January 7

Chapter 15- The Cookie Jar: The Art of Giving Praise (and Self-Praise)

Feedback and praise are huge parts of our lives. We all rely on it to help boost our feelings of self-worth. From a quick “I love your outfit today!” to “The goals in your IEP are very clear and follow the SMART goals standards for goal setting! Keep up the hard work!” we rely on these comments to tell us how we are doing. Students who have had trauma in their lives are not as able to acknowledge their self-worth. The struggle to see that their actions of effort are valued unless they are expressly told. They rely more on these external cues to give them a sense of self.

 

Praise is huge in a student’s life. It has an impact on their self-worth and their self-identity. Some praise, however, is not as helpful as others, as has been noted by Carol Dweck, Growth Mindset extraodinaire! According to her, praising the process rather than the individual is important in allowing their self-worth to always remain intact, especially when giving critiques. In praising or critiquing the process, it separates the individual from the work that is being done. It allows them to move away from thinking “I’m so smart!” of “I’m so stupid” in the event of feedback or critique to thinking of the effort they put in”I put a lot of effort into this project and it has really paid off!” or “I should have worked harder on this project. I will remember that for next time.”

 

Everyone loves to receive compliments or praise for things we have done. These kinds words or gestures fill up our buckets. Kristin Souers describe them as being “cookies.” These “cookies” help us, and especially children, to form relationships with each other. Some of these cookies come in the form of a thank you note, or a letter. Other times they might come in the form of a kind word. If is always a wonderful idea to keep these “cookies” to help us when we are felling blue. A great resource by a friend of mine, Kristin Wiens, really sums this up in her book “My Gratitude Jar.” I have uploaded a copy of this book for you, read by Kristin, from her blog http://northstarpaths.com/long-story-shortz/

It is so important that we do not rely on others to give us our “cookies”. We need to be able to give them to ourselves as well. Acknowledging out own strengths and accomplishments is very important. There will be times in our lives where someone is not there to give us a cookie, like today for example, when I took the sky train by myself for the very first time. No one was there to pat me on the back for my bravery and overcoming my anxiety. I had to do that myself. We need to give ourselves permission to be proud of our own accomplishments, toot our own horns and give ourselves that positive feedback. We need to boost our own self-worth because we are special and important and there are many reasons to celebrate us and our accomplishments, just as we do for our students and the many other people in our lives.

 

Do you know any students who rely on others for their self-worth? How can you help them to self-acknowledge?

Think of a time when you gave a student “cookies”. How did they receive this kindness? Did their relationship with you change because of it?

How can you use the notion of the “Gratitude Jar” in your life? Do you have a way of looking back on the gratitudes given to you when you need them? How can we give this to our students so that they, too, have something to look back on when they are in need of some building up?

 


Posted January 7, 2018 by tiebcmembers in category Fostering Resilient Learners

1 thoughts on “Chapter 15- The Cookie Jar: The Art of Giving Praise (and Self-Praise)

  1. Rhonda

    I pride myself on being an inclusive educator. I work hard at ensuring that a student who hasn’t always been in the classroom full-time in the past, has lots of opportunities for success in my classroom. I figure out what the student likes. I help the student to change inappropriate behaviour. I help the classmate’s to see this student as a necessary part of our classroom. This year I’m working on learning how to use Freshgrade as an assessment tool. I’ve been posting pictures and videos of students engaged in their learning. The greatest cookie I received was when I posted a picture of a particular student and the parent’s comment was, “It’s great to see him working with his classmates.” The reason why this is such a great cookie is that I hadn’t even considered this perspective when I posted the photo. The photo was of the student doing art. I put it on Freshgrade as evidence that the student does art. I’m so engrained in my own philosophy of inclusive education that I didn’t even see it as evidence that the student is an integral part of the classroom. Yippeee me!

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