Deputy Principal – Strategy and Innovation
Harness the benefits of doubt
Have you ever wondered if you were good at anything? Sometimes things don’t go the way you thought they should. What does this make you think about yourself? If you are anything like me, you go through these thought processes often. Our students go through this many times a day, both at school and at home. What do we expect of them when they don’t know something? I am sure that we all hope that they will be resilient and learn how to accept things and move forward. Psychologist Andrew Fuller says that what creates resilience varies at different stages of our lives. The clear indication is that people thrive when they connect with one another, protect one another and respect one another. We want our students to thrive every day and in every lesson.
Respecting themselves is also important. Adam Grant talks of harnessing the benefits of doubt and reframing the situation when you doubt yourself so that you can see it as an opportunity for growth. “Knowing what you don’t know is often the first step toward developing expertise.” As our students make mistakes and find themselves not understanding, they should have resilience to believe that they just found out something they don’t know and therefore can now seek to understand it better. To help students with this, our teachers are thinking about ways that they give feedback to them throughout the learning process, not just at the end. This will enable students to improve as they go instead of understanding what they don’t know after they should have known it! I encourage you to have encouraging conversations with your children when they tell you that they don’t know something and make a mistake. I encourage you to challenge them to embrace doubt as an opportunity for growth. Together we can build resilient people ready to thrive and face challenges.
See you out the back.
