encouragment

I occasionally read Orson Scott Card's World Watch essays. In this weeks essay he comments on encouragement and self esteem using American Idol and the appalingly bad performances from some of the people auditioning to be on the show as an example of why unflinchingly praising someone is a bad practice.

A good quote - "Praising people who have done nothing to deserve praise is the lazy, selfish thing to do. It makes them like you while setting them up for embarrassment and failure later."

Another choice bit - So does artificially boosting your self-esteem through endlessly repeated but unearned praise lead to greater achievement later?

No. Quite the contrary. "Some findings even suggest that artificially boosting self-esteem may lower subsequent academic performance."

and this bit about his mother (which reminds me of my own parents incidentally) "I think she absorbed at an early age Dale Carnegie's admonition that we be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."

Yet she never flattered anybody.

Because she only praised you for real achievements. She actually has a very sharp critical eye and knows exactly what you're doing badly and what you're doing well."

The whole article struck me as worth reading.

random thoughts

I started this particular blog to be a more political blog (while my LJ remains ... well.. more of me talking to people I mostly know in real life)

I am never quite sure what I want to say here. it is easy to say that "Politics is a lot like boning the head cheerleader in the ass – someone has been there before you, but it feels so damn good you just don’t care.”, but not always easy to offer good, insightful thoughts on it. Politics was easy with the presidential elections coming up and all the assorted crap that went along with it. I still see things I think are worthy of commentary but, honestly there are others (think little green footballs, the moderate voice, Micheal Duff) that say it better than I do. This is not to say I won't continue my political rambling, I will.
After all, I haven't managed to stop yet.

In unrelated news, I need to share this with you. I'm sure you will appreciate it. Well.... Maybe.

More in a bit. Coffee calls.