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"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." -Albert Einstein
An either/or fallacy occurs when a speaker makes a claim (usually a premise in an otherwise valid deductive argument) that presents an artificial range of choices. For instance, he may suggest that there are only two choices possible, when three or more really exist. Those who use an either/or…
Any teacher can tell you this. This is why it is important to praise students for the work they put into something. You, as a teacher, can influence this mindset.
Take, for example, two apparently similar bits of praise:
“Wow, that’s great. You’re really good at this.”
Versus
“Wow, that’s great. You’ve worked really hard on this.”
It would seem, to the casual observer, that the first is a “self-esteem booster” while the second is just a “motivational booster”.
The problem is that the first type of praise contributes to a mindset that people either “get it” or they don’t; they’re “smart” or they’re not; nothing can be done to change that. (This is what the infographic is calling a fixed mindset. Educators usually call it an inherent intelligence mindset.)
The second type of praise still indicates that the student might, in fact, be good at it, but it also reinforces the idea that hard work and effort makes it possible to learn and develop. It also works in a social-cognitive mode to reinforce this idea to the other students. (The infographic has this labeled as the growth mindset. It’s usually referred to as a developmental intelligence model in education texts.)
While it is true that some of this is part of the student’s own frame of mind, a lot of it can be influenced by the pedagogical methods of the teacher.
(via project-argus)
minusmanhattan:Check out these behind the scenes photos from the set of The Empire Strikes Back.
(via dreamandwake)
