Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Five Reasons to Stop Saying "Good Job"
I decided to read this article because I have read some other information on over praising and I thought it was interesting. It is one of the concepts I try to keep in the back of my mind at all times while teaching. The article mentions that saying good job can be more for the teacher or parent than for the student/child. I think it is a habit for some people, including myself, and it is hard to break. Alfie Kohn mentions that at first not saying "good job" and giving praise can seem unnatural and cold, but after a while it will become easier. I like that the article offers some other things to say in response to children and that people need to keep in mind the long-term goals for children. Over praise can make children dependent on praise and they will start to perform certain tasks just for the praise or evaluation from an adult. Instead teachers or parents can state specifically what the student did in their work or ask questions about the work. Even just saying "you did it" in an encouraging tone is more worthwhile. I found it interesting that the article talked about how over praise can actually interfere with how well a child performs a task. If a child was over praised while completing one task, they are more likely to not do as well at the next creative task. Continually praising children also made them more hestiant to answer questions in class. I found that very fascinating. I think if students are constantly being told they are good at something, they are almost afraid to not get postive praise each time they answer or complete work in class. This may make them too dependent on positive evaluations and afraid of what they might see as failure or not getting that "good job".
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I think I've mentioned this book before, but if you haven't read Choice Words, by Peter Johnston, I think you'd really like it. It's a small book, but packed with insights that would likely influence your thinking about instructional conversations for years to come. Like the Alfie Kohn article, the book has all kinds of suggestions for alternate ways to talk with kids about their learning.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had a million dollars because I'd gift this book to every student teacher with whom I work. Your interest in learning how to give substantive feedback to students, feedback that builds their sense of agency so that they see success as an outcome of effort rather than some natural-born ability, or because they're the teacher's pet, you interest in these ideas will certainly enrich your teaching life. And you're right--it's not easy to break the overpraising habit, mostly because students are so happy when they get that praise. In the long run, though, teachers do more for their students when they re-train themselves to keep praise at a minimum, while maximizing discussion about how/why a student met with success, along with what problems she faced and how she solved those problems. You'll get there!