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How do you get into Carnegie Hall?

Practice, practice, practice!  There are some who believe that innate intelligence is the explanation for student success; these individuals quantify scholastic achievements or failures in terms of abundance of talent or lack of ability.   However, as the above whitticism suggests, innate talent must be combined with focused effort in order to achieve noteworthy results.  Researcher Carol Dweck of Stanford University agrees that talent alone does not result in educational achievement; rather, effort, persistence and resiliency each play a critical role in the lives of the most accomplished people.

Effort in academia translates into a willingness to tackle a difficult algebraic problem set or to wrestle with a complex world issue.  Dweck noted that the highest achieving students were those who valued, appreciated and acknowledged the inherent rigor required of academic study.  This cohort considered a low test score as an indication that additional work was needed; they did not interpret a poor grade as a reflection of their overall level of intelligence, talent or ability.  Resilient students viewed mistakes as opportunities; they targeted their errors and refined their skills.

Successful students embrace the opportunity to learn; these are the children who truly love learning for its own sake and consider getting good grades to be secondary to mastering a subject.  This is the mindset we foster at The Rhoades School, resulting in notable accomplishments in the classroom and beyond.

Also published in The Coast News

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