acknowledgement of effort is fine, refraining from actually undermining a kid’s self-esteem is great, but praise for the “achievement” of existing is counter-productive. praise should be reserved for excellence, otherwise it has no value…worse, it has negative value.

you’re right, sometimes we have to cross the barriers in our heads to find a new area for intellectual creativity. it’s just that these borders are often well-protected by those who already found that space ;-)

keep telling people that they can do what they want, that it’s not that hard to push your limits further. than they can see for themselves whether or not they give it a try. i went to the guadec this summer and i study educational sciences. it was really nice to be there as most of the geeks were really helpful, tolerant and friendly.

at school it’s a totally different thing. all the kids are being told that it’s all about high grades. you should take a look at the ideas on education by peter petersen. he wanted school to be open. parents were allowed to come, the kids could go wherever they wanted and they were supposed to help each other and work together instead of competing with each other. he wanted mentally disabled and very smart children to profit from each other, regarding knowledge and soft-skills. the teachers’ function was to supervise the process and help if the students couldn’t accomplish their work.

i really hope that you can encourage people to take a look at new areas of operations ’cause the best that can happen to human beings is to get rid of their lack of confidence ;-)
by the way, i believe that success is a combination of being smart and hard-working. if einstein for ex. had sat at home, smoking pot, eating cookies instead of working so hard on his ideas… he probably wouldn’t have achieved a thing.