Nurturing Self-Confidence in Ourselves and Our Girls

Say “blog.” It sounds as if, looking down at the napkin in your lap, you found an unanticipated texture in your soup.

I agreed to write this. I’ve procrastinated. I am buried in familiar priorities: papers and novels and correspondences and college recommendations. On one level, I am confident. I believe in my work. And thank goodness, because I have some doubts about this particular missive and my ability to pull it off.

The clog in the blog caused a fog—

As an English teacher, I often question whether and why a word is precisely right. I spend time crossing out words that are misleading or vague or incorrect. Like a sommelier, I taste and suggest new ones. In margins, I scrawl that all synonyms are not equal. (Realtors know that a cottage is sweet, a cabin is rustic, and only a B-52’s fan would head for a shack.)

Words have meaning, but they also carry the weight of preconceptions and misconceptions. This surfaced often as committees untangled and reassembled a new articulation of our school mission: Girls Preparatory School inspires each girl to lead a life of integrity and purpose by engaging her mind, cultivating her strengths, and nurturing her self-confidence and respect for others.

My first response: “What does it mean to be confident?”

From Latin confidere, to have full trust.

Good. I like the goal of teaching students to be authentic and self-aware, to fully trust themselves and earn the trust of others. 

But I keep pondering this word confidence, and how a school can affect a student’s confidence.

If I con you, this is dishonest. It’s the false confidence of the hapless townspeople that enables the con-artist to dupe them. They believe their first insights are enough, that all the world is as they assume. Any sense of confidence that isn’t true and well-formed puts us at risk. Understood at the individual level, false confidence is the weakest self-esteem — without a foundation of experience and self-knowledge, dependent upon constant flattery, untrue.

If I confide in you, I trust you. I share the honest secrets of my soul. Personally, I require that confidences between my friends and family be honest. At GPS, this continues. My confidence in my colleagues, my students, and myself has to be honest. I know what is easy for me. Also, I know what is hard but worthwhile. Being fair and constructive in my paper comments is hard. I know I can do it. I also know that sometimes, I can and should do better. Honestly, there’s always more to do and learn (perhaps this separates confidence from arrogance).

Back to the mission — How do we go about the delicate task of “nurturing self-confidence”?

I think part of the answer is above.

The GPS sisterhood builds relationships; the GPS classroom is an environment in which trust and challenge coexist.

My classes must be rich with meaningful material and ambitious tasks. We all take risks and work hard. We appraise our work process and product, and together we try and try again. Confused about a passage? Talk it out. Encounter a conundrum? That’s your paper topic! School-wide, in moments such as those facilitated by student-led conferences, we attempt honest self-evaluation and take ownership as we set and strive toward goals.

It can be a tricky balance, especially with fragile adolescents, to find the spot that provides the warmth of “nurturing” and also confronts the hard edge of true challenge and honest appraisal. 

Maybe it helps to compare building confidence to building physical strength. We need proper warmth and preparation (nurture). We need to lift heavier weights to find “the edge” (challenge). Working out, sometimes our neighbor is stronger (we can be cowed or inspired). Sometimes, we need assistance to reach critical gains (we know that if a spotter helps too much, that rep doesn’t count). Game day, we try to capitalize on strengths (sometimes we falter). So, we take the long view. We put up with struggle and stagnation, relying upon a commitment to improve. At every stage, we rely on others who help us cope with our weaknesses and celebrate our successes.

I’ve belabored the metaphor, and my blog is too long. Here’s my point:

A student’s trust that her family, friends, and teachers believe in her worth as a human being — regardless of each day’s outcome — helps keep her “confidence muscles” supple. Increased confidence comes from experience, from knowing that in times of disappointment and triumph, we can face challenging tasks and keep our values intact.

At GPS, that’s mission critical work. 

Katy Berotti serves as chair of the English Department for grades 6-12. Katy also teaches English in the Upper School.