Teaching "Whether you think you can or you can't your always right." helpful?

[Mumtobe25]

When I'm teaching lower sets a common thing I hear from students is they won't pass their exams and the way education's been restructured recently doesn't seem to help. My question is this: is using the phrase "Whether you think you can or you can't your always right." helpful or could it potentially undermine their confidence further?

I know it seems a really small nitpick but It's something I've been wondering for a while, what is everyones thoughts?

Any other motivational techniques would be greatly appreciated.

I'm not a teacher but as a parent I assume my kids will always be able to do reasonable things that other kids can do. But they will need to put in the work.

My dd is quite phsically able and so learnt to ride a bike quite easily. She is dyslexic and struggles with spelling so I have never told her she will be able to spell well, I've told her there are ways round it like spellcheck.

My son is less physically able and at 7 cannot ride a bike. This is because he is not so physically coordinated but also because he is quite lazy and also maybe because my husband and I have pushed him less than we did dd.

"Whether you think you can or you can't your always right." Is not helpful in my book. Most will be able to do things but if they cannot what options do they have for achieving the same or similar outcome in a different way. So I'd rather say, I am sure you can get there but you may need to try a different way!

I don't normally mention SPAG on threads, but I'm pointing this out as you say you're a teacher - 'your' should be 'you're' in this phrase, and you need a comma after 'can't'.

I appreciate this might just be a late night typo!

As for the phrase itself, I'm afraid I would file it under "pseudo-profound motivational gobbledygook". As a student, my lack of confidence and fear of doing badly spurred me on to work like fuck and achieve brilliant results.

Wondering why this is in feminism..
Haven't there been studies that show students will do better if told just before a test that people like them usually do well in this?
I think too there was one we're girl so were told "girls normally find this hard" and other girls were told "girls normally do well at this test" - it had an effect on the outcome, they lived up to what they had been told.

I’m not sure I understand the phrase really - is it implying that if you think you’ll fail you definitely will and vice versa? I don’t think that’s helpful. I also work with bottom sets and try and be realistic without being harsh - as in ‘there’s no reason why you can’t get x if you do y’ and acknowledge that they might find it challenging but that it doesn’t mean they are bound to fail, like ‘well i agree this question is tricky but I think you’ll be able to answer it if you think about what we did last lesson’ etc etc. I think it’s more useful to model how they could start to do improve.