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Wait, You Mean Not Everyone Is Above Average?

The Washington Post reports that empty praise doesn’t do anything for students’ self-esteem! Who knew?

A growing body of research over three decades shows that easy, unearned praise does not help students but instead interferes with significant learning opportunities. As schools ratchet up academic standards for all students, new buzzwords are “persistence,” “risk-taking” and “resilience” — each implying more sweat and strain than fuzzy, warm feelings.

“We used to think we could hand children self-esteem on a platter,” Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck said. “That has backfired.”

This reminds of the Post piece after the dissolution of the USSR that found from Soviet archives that Gus Hall and the CPUSA really were tools of Moscow! Next up, “a growing body of research” will show that central planning doesn’t work, unwed motherhood is bad for children, and peace can only be preserved through military preparedness.

New on The Corner. . .


COMMENTS   14

EXPAND  

   01/16/12 16:54

"Next up, 'a growing body of research' will show that central planning doesn’t work, unwed motherhood is bad for children, and peace can only be preserved through military preparedness."

__________________________________________

. . . that tax-rate cuts can increase revenue, that gay marriage isn't real marriage, that stiff sentences cut crime rates, etc., etc.

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Leo in Shreveport
   01/16/12 17:10

Can we start keeping score at kids soccer games now?

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JKB
   01/16/12 17:15

Can we finally admit that social science is not science, not social and that is bad to use children as guinea pigs to cover for useless Ph.Ds?

Throw out everything that has come out of the education and social sciences in the last 100 years, return to the 1910 education methods and the problem is solved.

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   01/16/12 17:42

Joke all you want, but I would love to see The Washington Post report on the evidence "show[ing] that central planning doesn’t work, unwed motherhood is bad for children, and peace can only be preserved through military preparedness."

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   01/16/12 17:45

“We used to think we could hand children self-esteem on a platter,”

Who do you mean by "we", Kemo Sabe?

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   01/16/12 18:20

Conservatism: Study 10,000 years of human history and form careful conclusions about how one should live life.

Liberalism: Form a hare-brained idea while over-using recreational drugs, and spend billions of dollars promoting and implementing it. Then, after 30 years conduct studies which conclude that the idea is completely without merit, just as any study of 10,000 years of human history would have predicted.

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   01/16/12 19:18

The Great Relearning continues.

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Harpoon
   01/16/12 20:01

A liberal needs an academic study to tell them what common sense tells a conservative. In other words: " No $#!& Sherlock".

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   01/16/12 20:14

How is it that news outlets are the last to know what is obvious to anyone who ever stuck his head out the door?

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   01/16/12 20:15

It makes sense. People are not going to value praise that is too easily earned.

I think the real issue is to not tear anyone down, rather than thinking you can build them up.

The human ego is pretty hard to control as it is. I am pretty sure that it will inflate as long as someone doesn't receive a lot of negative feedback.

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Paul Hehn
   01/16/12 20:23

As usual, The Corner inadvertently exposes one of the Great Lies of self-proclaimed "conservatives." Get involved with your kids' school and you know what you find? Yes, you find over-sensitive liberals -- but most of them are very involved in their children's lives and work very hard to make them better. But you also find self-proclaimed conservatives who do nothing but gripe about how the government doesn't help their children enough. Ironically, it's those who claim to believe in personal responsibility who are the loudest at claiming the institution doesn't serve them well.

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heaven5951
   01/18/12 22:31

I don't know which conservatives you're talking about, I don't want government money or their intrusion into mine and my kids and grandkids' lives.

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   01/16/12 20:53

A growing body of research over three decades shows that easy, unearned praise does not help students...
Just wondering how many taxpayer dollars were involved in arriving at this bloody obvious conclusion.

Next, we'll have a new government-sponsored study on dinosaurs:

[Begin Mony Python]
Presenter: Good evening. Tonight: "dinosaurs". I have here, sitting in the studio next to me, an elk. Ahhhh!!! Oh, I'm sorry! Anne Elk - Mrs Anne Elk

Anne Elk: Miss!

Presenter: Miss Anne Elk, who is an expert on di...

Anne Elk: N' n' n' n' no! Anne Elk!

Presenter: What?

Anne Elk: Anne Elk, not Anne Expert!

Presenter: No! No, I was saying that you, Miss Anne Elk, were an , A-N not A-N-N-E, expert...

Anne Elk: Oh!

Presenter: ...on elks - I'm sorry, on dinosaurs. I'm ...

Anne Elk: Yes, I certainly am, Chris. How very true. My word yes.

Presenter: Now, Miss Elk - Anne - you have a new theory about the brontosaurus.

Anne Elk: Can I just say here, Chris for one moment, that I have a new theory about the brontosaurus?

Presenter: Uh... Exactly... What is it?

Anne Elk: Where?

Presenter: No! No, what is your theory?

Anne Elk: What is my theory?

Presenter: Yes!

Anne Elk: What is my theory that it is? Yes. Well, you may well ask what is my theory.

Presenter: I am asking.

Anne Elk: And well you may. Yes, my word, you may well ask what it is, this theory of mine. Well, this theory, that I have, that is to say, which is mine,... is mine.

Presenter: I know it's yours! What is it?

Anne Elk: ... Where? ... Oh! Oh! What is my theory?

Presenter: Yes!

Anne Elk: Ahh! My theory, that I have, follows the lines that I am about to relate. (starts prolonged throat clearing)

Presenter: (under breath) Oh, God! (Anne still clearing throat)

Anne Elk: The Theory, by A. Elk (that's "A" for Anne", it's not by a elk.)

Presenter: Right...

Anne Elk: (clears throat) This theory, which belongs to me, is as follows... (more throat clearing) This is how it goes... (clears throat) The next thing that I am about to say is my theory. (clears throat) Ready?

Presenter: (wimpers)

Anne Elk: The Theory, by A. Elk (Miss). My theory is along the following lines...

Presenter: (under breath)God!

Anne Elk: ...All brontosauruses are thin at one end; much, much thicker in the middle and then thin again at the far end. That is the theory that I have and which is mine and what it is, too.

Presenter: That's it, is it?

Anne Elk: Right, Chris!

Presenter: Well, Anne, this theory of yours seems to have hit the nail right on the head.

Anne Elk: ... and it's mine.

Presenter: Thank you for coming along to the studio.

Anne Elk: My pleasure, Chris.

Presenter: Britain's newest wasp farm...

Anne Elk: It's been a lot of fun...

Presenter: ...opened last week...

Anne Elk: ...saying what my theory is...

Presenter: ... Yes, thank you.

Anne Elk: ...and whose it is.

Presenter: Yes.... opened last week...

Anne Elk: I have another theory.

Presenter: Not today, thank you.

Anne Elk: My theory #2, which is the second theory that I have. (clears throat). This theory...

Presenter: Look! Shut up!

Anne Elk: ...is what I am about to say.

Presenter: Please shut up!

Anne Elk: which, with what I have said, are the two theories that are mine and which belong to me.

Presenter: If you don't shut up, I shall have to shoot you!

Anne Elk: (clears throat) My theory, which I posses the ownership of, which belongs to... (Sound of a single gun shot)

Anne Elk: (clearing throat) The Theory the Second, by Anne... (Sound of prolonged machine gun fire)

[End Monty Python]

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   01/16/12 22:50

What's next, a study that concludes that the Earth goes around the Sun?

More proof that leftist ideology is really a mental illness.

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