I want to thank the entire community for bringing your energy and optimism to the halls and classrooms of SFDS on Back-to-School Night. All of us could feel your positive energy throughout the evening.
My talk to the Lower School parents mirrored my opening remarks to faculty this year. I had the real pleasure this summer of reading and connecting three different sources of information. I re-read John Dewey’s Interest and Effort, published in 1913. John Dewey was very influential in the formation of my fundamental educational commitments. The website ScienceDaily reported an endless stream of five paragraph summaries of the latest developments in brain research. Finally I read Carol Dweck’s research on the Fixed Mindset vs. the Growth Mindset.
All three sources confirmed and reinforced the plasticity of the brain, the falsity of innate limits on what any of us can learn, and the power of interest and effort to increase our capacity to learn. We actually can grow neurons.
Our intuition and common sense tells us that sustained effort is necessary for the accomplishment of any important goal. However, our default assumption is that the capacity for sustained effort is one of those fixed innate qualities. That assumption is wrong; we can learn the capacity for sustained effort by finding authentic interest in our studies.
The conclusion of my remarks proposed language and training regimens that would enable SFDS students to learn and practice the habits of sustained effort. Once learned and practiced, who knows what the limits of accomplishment will be?
Please take the time to read the following:
Suggestions for Structuring Conversations with your Children
