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A friend from work shared a link today to this article: The Trouble with Bright Kids. It describes some research on the kind of positive, praising feedback we get when we succeed, and how that can influence our chances of success on future attempts. It's also interesting to read how girls/women and boys/men are affected differently.
It really rings true for me. Or hits a nerve. Or maybe it's both. I was one of the "high ability" kids (possessing an innate quality, as opposed to making a "strong effort"). I went through school accompanied by a litany of desperate admonishments by my teachers: "You're one of the brightest students in the class. You should be getting better grades." Mind you, no one in the school system did a thing to help me learn how to do that, they were just constantly disappointed in me.
It wasn't until college, when I took Cognitive Psychology, and Psychology of Learning & Perception, and put the principles into practice, that I figured out how to succeed in school. Went from Cs and Ds, and academic probation, to all As, on the Dean's List.
What I realized after reading the article, and thinking it over on the way to the dojo, was that the whole issue is skill-area dependent. Or at least it seems that way to me.
No one ever told me I was athletically gifted (in spite of being a very physical, coordinated kid). I was never on any teams, or competed at anything. And here I am being patient with myself, and sticking to it, learning Aikido in my l
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12-06-2011 09:13 AM 
