Last week I received an email from my son’s school, notifying parents of the communications we’ll be getting over the coming weeks to update us on our child’s progress so far this year. The message was as follows:
You will receive one of two possible emails:
- An email to inform you that your child has made a good start to the year and there are no significant patterns of concern across subjects. No further contact will be made at this point, unless an individual subject teacher has a concern.
- An email to inform you that there are one or more concerns across multiple subjects and, in this case the form teacher will contact you.
I simplify, I know. BUT there is important learning here; short interactions and messages like this shape a culture.
An absence of ‘significant patterns of concern’ is not the same as ‘your child is absolutely thriving here’. But too often we conflate the two. We strive to eliminate the problems somehow thinking that gets us to brilliance.
Now of course I understand (particularly in the example here) that allowing problems to fester isn’t a good thing, but digging deep into the problems isn’t necessarily the solution either; acknowledge them yes, but I would argue that often one of the best ways to resolve problems is to find out what IS working and build on those things.
And in the absence of current problems, where pupils are ‘doing fine’ or even absolutely thriving, it is important that they know WHAT they are doing well.
Understanding the specific behaviours that are leading to success means that they can intentionally keep doing those things.
I know my son’s school understands the importance of praise, and they talk about building on strengths. But even when we comprehend the theory, spotting all of the places we need to apply it in practice is tricky – particularly given our inbuilt negativity bias.
The letter they sent out isn’t dissimilar to the types of things that I see happen in lots of organisations (even those well-versed in the principles of positive psychology).
Increasingly there are more conversations about strengths and solutions-focus in the workplace, but invariably when time is pressured or resources short those are the bits that get squeezed. It’s hard to change the habits of a lifetime.
But I’m hopeful that the increase in conversations does start to translate into more actions and understanding. I suppose the important message in all of this is, that whilst progress is being made, in true growth mindset spirit, we’re not there – yet.