Peter H. Johnston > 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

“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

“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

“asking myself from time to time if it might be possible to teach English in such a way that people would stop killing each other”
― Peter H. Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

“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

“knowledge is constructed, and that people play an active role in its construction.”
― 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

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer. —ALBERT EINSTEIN1”
― 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

“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

“Much more important is noticing—and helping the students notice—what they are doing well, particularly the leading edge of what is going well. This leading edge is where the student has reached beyond herself, stretching what she knows just beyond its limit, producing something that is partly correct. This is the launching pad for new learning.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

“If you’re going to offer critique, focus on the process and possibility.”
― 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

“Focusing on the positive is hardly a new idea. It is just hard to remember to do it sometimes, particularly when the child’s response is nowhere near what you expected. Indeed, the more we rely on expectations and standards, the harder it is to focus on what is going well.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

“We can keep the tests and other potentially distracting elements in mind, but we have to keep our heads up further than that as we deal with the moment-to-moment interactions with students.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

“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

“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

“Stephen summarizes, “It’s when you look back and you learn how much you’ve grown and changed.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives

“There is no question that “discourse penetrates a fair way into the perceptual system” (Harre and Gillet 1994, p. 169).”
― Peter H. Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

“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

“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

“The most important piece is to confirm what has been successful (so it will be repeated) and simultaneously assert the learner’s competence so she will have the confidence to consider new”
― Peter H. Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

“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

“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

“Marie Clay (1993) refers to this as attending to the “partially correct.” Its significance cannot be overstated.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

“For example, Pegeen’s students have constructed time lines of their lives, replete with photos and annotations, and posted them on the wall, inviting conversations about change.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives