How NOT to talk to your kids

"You're so smart!"

vs.

"You worked really hard on that!"

Check it out.

to help students succeed?

Teachers show a lighter side to help students succeed on state tests:

Indiana educators are holding pep rallies, rolling out the red carpet, performing dance routines and rewriting popular-song lyrics to help students relax and encourage them to do well on standardized tests being given this week. "You show us every single day what a great job you do and how smart you are, but we only get one chance to show the state of Indiana how smart you are," one teacher told her students at a pep rally. The Indianapolis Star (3/4)

What's wrong with this picture?

Actually, what's right with this picture?

Here's the only thing I can think of that is right: the teachers truly desire to help their students succeed.

Dressing up in funny clothes, singing and dancing for their students? In order to relax them so that they will perform well on a high-stakes standardized test?

What am I missing here?

Telling them they are smart?
"You show us every single day what a great job you do and how smart you are, but we only get one chance to show the state of Indiana how smart you are," Goss said.

Let's see, the purpose of education is to show the state of Indiana how smart we are.

And I guess they don't know the work of Carol Dweck.
Praising a child for being smart
actually inhibits performance...

Acknowledging hard work
encourages the mindset that leads to success.

They call this hula dancing and testing for smartness
education reform.

(Tune in for a report on Diane Ravitch repudiating her support of this flavor of education reform.)

Snack time, again?

Children's eating habits are changing. Check out this story on National Public Radio.