Saturday, January 21, 2017

The Calm Before the Storm: Overconfidence Can Lead to Under-performance

Most athletes or competitive players call it "choking." That moment when you take the stage, kneel before the starting block, begin your performance and just before the first word...or movement..you freeze, or lose your concentration. This lack of focus causes your confidence to wane, your voice to crack or muscles to seize. Basically you fumble, hit the wall, time-out but before you let the momentary lapse take over you snap back and continue sometimes flawlessly, sometimes not. I see my students do this at science competitions on a larger scale: stuttering in a speech, or knocking over their model. But, it also happens on a smaller scale in the classroom. Students who feel they know everything there is to know about a certain topic, a bit arrogant, a bit overambitious try to conquer the hill become king, only to find themselves at the bottom as a serf.

This battle of wits, internally of course, can be damaging causing reluctance to try again or it may just make them stronger, so next time when the hill seems like a mountain, they have the captured dragon go first. Failure is important. It is the foundation of who we are, as babies learning to walk, toddlers learning to talk, students learning to learn, adults learning to let go and be childish and young at heart. These are not easy accomplishments but we as humans continue until we master them, at least the first three. That calm before the storm where the first steps become walking but then just as fast as they were on their feet they are on their bottom. Just when we think we have reached the precipice, stormed the castle walls, taken the crown, we often find we never wanted the crown or the kingdom, only the knowledge of how to acquire it.

An example, I have several teams for one of my many competitions, they have participated before, they have done very well before, they became very arrogant and over-confidant, not practicing like they should or heeding my advice as to how to improve their skills. Competition day, not one of these teams made finals. Deflated and frustrated they whined and complained "that team cheated." Simply I responded, "You were defeated not my ignorance but by arrogance. Lose with dignity and humility." Then at a different competition, different team, same thing. The feeling they mastered this thing and by golly the game is way more important then coming to practice and preparing for the competition. So alas, defeat. Overconfidence leads to under-performance not rarely but frequently. In class same thing, assignments are just lacking enthusiasm and creativity because many a student just doesn't care enough to put in their all. How do we combat this?

Push them, challenge them every day to think for themselves, to give them honest, constructive criticism, have them reflect on their performance and always look for ways to improve. I always use American Idol as an example. It is the finals and there are only two singers left, both amazing, their singing is impeccable, they have stage presence, they are likable, they have an enormous league of fans. The judges are really nit-picking their performances, almost incessantly, why? They have to push them, make them better, instill in them a need to be better, the best or they will not win. This is what we need to do. The struggling students need strategies to improve their practice skills, our over-achieving, high-achieving students need to be pushed to reflect and find strategies to make themselves better, stronger, faster. Basically we are constantly improving only when we take a deep, honest look at our faults and we all have them, can we win the race.

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