Challenge, Self-Efficacy, Teachers, and Peers

The Turner and Meyer reading we did this week gives us the following statement on the first page; "...students and teachers frequently seem willing to trade the benefits of challenge seeking (competence, pride, efficacy, and enjoyment) for the safety of avoiding mistakes and appearing competent." I did not know where the reading would move from there, but my first reaction to that statement was how true I found it to be. I began thinking of one of my second grade students from this past semester, and how she would ask for "challenges" in writing, which I would gladly accommodate. Writing was a strong subject for her. however in math, where she was competent but not exceptional, any challenge seemed to be met with statements like "I'm terrible at math." as I read the rest of the article, I was intrigued by the combination of types of learning orientation and teacher affect in the classroom. Now certainly I worked in a school with a very positive social-emotional climate. And in much of the discourse of the classroom, effort was the primary emphasis. So I found myself wondering why this bright young girl was so put off by anything challenging in math. Why her self-efficacy was so distinctly segmented? Then I began to look at possible sources of self-efficacy, and the type of classroom environment she had been in for two and a half years. She knew her strengths in reading and writing, primarily on a comparative level with her peers. The teacher affect was one of praising effort, but perhaps to the degree where the only way this girl could feel a sense of task accomplishment to a special degree was in comparison to her peers. In math, working hard was praised, but the amount of time spent on math was limited, and the level of differentiation was such that she would still be working at a rate slower than and slightly below some of her peers. I find myself wondering if her motivation to be the best student in writing comes from the fact that she is the best student and knows how that feels, rather than an enjoyment of task accomplishment. Because she took no great joy in gaining a new understanding in math, particularly if a peer understood it before her. I think it was an important part of the article to mention in the conclusion that the ideal classroom environment for student motivation in mathematics has to include peer contexts, working as toward mathematical consensus, and not just a teacher's challenging of students to deeper understanding.
I remember my feelings of self-efficacy in math were consistently motivated by my being an excellent math student. It was never about gaining new understanding for me, and for most of my teachers as I grew older there seemed to be a priority placed on correct answers more than anything else. I was motivated by getting a 100/100 on a test. But when I hit a subject area in 11th grade that, despite my efforts, I found difficult... I was suddenly no longer a math person, because the learning environment I was in was focused on correct answers, and the teacher affect was one of "I taught it in the lesson already." I switched math tracks for senior year, avoiding any sort of challenge in lieu of feeling competent, and then never took math again in college. Which is sad, because I had always felt good about math, and maybe I could have grown up to be an engineer if I had a different pre-calc/trig teacher. Instead I'm living at home, hoping this career change gain maybe garner me 35k next year. But now that I'm here, I guess I'll have to do my part so none of my students ever go through the same thing.