Broken Mindset

 

Little Johnny comes home one day, looks down at his feet, and gives you his report card. You smile at him as you open it up and look inside. Then your smile disappears when you see the F in math. You also see an A (English) and two Bs (history and science). You look down at little Johnny and ask, “What happened in math, Johnny? Why did you get this F?”

We want our kids to be successful at everything they do. And if they’re not good at something, we ask why they failed. We tell them to work harder at it. Understand what went wrong, focus, and fix it.

But that’s a mistake. The wrong focus. If you dwell on Johnny’s failure, on his weakness, you’ll be setting him up for a life of struggle and low self-esteem while reducing his chances of reaching his full potential.

Also, as a side note, you won’t fix his weakness. You’ll just reinforce it.

The problem with a report card is that it measures all students against the same criteria, which ignores that each student is different with unique talents, distinct likes and dislikes, and particular aspirations. And when we see the F on little Johnny’s report card, it’s easy for us to get distracted from our primary job: to help him deeply enjoy his life and fulfill his potential by developing and deriving pleasure from his unique talents.

- Taken from Stop Worrying about Your Weaknesses an HBR article by Peter Bregman.

I am not a parent (which is the reason why I quoted the article). I am not a professional teacher too. But one opinion I share with this article and the idea of the strengths revolution is that, parents and educators have a major part to play if we want the future professionals of this nation play to their strengths.

I think we have been far too concerned with dealing with students’ weaknesses more than we ought to build them up by their strengths. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t mean we ignore their weaknesses, I honestly think we still should address the weaknesses, in fact, we can do this better by focusing more on their strengths. Because at some point you will find out the clues you need and each student’s learning styles by looking at the subjects that strengthens him and applying it to manage their weakness.

Educators, as second parents, have a voice. In fact they have a loud voice, a voice of influence to their students. That voice will definitely affect how they will see challenges ahead of them.

Are you a teacher or an educator? How are you influencing your students today?

I wanted to share an enrichment activity made specifically for educators!

click on thumbnail to view larger image

It is very seldom that events like this be custom-made for educators. I encourage all educators reading this to come and join this event. To know more about this event please proceed to the official SchoolTalk.Ph article..

 

 Train a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not turn from it [Proverbs 22:6, NIV]

 

For Educators/Teachers/Homeschool parents: SPECIAL TICKET GIVE AWAY!!!

First of all, please like BrokenMindset.Org and SchoolTalk.Ph Facebook pages! Then follow the simple mechanics below:

1. Share this article in your Facebook timeline.

2. *Comment on the article below and complete the statement: “I believe educators have a voice of influence on the next generation. I want to go to Teacher’s Recess because….”  (*Please ensure you type in your comments below this article so I can see them)

3. Contest ends on July 7, 2012 at 2PM. Winners will be announced in BrokenMindset.Org Facebook page.

**Make sure to read about the event Teacher’s Recess here.

BrokenMindset will be choosing 5 winners  and will be giving away one ticket per winner!

Invite your co-teachers! If they register before JULY 10, 2012, they get the special rate 500 Php/pax !!!

Related posts:

Comments

Chinkee Tan, education, educators, event, Harvard Business Review, home school, influence, Mr. Tony Meloto, Ms. Mary Lorraine “Malu” Tiongson-Ortiz, passion, Proverbs 22:6, Revolution, Schooltalk.ph, seminar, strengths, Teacher's Recess, Teachers, USec. Leon Flores III, weakness