Growth Mindset

The Dr.Carol Dweck published an very interesting and important article about a study she make around 373 middle school students.

She ask every student the same and unique simple question: Is intelligence something very basic that can't really change ?

The answer was divided into 2 group :

- The fixed mindset that said no it's cannot change.
- And The malleable mindset that said yes this can change and growth, she call them the Growth Mindset.

And she realize that the first categories the fixed mindset are more worried about looking smart than learning, they don't like to try news think because failing make them look stupid.

In the other case the malleable or the growth mindset are more interested in learning and love to try, event if they do mistake because they think of it as learning. And seem to think that the they next time they will do better and so on.

The Growth mindset was having some attribute that the fixed mindset was not having:
- Effort,
- Using strategies,
- And provided seeking.

Check the full article there:
http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=32124
http://www.mindsetworks.com/webnav/dr-dweck-interviews.aspx

Generation of Robots in Lebanon

Lebanon like North-Korea, Japan or China have one of the best education systems in the world. Children learn in primary school 3 languages (Arabic, French, & English) and some event more with Spanish. We teach our kids that excellence it's to know everything by head and to speak it out-loud in class.

And if our kids don't get good grades we yell at them and put all our salary in private tutors. Some of our kids become so genius and are always succeeding in school. And the message this kids get it's that all is easy, everything will always be fine if they learn it by head.

And for some of those kids it's really super easy for them to get good grades like that. And theirs parents so proud of them give them money, gift and tell them to nothing in the house else than studying so they don't have any independence and some of them at the age of 20 years old still don't know how to cook eggs or event how to do a sandwich. And the trouble's is that they are going to reach a point in their life where it's not going to be easy, and they will get lost. 

I think those kids we're creating actually have like a sort of Fixed Mindset Syndrome. You can see there more informations about this syndrome: http://michaelgr.com/2007/04/15/fixed-mindset-vs-growth-mindset-which-one-are-you/

 

They don't get any part-time jobs, or anything type of jobs when they are studying and some of them never worked until they get their college or event master degree, but like Businessinsider said : ''A diploma it's just a door to the work forces and may the best man or woman win.'' So with their fixed-mindset they still think everything will be easy with their GPA they will get every jobs they want, but actually in the real life this is not the case so they will get the felling like a bomb was trough in their face when they will finally woke-up of their illusion. And that is a really dangerous thing, I think, to send our kids out into the world with this.

And the questions is how we help this kids ? And that a very difficult question to answer when you think of the pressure of college admissions for that perfect transcript, or this perfect student.

And yet unfortunately, the college admissions system, isn't actually looking for growth right now but for robots student. And that the big problems with this news generation of ROBOT STUDENT we are creating: ''why parents would tell their children to be lest like a robot and to learn for fun, when college and university are just looking for that perfect transcript ?'' So we have created this fragile troubleshoots people more likely to get depression in the future in their life when thing will not be easy for them.

At the end what we must think as a parent or a teacher did we provide to our kids and the new generation with this type of education what they need to survive in this world ?

The solution is to teach our children lest with the textbook but more about life and to parents to give their children the change of independence by so work in the summer or doing task for their money in the house washing the car for example or just washing dishes like in the picture.

Why Optimism is so important ?

Have you ever read or see this quote: ''Humans being are creatures of the future, and not the prisoners of the past.'' or ''If you don't let go of your past, you can't have a great future.'' So humans are creatures that like to project themselves in the future, and it's why optimism is so important to us. 

Imagine someone that project himself into the future with pessimism views. He will see everything bad, and see himself become a failure. And so be depressed, sad, etc... 

 

In the other hand imagine another person seeing his future with hope and optimism. He will imagine good thing happen to him so when bad thing happen he will see them as local and as thing he can change. And so on will try harder.

So we can said that the ripples of optimism is:

• You get less depressed when bad event occurs
• You're more resilient.
• Your physical health is better (less stress).
• Event people like you better.
• And because you try harder, you achieve more.

We can see that the ripples of optimism isn't just feeling good and happiness.

Some Dyslexic people tend to be pessimism because they see theirs failures instead of focusing in their accomplishments. Most of the time it's because teachers, school, parents tend to put a focus on their learning disabilities and tell them every days about it. 

So we teach kids  to become children with bad self-esteem, we need to change that and to focus on good thing more than bad thing. Like the quote of James Baldwin said: ''Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.''

Let take an very simple example of every days : Let take a teacher or a parent, that want their children or student to stop yelling at each other. The teacher or Parent will simply yell at them to stop yelling. The children will see you yelling at them to stop yelling, is this a good example ? No, you want them to stop yelling and you're yelling at them to stop yelling. You must be an example to them and not ask kids to do things you don't enjoy or choose to do yourselves.

It's why Optimism and Good example let people and kids flourish more than pessimism and bad example. If you want people to do something you must do it yourself first and if you want to get good thing in the future you must think of them and stay OPTIMISM. 

 

AND FINALLY DYSLEXIA DOESN'T HAVE TO HOLD YOU BACK, SO ALWAYS KEEP IN YOU THIS OPTIMISM ATTITUDE THAT WILL HELP BE A BETTER PERSON.

Dyslexie Free Font For your Browsers

I fund many article talking about this free add-ons for your browser that help dyslexic people to read: Dyslexie. So I decided to try Dyslexie for one month.

Dyslexie is a font created especially for people that have reading difficulty, like Dyslexia. The founder of this font is Christian Boer (1981), a graphic designer graduate from the Utrecht Art Academy of Netherlands. He come with this idea to created a font for Dyslexic as a final thesis project for his diploma. Christian a dyslexic himself, set the challenge to himself to create a font that would make reading an easy task to Dyslexic people around the world. After finished his project he decided to allows people around to access to it.

Christian mentions and applies these points to his font:

• long ascenders and descenders,
• distinction between confusable letters, e.g. b and d, though a miniature capital Q for the lower case letter is surprising.
• Capital I, lowercase l and digit 1 are distinguished.
• rounded, g but not a.
• good letter-spacing;

After trying this free Dyslexie for 1 month, I fund in it advantages and disadvantaged, but the advantages take more place than the disadvantages.

 

First the advantages I fund are:

• Make articles and text more clearly readable, event a study from The University of Twente showed that people with Dyslexia made fewer reading errors when they use Dyslexie font compared to using standard font. 
• You can read more long article without giving up, because your don't find difficulty to read it.  
• The color of the letters blue is more relaxing for the eyes, and if you like to read for a long time on your computer it doesn't hurt your eyes.  
• The add-on is user friendly interface (easy to use, simply 4 bottoms on the right side of your browser ). 

Let now show the disadvantages, I see by using this font for 1 months:

• This add-on have the tendency to slow a little bit your Internet, because it's take more time to load a websites.  
• Some web-sites don't use it.  
• And finally on a black background this is difficult to see the blue letters because the add-on don't allows us to change the color of the text.

Sources:

• http://www.dyslexiefont.com/en/dyslexia-font/extension/ 
• http://www.dyslexiefont.com/en/dyslexia-font/ 
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLtYFcHx7ec

Just a Dream

I'm dreaming of a Lebanon,

and a Middle East,

Where people will take Dyslexia as a real problem,

Where Dyslexic people will be help instead of being called "slow",

And where all people will be able to read and write,

A place where Dyslexic are tell to fight and,

Where society accepted that this is a problem,

Instead of closing the school doors to them,

When people tell them instead or you're stupid,

"Don't feel sorry for yourself. You have a challenge; never quit and we will help you if you want."

Supporting MWTF

#Dyslexialb is supporting the cause of MWTF. (#StopKafala campaign)

Memory Masters and Learning Disabilities

Have you ever hears of these people that can memorize all The Bible or The Dictionary? But what you don't know about them it's that some of them have ADD or Dyslexia and the overcome it with their memory methods. 

 

Let me introduce you to Dominic O Brien he has done what no other man has done before, win The World Memory Championship 8 different times, 2 time in second, and finally 6 times in another before he finally retired from the competition. That means this man memory is one of the most powerful in the world.

Dominic O Brien

But what is event more amazing is that Dominic O Brien is not savant, he is not a genius, and event he was not a good children in school. In fact, as a student he was diagnosed with Dyslexia and Attention Deficiency Disorder (ADD), and had difficulty writing and reading event a simple sentence. But what he did excel at was the skill of visualization and this same skill has been an advantage in his training for the World Memory Championships. He believes that it’s possible that anyone can do what he does, with the proper training and that the human brain can do anything if we train it well.

Dominic now refers to his dyslexic condition in the past tense as though he no longer has it. It is quite obvious that his attention problems have disappeared (you don't get to be World Memory Champion with failing concentration!) - but what about his dyslexia? Dominic is totally convinced that having trained his memory to a remarkable level his mind has evolved to the degree that dyslexia no longer causes him any problems.

He said that people think that ADD and Dyslexia are permanent conditions but that with memory and concentration Dominic appears to have found a way to help sufferers. He says that using the word "cure" is misleading but that what he do with his ADD and Dyslexia to overcome it, is a degree of control so they no longer become debilitating conditions.

And we can also see many other memory masters having learning disabilities such has Gordon Dryden that had ADD and ADHD, and overcome. Like Dominic O Brien do with his Dyslexia and ADD, he do the same with his ADD and ADHD overcome it with his own memory methods.

Gordon Dryden

Did Dominic O Brien and the other Memory Masters  find a long term solution to Dyslexia and other disabilities like ADD ? 

 

We must see the work of scientist and more test, maybe in the future we will learn that we teach memory systems in school to Dyslexic and ADD students to help them overcome and control their learning disabilities.

If you want to know more about Dominic O Brien work you can always watch his interview or read his books.