by Tom Shafer
January 18, 2018
So, does that sound like false praise, or what? In an age where hyperbole is a truly threatened literary element (thanks, Mr. Trump), praise itself is being challenged on all fronts. Children today are frequently praised — or worse, rewarded — for things that are not really praiseworthy: brushing teeth, bringing home average grades, not hitting other children. I concede that with some children, these may be noteworthy accomplishments, but given that, they still don’t rise to the level of lavish praise or reward.
Most adults today are even skeptical of the compliments and praise they receive. How many times have you heard someone — perhaps even yourself — respond to the compliment “Hey, you look great!!” with “Nah, I’m just wearing bigger clothes” or “These old rags?”
Anyway, as a teacher, I was always very specific with praise because I knew what false or empty or (what I call) lazy praise felt like. I’m sure you remember working hard on an assignment or paper — you may have spent several days or weeks completing it. Then, you waited eagerly until the teacher returned it, anxious to see your grade, but even more anxious to see what your teacher had to say about it, only to find the ubiquitous and lazy “Nice work” penned in red above the grade you received.
How disappointed you must have felt — or even worse if you got the dreaded “This is not your best work” — with no given specifics! Because of my concern for praise and its effect on my students, I decided to use it as the basis for completion of my master’s degree. What follows is my thesis, and I’m going to warn you, parts of it are a snoozer. So if you are sleep-challenged, I have the perfect remedy — read the whole paper, including the statistical analysis, and off to slumberland you will go! Oh, and spoiler alert, praise of any sort — even very specific — has very little effect on student achievement. Though I knew this intrinsically, that didn’t stop me from using it as a teacher. I still felt that my students wanted the praise — or criticism — and didn’t concern myself with what the statistics suggested. I only knew that when I was a student myself, I truly wanted to know what my teachers thought about my work, good or bad. It may not have affected my grade necessarily, but it did — and still does in some ways — affect how I view my own work ethic today. Enjoy, or nighty-night!
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