11/18/2004
Not in Praise of Praise
"Your life and
my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace
and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for
me. To see reality--not as we expect it to be but as it is--is to see that unless
we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very
satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just
this sense, love." - Frederick Buechner in The Alphabet of Grace
Not in Praise of Praise
The article by Kathleen Grey, "Not in Praise of Praise," from the July,
1995 issue of Exchange, has been used as the basis for an Out
of the Box Training Kit. You can download a free copy of this kit
at: http://mail.ccie.com/go/eed/0453
In the article, Grey observes...
"There are two themes that link both the old way and the new way of building
character and teaching good behavior. The first theme is the idea that how
children think about themselves and evaluate themselves is dependent upon what
adults tell them about themselves and has little to do with their own evaluation
of themselves. This point of view supposes that adult evaluations are more
right than a child's, and that adults have the responsibility to mold the way
children perceive themselves by stating their evaluations frequently.
"The second connecting theme is the constant emphasis on the concepts of
goodness, badness, and obedience. There is good or bad behavior, good or
bad self-concept, good or bad feelings, good or bad thoughts. There is an
undercurrent of belief that goodness and badness are definable by adults, simply
by virtue of being an adult, and have nothing to do with children's age, developmental
level, psychological needs, or internal motivation. Adults are responsible
for telling children what is good and what is bad and for using whatever consequences
are necessary to see that children comply with this message. Children's
obedient behavior, then, is seen as a measure of whether the adults have done
a good job or bad job of defining and talking about goodness and badness.
"Current thought ... recognizes that praise is an important and powerful
form of communication. It can nourish the spirit and add a sheen to daily
experiences. It is a potent payoff for effort. But .. . . it is a
judgment, nonetheless. Because children value the opinion of adults so highly,
frequent evaluative comments, even when positive, can foster undue dependence
on the external judgment of others, causing them to devalue their own perceptions
about their competence and capabilities. Used indiscriminately, praise loses
its potency and becomes empty and meaningless."
For more information about Exchange's magazine, books, and other products pertaining to ECE, go to www.ccie.com.
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