Q: [School-Aged] My little one has heard her older brother complain about ‘how hard’ science was for him and now as second grade looms, is worried she won’t be able to cut it. How can I build her confidence?
A: The misconception that science is difficult to learn – or that kids either naturally understand subjects such as science and math, or they don’t – is pervasive. A highly publicized theory (Dweck) proposes that children either have a growth mindset (a belief that their abilities can be developed) or a fixed mindset (a belief that they have innate abilities). According to this highly researched theory, how a child responds to a challenge is associated with their mindset. With a growth mindset, the child can tackle challenges with persistence toward mastery, rather than with a defeatist attitude. An important note is that through Dweck’s research, she discovered that girls are more likely to hold a fixed mindset, suggesting that they are more likely to feel helpless when confronting a task that they believe is difficult.
In addition, researchers at Florida State University recently published a study in the journal of “Frontiers in Psychology” confirming that the perceptions of one’s gender affect the perceptions of one’s abilities. The results revealed that not only does your mindset matter, but girls in general have a tendency to underestimate their abilities.
On the reverse side, the Florida State University study found that 12th grade girls who told researchers that they could successfully complete the most challenging mathematical problems were 3.3 times more likely to choose a physics, engineering, mathematics or computer science (PEMC) major in college. This is great news! Your desire to build your daughter’s confidence in her abilities while she’s young is an important support toward of her future academic and career success. If we can change the way girls think about science and math by providing positive reinforcement, we’ll see a lot more women entering these careers.
In fact, parents who encourage their children to explore the world of science through hands-on learning are setting them up to be an innovator, problem-solver, and a persistent, critical thinker. You can help your daughter face challenges with a “can-do” attitude while embracing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education by:
- Using “together time” to explore nature from a sensory and comparative approach. As an example, touch, smell, and compare different shapes and sizes of leaves. Talk about ways that trees and animals “work” together to support people and each other (food, shelter, air).
- Visiting Discovery Cube and other museums. Read the text panels, try out the exhibits, ask questions, and note the questions so you can research the answers together.
- Presenting simple challenges, such as making a model car out of a tongue depressor, drinking straw, toothpicks, and buttons. Remember however, that this is your daughter’s project, so rather than overly helping, praise her efforts and ask her to explain what didn’t work and why.
- Praising her abilities and persistence when given challenges. For example, “I like the way you figured that out!”
Janet Yamaguchi’s over 30 years of teaching, educational program design, curriculum development and teacher training has grown the number of students in Discovery Cube’s onsite/offsite educational programs to over 290,000 per year, third largest among science centers in the Nation. www.discoverycube.org
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