you know that President Ronald Reagan designated the Friday before Mother’s Day as Military Spouse Appreciation Day in 1984? Since then, the nation has acknowledged the value of military spouses.

Today our current President has something to say Military Members and Military Spouses: “I am inspired every day by our men and women in uniform and their families.  They are America's greatest military asset, and my Administration is committed to fulfilling our obligations to them. Today, let us honor the spouses and families who support our servicemembers and, in doing so, help defend our Nation and preserve our liberty.” To read the complete letter, click here.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has issued a message to servicemembers and their families, commemorating May 8 as Military Spouse Appreciation Day. He says, “On behalf of the Joint Chiefs and their families, we are proud to honor this occasion on the eighth of May. The unending service and sacrifice of our military spouses are worthy of both praise and an equally continuous commitment from a grateful nation.” To read his entire message, log on to www.spousebuzz.com.



Click here to see what different areas of the world are doing in honor of this day (and what prizes they are giving away!).

Want to hear how other military families are celebrating? Log on to www.blogtalkradio.com.

How are you celebrating Military Spouse Appreciation Day? We want to hear from you!

- Posted by Laura Campbell, the MCEC's Media Specialist and Proud Military Spouse

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