Opening Minds Quotes

“The purpose of feedback is to improve conceptual understanding or increase strategic options while developing stamina, resilience, and motivation—expanding the vision of what is possible and how to get there.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“We have to remember that we are not just giving students feedback; we are also teaching them to provide it.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“People do not reconsider,” Langer observes, “what they mindlessly accepted as true.”14”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“Cheryl: When you don’t understand what someone said, remember, it’s your job to ask them to explain.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“What if instead we said, “Look at how you …” That would simply turn children’s attention to the process and away from fixed-theory explanations.12”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“I’m not good at this yet” and to take steps to change that.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“Legitimizing student comments like this, not judging them, encourages students to make more contributions to classroom thinking, which in turn offers more opportunities to position students in productive narratives.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“There are three entirely consistent characteristics of groupthink: closed-mindedness, pressure toward uniformity, and overestimation of the in-group.31”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“The same research suggests that increasing the stress on schools, such as through high-stakes testing, is ill advised. Indeed, researchers have shown that stress increases what Irving Janis called “groupthink.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“knowledge is constructed, and that people play an active role in its construction.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“They found that when ideas could be criticized, the group generated more ideas and they were more creative than when either the person could be criticized or even when there was no evaluation at all.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“Third, by not judging it as good or otherwise, the teacher shows that judging is not what happens in this class. Instead, we think about how and why people do things.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“When you added dialogue to your piece, I really understood how Amy [the character] felt.” This is not so much praise as a causal statement—you did this [added dialogue], with this consequence [I understood how the character felt]. Causal process statements are at the heart of building agency.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“First, it gets children into the habit of explaining successes and failures in terms of strategy use.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“In each case, the children who initially received the person-oriented praise, “You are a good drawer,” responded less positively. The slightly different, but more process-oriented “You did a good job drawing” produced more positive responses in the children. The difference was particularly marked in the question regarding whether they felt happy or sad.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“The last two forms of feedback, “You tried really hard” and “You found a good way to do it; could you think of other ways that would also work?” focus on different aspects of the process—effort and strategy—and not on the person.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“If you’re going to offer critique, focus on the process and possibility.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“Oh, so if we look at the picture we can tell which word makes sense.” Then, rather than praising them, she offers a comment that positions them powerfully: “Thanks for teaching us that.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“Look how you figured that out together. You made a plan, you listened to each other, you made a diagram … I don’t think you would have figured it out without doing that.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“I’m sorry, Shatara. I just did your job.” With a single utterance, she apologized, reviewed the normality of making errors (and of apologizing when they are social ones), and implicitly recognized that Shatara (as everyone else) is a person who takes her responsibilities seriously.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“For example, in Susie’s kindergarten class, children have responsibilities, including being the teacher for certain routines.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“Do you want to attend to this book or do you want to read by yourself?” The student responded, “Read by myself.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“Do you think that when Barack Obama was a young boy in kindergarten, do think that sometimes he made mistakes?”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“Our respect is such that we assume that children will try to fix their error and make better decisions next time.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“However, they must also be able to count on respect and freedom from personal judgment.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“One of the children excitedly jumped in with, “Yeah, the bad guy broke the window and …” Susie immediately reframed the narrative. “Not a bad guy. He just made a decision for his own benefit and didn’t consider other people.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“Rather, in discussions of books we should cast characters not in terms of stable character traits, but in terms of internal states, feelings, intentions, contexts, and change.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“you get smarter the more you learn.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“Make a picture in your mind.” She then asks, “How many of you do that? Karla, your hand went up really quickly. Would you have done that back in March?”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“dynamic view of intellect—indeed, of self.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives