Where do beliefs of ability come from?

An interesting question I've been pondering since reading the chapter on Ability. I started thinking about this because I have worked with 5-6 year olds for the past 3-4 years and I began to wonder how their little minds begin to shape perspectives of ability.

Does it begin in pre-school/kindergarten when first exposed to challenges, both academic and social? When do they begin to compare themselves to others and their previous efforts in these contexts?

What I understand from the book is that the little guys have a tendency to overestimate the likelihood of their success, but this changes as they get older. I had a little boy in my reading group that, when presented with a book, would almost always say, "This book is too easy", or "Since I can read the title, I know it's going to be easy to read". My response was, "Wow Adam, that is wonderful. Let's open it up to the first page so I can listen to you read". He would proceed to stumble when he came across unknown words and he would stop and look at me to tell him the word. Only then would he admit that some of the words were hard to figure out and the book was not as easy as he thought. I think he wanted to me to perceive him as a reader, but he wasn't using the strategies and problem solving we worked on every day. Was he protecting his self-worth or just overconfident because this is what kids do developmentally? By the end of the year, this kid was jamming and looking to me for much less help with decoding. I realize now I must have been doing something right by the feedback I was giving him. I would constantly point out that he was figuring out difficult words by using the strategies (finally!) he had learned. He learned that he wasn't going to just "know" what the word was by looking at it. He figured out that, hey, it really does work to look at the beginning/ending sound, use chunks of the word, and the picture to figure the word out. Attributing his success to effort.. sweet!

Alderman says that the beliefs children have about their ability become more complex as they get older and that "self-perceptions of academic competence decline with age". This is an important statement because I feel that I have a pretty big responsibility to begin to instill positive perceptions of one's self at this early age. The hard part is keeping things positive as tasks and social situations get more difficult from grade to grade. Keeping that motivation going.

I'm feeling that the key to doing this is not only creating the kind of classroom environment that reinforces that it's okay to fail and that you might have to practice something 20 times to have that one success, but also getting parents on board to be fostering this kind of environment at home. Parents can be one of our greatest resources, but we as teachers must explicitly share what we know now and what we are learning about motivation to help them help their child. I work at a very diverse school with kids from all over the world and I know it's not possible to get every parent on board. There have been times when I haven't even met parents until the spring because they are dealing with other priorities that don't include their child and school. So maybe we can make some suggestions in class/school newsletters or have a parent night to at least expose and get to some of our parents. My feeling is that if I can make a difference with one or some of my students, then I'm doing the best I can.

Influence of Attributions

So, do you like my little fish? If you click anywhere in the box, you will see what motivates them! They will also follow the arrow as it moves. Technology can be kinda fun..

My head is full of attributional thoughts and I'm feeling compelled to share a personal story and how it relates to the readings and my thoughts (even though it's non-academic related). First you need some background info... Gabe, my son (13), struggles with low-self esteem and low-self confidence, in academic settings as well as in his life in general. He would be the kid to try something once and if he can't do it well, he assumes he can't do it. Savana, my daughter (10), is quite the opposite. Give her a challenge and in the face of adversity, she will try and try again and has a very optimistic attitude about herself, school, and her life in general.

Now the scenario: Sunday afternoon at the bowling alley. I have bowled maybe 3 times in the last 5 years and never with my children, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. What I found were two very different reactions to the same scenario.

Now comes the illustration of the attribution-motivation process in action as Seifert describes it. So, Savana goes and gutters the ball on the first try, both times. Failure to knock down any pins (outcome), a little disappointed, but still a smile on her face (general emotional reaction), still optimistic (personal characteristic) -(causal antecedant), states she needs to throw the ball a little harder next time, which means put a little more effort into it (attribution), sees that this is controllable or unstable (attribution characteristic), is hopeful she will get a strike on her next turn (behavioral consequence - affect), and finally, proceeds to be persistent throughout the rest of the game, knocking down as many pins as she can (psychological consequence). Savana attributed her failure to internal, controllable unstable causes, in turn creating a feeling of confidence, hopefulness and self-enhancing emotions. She had a great time and scored a 60 something.

Now, in contrast, let's take a look at Gabe. He is up: same thing, gutters the ball, both tries. Failure to knock down any pins (outcome), scowls and mumbles to himself, "I suck, I'm the worst at this game and everyone will probably do better than me", (general emotional reaction), very pessimistic (personal characteristic) - (causal antecedant), states he will probably gutter it next time too, which means to me he thinks he has low bowling ability, (attribution), sees that this is stable/unchanging (attribution characteristic), feelings of hopelessness and low self confidence ensue, (behavioral consequence - affect), and finally sits on the floor in a pool self defeat, ready to quit (psychological consequence). Gabe attributed his failure to internal, uncontrollable stable factors (inablility), in turn creating feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness. He was quite mopey for the remainder of the game and scored a sub 60.

Funny how two kids grow up in the same house and are so different.

So now I'm thinking about how I can use a little effort and ability retraining that Alderman speaks of (p.55), and help Gabe to take responsibility for his failures and attribute them to unstable, controllable factors like effort. Yes, a challenging prospect, but one well worth the "effort". A mother's work is never done! He did, however, finish the game, attributing his one strike and a few spares to "luck".

From a professional perspective, I've come to realize that I need to step back and take a look at my own attributional beliefs and how this affects behavior and motivation in my classroom. I think in the future, after learning about all of this, I'm going to be more thoughtful and careful about how I react to students who are/are not putting in the effort that I think they should. I need to look at the big picture and consider all of the factors (previous learning experiences, ability, behavior, etc.) and really think about what is really going to help motivate individual students and creating that climate in an educational setting in general.

That is all for now.. until next week!

Thanks for reading!!

This is a test.. checking to see if I did this correctly!!