Austin Scholar #135: Don’t let your kid struggle with self-confidence
& tips on how to help your kid become successful
Hey, y'all!
This week from Austin Scholar...
Austin’s Anecdote: How a group of middle schoolers transformed their math journeys by beating high schoolers
Don’t let your kid struggle with self-confidence (& tips on how to help your kid become successful)
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been thinking about…
It feels as though a thousand years have passed since I wrote last week. Life at Stanford moves so quickly and I’m doing my best to make the most of every day. From hours of classes every day, to the pages and pages of reading due for my classes, to ensuring I’m making friends and socializing, to staying active, to joining and participating in clubs and events, to talking to my family and friends from back home… I basically collapse on my bed each night.
So far, college has been quite the adventure and I can’t wait to continue trying new things and meeting new people :)
Austin’s Anecdote: How a group of middle schoolers transformed their math journeys by beating high schoolers
I just spent the past summer brushing up on all my math in preparation for college. Which had me reflecting:
Eighth grade is a big year for middle school math.
Algebra is a breakpoint in education.
For many students it’s harder than any subject they’ve studied to date. Somewhere in algebra class many students decide “I’m not a math person”.
But giving up on math at algebra sets a student up for a frustrating high school experience. Both science and math classes become a motivational struggle.
And math skills are often a necessary prerequisite for a student's goals – even if the goal is just to get into a good college.
You probably know students who've decided they're bad at math after 8th grade. Maybe you were one of them.
Alpha just turned this problem on its head – and for only $100 per student.
A few weeks ago, Alpha created a competition for their middle school students: beat the high schoolers in math. That already is plenty of incentive – younger kids love the challenge of outperforming their older role models.
But there was an added sweetener: if a group of twenty students were able to complete more XP in Math Academy (basically the goal is to learn more math content) than the high schoolers did, they would win $2,500 to split between themselves.
Here were the results:
Middle school beat high school by 25%
Middle schoolers completed up to ⅓ of a grade level in just one week
All of the kids now know they can do an entire grade level in weeks, not a full year. They have so much more belief in their capabilities.
You might be wondering: why this competition, specifically?
Well, two things are almost universally true for middle schools students:
They’re often scared of the high school workload
They worship high school students
So, the self-confidence they gain from “learning more than high schoolers” becomes a long-term confidence anchor.
This self-confidence is critical for success later in high school – if they believe in themselves, they’ll be more willing to take risks and try challenging things, to push themselves to their fullest potential.
I’m so proud of this group of middle schoolers and can’t wait to see what their self-confidence allows them to accomplish.
Don’t let your kid struggle with self-confidence (& tips on how to help your kid become successful)
Your kid is probably not confident in themselves.
Two months ago, the World Metrics Organization released heartbreaking results on self-esteem:
• 85% of people have low self-esteem.
• 7 out of 10 girls believe they are not good enough or don't measure up in some way, including their looks, performance in school, and relationships.
• Boys aged 15 have the lowest self-esteem of any group.
This affects everyone.
Yet “studies show that self-confidence makes a difference between success and mediocrity.”
So how can you help your kid get past their low self-esteem and have confidence and belief in their abilities?
Here are a few things that you, as a parent, can do: