consider, especially when exploring how to
improve the engagement of at-risk or strug-
gling students, center around what makes a
person do difficult tasks? What makes any-
one do something they don’t like and are not
good at? Answering these questions begins
with understanding the stories students tell
themselves about themselves when things go
poorly.
When a girl or boy has a new experience,
let’s say failing a math test, his/her brain’s job
is to answer “Why did that happen?” How
he/she answers this question will have a large
impact on his/her subsequent confidence and
motivation to take future math tests. If the
student believes, as many young people do,
that his/her prospects for math are perma-
nently fixed, he/she may be inclined to see
little purpose in trying harder or learning
new strategies. In contrast, students who be-
lieve hard work pays off and have a sense of
purpose are more inclined to see the results
as temporary and explore pathways to correct
their mistakes.
The goal of skilled teachers is to teach
students to adopt a narrative that gives stu-
dents what is often referred to as a “Growth
mindset,” the belief that successes and fail-
ures are temporary, can be changed and that
the student is capable of changing his or
her fortunes. Fortunately, there is a consis-
tent formula in psychological research that
we can rely on in our efforts to understand
how to help our students adopt this growth
mindset. When we as teachers help students
answer yes to these questions, we help them
move from a focus on self-protection, fight
or flight primitive section of the brain to a
focus on learning and utilizing the executive
function areas of the brain, that are inte-
gral to self-control, problem-solving and so
forth.
Do I belong?
The process of shifting students from a
focus on self-protection to engaged curios-
ity begins with providing students a sense of
belonging. The brain will not be able to focus
on learning until it feels safe and socially
accepted. The classroom is a highly social
place, everything a student does is observed
and judged by their peers. The act of a stu-
dent raising her hand to say “I don’t under-
Belonging is the
foundation of
community. Shared
experiences and
similarities are the
path to creating
belonging.”
stand” is an act of great courage. In order to
publicly admit in front of 30 of your peers
that you don’t understand something is to
risk ridicule, laughter and shame.
As Harvard Professor Amy Edmond-
son’s research on psychological safety ex-
plains, in highly public settings such as a
classroom, it is quite natural for individu-
als to engage in what is called “impression
management.”.When we are in a highly pub-
lic setting, it is a natural human reaction to
engage in behaviors that manage how others
perceive us. As Edmondson explains, many
students don’t want to look ignorant and so
they don’t ask questions or admit weakness.
When students are focused on managing the
impressions of their peers, many students
will refuse to engage in the learning process
of sharing ideas, making mistakes and ask-
ing questions in order to keep from being
judged and criticized.
Psychological safety is ‘‘a sense of con-
fidence that the team will not embarrass,
reject or punish someone for speaking up,’’
Edmondson wrote in a study published in
1999, that has now been cited more than
6,000 times in research. ‘‘It describes a team
climate characterized by interpersonal trust
and mutual respect in which people are com-
fortable being themselves.’’ Until a student
has this sense of safety, they will focus on
impression management rather than engage
in the risky behaviors of asking questions,
accepting feedback and making mistakes.
The need for belonging is what makes school
climate efforts such as Positive Behavioral
Interventions and Supports so important.
Belonging is the foundation of commu-
nity. Shared experiences and similarities are
the path to creating belonging. As human
influence and sales expert Robert Cialdini
(2016) explains, the best relationships sim-
ply allow people to say “oh, that person is
one of us.” Confirming this idea, New York
University Professor John Haidt (2012)
explains in his best-selling book, “You can
make people care less about race by drown-
ing race differences in a sea of similarities,
shared goals and mutual interdependencies.”
Stanford researcher Gregory Walton and
others (2012) confirmed this idea in their re-
search where they showed that simply telling
students they shared the same birthday re-
sulted in greater motivation and persistence
on math problems. The researchers conclude
“Even small social connections lead people
to adopt the goals and motivation of others
for themselves.”
Does this matter to me?
The second question we must help stu-
dents answer if we want them to do hard
things, take chances, ask questions and
make mistakes is “Does this matter to me?”
In spite of our best efforts, learning to cross-
multiply fractions, memorizing the periodic
table of elements or practicing the intricacies
of comma placement are not fun. Students,
like all people, will not put forth the effort,
time and struggle necessary to master diffi-
cult tasks unless they feel it has relevance to
their life.
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