Failure does not breed success when it comes to the brain, according to MIT scientist Earl Miller whose study of monkeys is cited in the Boston Globe article of August 3, “Why success may breed success.” When a correct response is rewarded, higher-intensity signals fire between the two learning areas of the brain. This increases [...]
Success
The other day, 20-year-old Andy said to me, “I just don’t know what I want to do with my life, and I worry that I’m not going to get a good job when I graduate.” In the past year, I have heard this concern so many times from students that I decided to write… An [...]
Imagine you were asked to help improve the future prospects of Jill, a high school junior with a GPA of 2.0 who daydreams in English, History, and Spanish. What would you advise Jill to do? a) Get screened for a learning disability and, if needed, take medication to focus. b) Visualize a report card with [...]
A “significant majority” of the 5000 self-made British millionaires struggled in school, says a BBC study. Think about that for a moment. One of the myths we tell about education is that kids who struggle in school are not smart, have learning disabilities, or are just plain lazy. Yet, I imagine these terms don’t normally [...]
Did you know that there is one ratio that separates the best business performers from the worst, the best marriages from the worst, and even the most resourceful individuals from the least resourceful? One ratio – covers everything from your teen to your marriage to your business team. It’s called the Positivity Ratio. It was [...]
Successful. Entrepreneur. Prime Minister. Nobel Prize Winner. Scientist. Leader. What words come to mind when you think of people described by this list? Underachievers? Learning disabled? Unmotivated? These probably weren’t your first thoughts, but many people with these job titles weren’t good students. In fact, A BBC-study found that a “significant majority” of self-made millionaires [...]
The future looks very bright for our teens– when we de-bunk three false, damaging myths. In a recent study, I found that—no matter what their GPA—teens will have great opportunities because world, corporate, and scientific prospects depend on a far broader set of characteristics than those we emphasize in our system of education. I’d like [...]
Originally posted on February 21, 2007 What would you expect to hear from a would-be superintendent if you asked him what he wants to change in the public school system? Smaller classes? Stronger academics? Improved test scores? These are often the words we hear proclaimed when discussing school improvement, so I was surprised and delighted [...]
Did you know that you are a storyteller? Or that you are just one story away from what you really want? Most of us don’t realize that we have a few central narratives running through our lives because the stories we tell ourselves are so familiar that we don’t even realize they are stories. [...]
Not seeing the best in our students is not as much an issue for them as it is for us. Many of them go happily along feeling free and knowing they just want to stay under the radar of parents, school, teachers and traditional expectations. Jimmy, for example, is a C-student who, “… trained us. [...]