Praise
I love this simple, yet succinct quote.
I have always seen praise - genuine praise - to be a critical component for growth in all respects.
I vividly remember during my undergraduate days a Russian professor whose teaching style was straight out of the USSR. The slightest error in pronunciation, sentence structure or word choice rendered a brusque "нет" (“nyet”), his favourite word!
While praise was not (by any stretch) forthcoming, this was - in retrospect - a formative learning experience for me with regards to the importance of praise within the teaching-learning process. I learned first hand the importance of genuine, authentic praise so as to raise - not diminish - confidence. I hold onto this memory not because it was pleasant, but to serve as a reminder of the importance of praise.
One can not overemphasize the correlation between praise, confidence/self belief and growth. Praise, be it verbal (a comment said directly one to one, deliberately in earshot or publicly in the whole class setting or during a formal assembly) or non-verbal (a high five, a knowing smile, a written note), direct or indirect, leads to confidence. Confidence begets self-belief. Self-belief allows one to move beyond the comfort zone and to be - in the language of the IB Learner Profile - a risk taker and to make the leap.
I implore you, as expressed so succinctly by Alex Haley, to “Find the good - and praise it.”