Struggle... literally, physically, neuro-biologically, makes us stronger.
You may have heard that you should 'love mistakes!' and 'celebrate failure!'
But without knowing exactly what 'failure' and mistakes' are - it's hard to get excited about them.
We know from research that mistakes literally grow your brain.
Electrical activity called the ERN response occurs when the brain appears to experience a conflict between an error and the correct response.
According to Stanford Mathematics expert Jo Boaler, we do not actually need to be aware that we have made a mistake. It seems as though simply because it is a time of struggle, the brain grows from this challenge.
Environments that are “mistakes friendly” also increase student effort on tasks.
A study by Steuer and colleagues found that classroom environments that were seen as “mistakes friendly” led to students increasing their effort in their work.
As Dr. Lara Boyd puts it in her talk “After watching this, your brain will never be the same"
"increased struggle leads to increased structural change in the brain"
When we understand the 'neuromechanics' of mistakes, and 'The Dip' we can find new ways to…
help others push through their fear of failure by proposing -from a scientific perspective - that our fear of failure is learned and based on beliefs from others who learned to be afraid of making mistakes instead of leaving their comfort zone.
References:
Boaler, J. (2014). The Mathematics of Hope, Heinemann
I also have an entire video lesson plus handouts on this topic here:
https://stefaniefaye.com/growth-mindset-neuroscience-video-series-unit-3/
