The Washington Post – Valerie May
“Our society has become increasingly focused on “success” while increasingly impatient with the tedious, time-consuming process of practice that allows us to develop the skills needed to achieve. We seek short cuts and envy natural talent while seeing hard work and struggle as things that are only necessary for those that will be mediocre at best…Yet true self-esteem comes from overcoming obstacles and obtaining the skills that will give us confidence to tackle new uncertain tasks in the future…To improve student learning, we need to make struggle and failure a part of a supportive learning process rather than an end point — a reason to give up. In order to prepare our children for the complex world they are growing into, we must provide them with a rigorous learning environment in which each student is challenged at their own appropriate level and provided with the interventions that meet their personal needs…In a supportive environment, failure and frustration lead to significant cognitive growth.”(more)