Purva Fairmont Session 2

We had 3 more additions today into our program. It was fascinating to see how the current kids explained to them what they understood … and brought them upto speed.

Most of the time we spent reviewing the designs and ideas of each team. Think we managed to sharpen their designs and focus them towards building the hydraulic system. We have three weeks to do this.

As a next step we asked all the teams to collect required  material and start building the mechanism this week.

 

Post the design session we talked about an interesting study in Sociology.

Two teams were given similar puzzles to solve. Team A and Team B.

At the end of the activity, the two teams were given feedback differently. Team A was told “That’s a really good score. You must be smart“. Team B was told “That’s a really good score. You must have worked very hard“.

Post that conversation, the two teams were given a choice of solving a difficult problem or an easy problem.

What do you think each team picked?

Most children opined that both teams pick the easy problem, some said the difficult problem, a few said Team A the easy problem while Team B picks the difficult problem.

Well the interesting thing was that the Team A praised for ‘smartness’ picked the easy problem as they were more afraid to fail than Team B, (Team B was praised for ‘hard work’ and they which picked the more difficult problem).

This is fascinating. Just one small comment can alter a person’s mind set. As parents, how conscious are we about creating the wrong mind set in children unknowingly. Can we be more aware of the long term damage we create by praising intelligence or talent, instead of the process / efforts?

(Source: Praise Children for effort, not intelligence – NYTimes article on a Columbia University Study by Claudia Mueller and Carol Dweck)

Then we all watched the video The power of believing you can improve – A TED talk on Growth Mindset vs Talent Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck. All children gave their interpretation of the concept and how they will apply it in their lives.

As a next steps each child will watch the video with their parents before the next session.

Found the kids opening up a lot more than the last session. These seeds we plant today to build the right learning mind set, should bloom many years later.

Very exciting.