The first day of school is still a great experience for most children. This new stage in life can arouse anxiety in students, but also curiosity and great hopes. The beginning of school is also the beginning of the learning process. Although it seems obvious to adults, it is not always clear to children what needs to be done to learn to read correctly, to write nicely, to learn a poem or words of a foreign language by heart. Children who have not attended kindergarten and have not participated in any form of formal education may find it particularly difficult to adapt to school. If they receive support and help in understanding how to learn (e.g. “read it again”, “repeat it out loud”, “say it in your own words”), they will catch up with their peers. If they are labelled “stupid” or “lazy”, they will not make significant progress and will stop trying, recognising that they aren't really intelligent. Children who are good at learning from the outset must face new challenges. If they effortlessly achieve good grades, they too will not learn how to learn. Although it would seem that the positive label of “a gifted learner” should not interfere with long-term development, it may block further motivation to learn and to acquire meta-competence – effective learning techniques.
Avoid labels
A teacher during this period is a very important figure in each child's life. How many parents hear the argument “but the TEACHER said so!” while doing homework? It becomes all the more important not to label the student on the basis of initial observations. The label of a “good girl” or “rascal”, a “scientific mind” or “humanist” sticks with a child for a long time. It directs their attention to only one area of knowledge and the child stops looking for other fields where they could achieve good results. They are blocked from discovering what they are good at and what interests them. So we should try to describe the mistakes to the student, try to understand with them where these mistakes came from, and don't let them repeat “I am bad at maths”, “I am bad at Polish”, and give up on studying.
“Got talent”
It's worth remembering that although this is an early period of education, the experiences gained during this period are very important for the further education and professional careers, and the opinions about oneself formed during this period are extremely durable. Among such opinions, the importance of talent or intelligence, perceived as something constant and unchanging, becomes particularly important. Some children easily attribute school failure to their low intelligence or lack of talent in a given field. In their opinion, talent is unchanging, innate and you can't do anything if you don't have it. They learn this from important adults: parents or teachers. This type of belief effectively reduces motivation and causes the student to put less effort into learning a certain subject.
How can we avoid such a dangerous belief? The American school psychologist Carol Dweck demonstrates in her research that it's much better for a child's development to believe that good results in some field can be achieved by putting more effort into learning or training. The opinion that talent is not enough and that it's necessary to train, practice, perform additional tasks, devote additional time to learning motivates students to overcome difficulties at the initial stage of learning various subjects, but can also turn into deep interest in a given subject. The belief that it takes talent to be good at maths is common among girls. A similar view appears among boys in the field of humanities. It's very important that we help students weaken this view when teaching. How do we do that? When we ask female mathematicians or programmers, they often say that their mathematics teachers helped them choose a field of study related to science. These teachers believed that everyone, even a weak student, could master the material of this subject well, as long as they made an effort and studied hard. Moreover, the teachers assisted the students in overcoming the difficulties arising on the way as best they could.
Praise for commitment and effort put into learning
When teaching, we should pay less attention to school grades. Of course, grades are important, but we know quite well that they are a product of knowledge, the ability to deal with stress while writing tests and the level of concentration on a given task. Some students, even the best ones, are “consumed by stress”, which can translate into worse grades. Additionally, grades only tell us about how well a student has mastered the material that's being covered “here and now”. Perhaps they need more time and exercise, perhaps a little peace at home. We shouldn't treat school grades as an ideal measure of knowledge and skills. We should remember that the student's behaviour may also be the result of situational factors: a difficult situation at home, a quarrel with a friend or sibling. We shouldn't immediately assume that the student is simply worse.
We should also try to praise not only for the final achievements, but also for the effort that the student has put into learning. We should notice how much progress someone has made in learning. We should remember that students from backgrounds with lower social capital can achieve less, but they also start from a lower level: in fact, they have to do more work. First of all, we should point out what a student already knows – we should praise them for a well-written fragment of an essay, for a well-solved fragment of a task. We should use mistakes and errors to help the student develop. We should give concrete tips on what the learner is already able to do and how they can use their knowledge in new tasks, what needs to be done to be able to cope better with the challenge next time. We should remind them that learning is a process – “you go to school to learn” – if children knew everything, there would be no need to go to school. We should provide feedback so that the student was aware of their current knowledge, attitude, and competences. We should appreciate students who work hard but who, because of various limitations, fail to achieve high results.
We should focus on achieving success
Additionally, We should help students learn with the goal of success, rather than avoiding failure or bad grades. Deci and Ryan's theory of motivation indicates that we are often motivated to act by the pleasure of the activity itself, not the end result. Motivation based on sheer pleasure has been called internal motivation. Internal motivation favours the pursuit of success, by evoking positive emotions and curiosity, it builds a willingness to deal with a given subject and interest in a selected area. It disappears when a student receives an external reward for their achievements. The role of a teacher is therefore to build positive emotions, interest in a given subject, and to teach through play. Tighter controls definitely don't help here.
Self-beliefs that form at the beginning of a school career are extremely strong and persistent. They are often built on the basis of labels heard at school or at home. We shouldn't overestimate the importance of intellect, we should appreciate effort and motivation, and avoid labels. We shouldn't let them block children from realising their dreams.