Effort and "The Smart Kids"

Hi everyone! Sorry for my tardiness in posting ... technical difficulties!

What truly resonated with me when reading this chapter was the emphasis on explicitly teaching effort to all students. I have always had an effort chart in my classroom that I would draw attention to and talk about with my class but I have not explicitly taught what effort means before this year. As a first grade teacher I think it's really important to teach kids what this means. At this point in the year, I've noticed that all my students consider ALL their work a #4 effort if it's finished. My goal for the next couple weeks is to do more teaching and modeling on what a #4 effort truly is. By doing this I hope that my studentswill have a better understanding of what is such a vague concept to them. They have begun rating their work with an "effort" box that they put at the top of the page once they's completed the assignment. My plan for next week is to show them their effort box and compare it to their achievement on the assignment during a graphing activity. I'm hoping this will further emphasize that effort isn't just getting the work done, it's how hard to try when it's difficult for you. Which brings me to my next point...

In the chapter the authors talked about effort and achievement. They mentioned how the stress of "being smart" can sometimes be setting students up for failure. When kids are considered "the smart one" in class we often assume they will succeed on any given task. We, as well as the student, come to expect their achievement on many [if not all] assignments. But what happens when the smart ones come across a concept or assignment that is difficult or challenging for them? So often I've noticed that my most advacned students give me the least amount of effort in their work. Since it is easy for them, why should they go above and beyond the expectation? These students aren't used to taking the academic risk of being wrong or making a mistake. If we shift our focus on effort rather than just results, I'm hoping that we will begin to see even greater work from those students who are capable of truly exceptional academic success.