Excellence is for Everyone

Ragazzi is COMMITTED to EXCELLENCE!  But… what does this mean? How do we measure ourselves against such a potentially forbidding standard?

Aristotle said that “Excellence is what we repeatedly do. Therefore excellence is not an act but a habit.” I love that. We are working every day to create excellent music, excellent relationships, excellent boys.

In Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset (Ballantine, 2006), she addresses what she calls “growth mindset.” People with growth mindset react to perceived failures, challenges, even tragedies with an attitude of curiosity. What happened? What can I learn from this experience? How can I create success?

Coaches, teachers, parents, directors with a fixed mindset will send the message that the student has certain traits and that they are being judged, positively or negatively. With a growth mindset, the message is sent that the student is a developing person and the coach is interested in his development.

What surprised me and may surprise you is her finding that praising a child for who he IS is less comforting than praising the child for the work he has done. It can even backfire. If a student has been told all his life that he is “smart”, he might steer away from challenges that cause him to accomplish something more slowly. He might even, after being told he performs brilliantly, get an overinflated sense of himself and be shattered when something he attempts is not successful. He might not have the resilience to persist and pursue a goal.

Praise is good, but we need to give and receive praise for work done rather than praise that judges talent or intelligence. Ragazzi singers judge themselves in performance. After a concert, they can be very self-critical and if they hear that they were “just great” but know that they weren’t at their best, they don’t feel good.  They are judging and labeling themselves.  If we ask them, “What did you learn from this?” they have the opportunity to make decisions to improve and to create excellence whether with more preparation or more focus or more engagement or with whatever they see is needed.

Dweck tells a story of a teacher at Julliard who believed that talent could be developed. She was in conflict with the ethos of the school where talent was seen to be innate and most of the faculty had no interest in those who didn’t seem to have “it.”   This teacher believed that anything is possible. After being told that one of her students had “no ear,” (the musicians’ term for “getting” musical nuances), but she continued to exert effort to help this student.  A fellow teacher even tried to have her fired for wasting time and resources.  This teacher viewed talent as a fixed trait, not something that could be nurtured and developed.  One such denigrated student – one of her “projects” – was Itzhak Perlman, one of the most respected violinists in the last 50 years.

The successful teachers with a growth mindset create both high standards and a nurturing environment.  In short: they challenge students and foster the intellectual and social outlook – the tools – to meet that challenge.  High standards are part of a growth mindset; we can work hard and improve and achieve excellence.  When students understand that the hard work asked of them is for them and not for any teacher, they will engage. Quoting from Mindset, “[students] …are our responsibility and our legacy. We now know that the growth mindset has a key role to play in helping us fulfill our mission and in helping them fulfill their potential.”