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"You're smart." It took me five years of coasting on that presumption before I realized that being "smart" isn't nearly enough. I'm still working (after a few m

by Wilduck 16y ago

"You're smart." It took me five years of coasting on that presumption before I realized that being "smart" isn't nearly enough. I'm still working (after a few more years) to develop the habits that would have come from hearing "you're a hard worker."

Vivtek 16y ago
Man, I have to second that one. Growing up smart in a small town is great until you leave - which is inevitable.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  I got the best exam grades in my town on leaving school - uni hit hard.
- pjscott 16y ago
  The internet really helps with that, by expanding your world to include some people who are just dazzlingly brilliant, and remind you how far you have to go. This guy, for example: http://blog.sigfpe.com/ http://blog.sigfpe.com/ The nice thing about this kind of ego-shrinking is that it's combined with inspiration to do something about it, rather than just feeling deflated. There's so much interesting stuff out there.
starkness 16y ago
Your experience sums up the research in this article to a tee: http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ "Dweck discovered that those who think that innate intelligence is the key to success begin to discount the importance of effort. I am smart, the kids’ reasoning goes; I don’t need to put out effort. Expending effort becomes stigmatized—it’s public proof that you can’t cut it on your natural gifts." tl;dr: Praise kids for their hard work, not for being smart.
- _delirium 16y ago
  To some extent education tries to do that, but imo it's pretty bad when it really does it consistently. The person who spent a lot of hours on a-not-really-working project gets a better grade than the person who actually produced an impressive result, but managed to pull it off the night before and made the mistake of not hiding the fact that they didn't spend a lot of hours on it. That's not actually that uncommon in college, since there's a huge range of ability and prior experience in a typical class, and professors do try to base some of their grade on how earnestly the student appeared to work on it: to save face, they can't give an A to the student who did the whole semester project in a day, even if the result was objectively better than most of the others. End result of that approach is that the kids learn that hard work matters, but results don't. Now you have someone who'll optimize for "hours put in", worrying more about whether they're impressing the boss with their work ethic than about the quality of the end results they're delivering. Sort of a common feature of corporate culture, where the guy who stays late and comes in weekends is praised, even if the guy who went home at 5pm every day is the one producing most of the working code. The other lesson you learn from that is: if you solve a major problem in two hours, withhold the result and pretend you spent two weeks working on it, then present it later and get praised for working hard on the problem for two weeks and solving it.
robryan 16y ago
Even worse is when people are told they are smart when really they might just be about average or a little above and really need to put the hard yards in rather than coasting.
Mongoose 16y ago
I always cringe a bit when I come home for the holidays and get praise from family on my purported intelligence and achievements. I feel as though this mentality kept me intellectually fat and happy for most of my teenage years, inhibiting the drive to constantly grow that I've fostered since entering college.
iuguy 16y ago
I hate to say me too, but definitely me too. I'm convinced that I procrastinate more because of being told how smart I was as a kid, as opposed to being petrified of not working hard enough.

by Wilduck 16y ago

Vivtek 16y ago

Man, I have to second that one. Growing up smart in a small town is great until you leave - which is inevitable.

pbhjpbhj 16y ago
I got the best exam grades in my town on leaving school - uni hit hard.
pjscott 16y ago
The internet really helps with that, by expanding your world to include some people who are just dazzlingly brilliant, and remind you how far you have to go. This guy, for example: http://blog.sigfpe.com/ http://blog.sigfpe.com/ The nice thing about this kind of ego-shrinking is that it's combined with inspiration to do something about it, rather than just feeling deflated. There's so much interesting stuff out there.

starkness 16y ago

Your experience sums up the research in this article to a tee: http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ "Dweck discovered that those who think that innate intelligence is the key to success begin to discount the importance of effort. I am smart, the kids’ reasoning goes; I don’t need to put out effort. Expending effort becomes stigmatized—it’s public proof that you can’t cut it on your natural gifts." tl;dr: Praise kids for their hard work, not for being smart.

_delirium 16y ago
To some extent education tries to do that, but imo it's pretty bad when it really does it consistently. The person who spent a lot of hours on a-not-really-working project gets a better grade than the person who actually produced an impressive result, but managed to pull it off the night before and made the mistake of not hiding the fact that they didn't spend a lot of hours on it. That's not actually that uncommon in college, since there's a huge range of ability and prior experience in a typical class, and professors do try to base some of their grade on how earnestly the student appeared to work on it: to save face, they can't give an A to the student who did the whole semester project in a day, even if the result was objectively better than most of the others. End result of that approach is that the kids learn that hard work matters, but results don't. Now you have someone who'll optimize for "hours put in", worrying more about whether they're impressing the boss with their work ethic than about the quality of the end results they're delivering. Sort of a common feature of corporate culture, where the guy who stays late and comes in weekends is praised, even if the guy who went home at 5pm every day is the one producing most of the working code. The other lesson you learn from that is: if you solve a major problem in two hours, withhold the result and pretend you spent two weeks working on it, then present it later and get praised for working hard on the problem for two weeks and solving it.

robryan 16y ago

Even worse is when people are told they are smart when really they might just be about average or a little above and really need to put the hard yards in rather than coasting.

Mongoose 16y ago

I always cringe a bit when I come home for the holidays and get praise from family on my purported intelligence and achievements. I feel as though this mentality kept me intellectually fat and happy for most of my teenage years, inhibiting the drive to constantly grow that I've fostered since entering college.

iuguy 16y ago

I hate to say me too, but definitely me too. I'm convinced that I procrastinate more because of being told how smart I was as a kid, as opposed to being petrified of not working hard enough.