underachievement; effectivity praise for effort is reinforced?

Don't praise your child for their intelligence, but do praise them for their effort says this article on praising intelligent children describing one of the origins of underachievement. I would say there is also a reward-angle to this. The reward is bigger when effort is emphasised as contributing to the successful solution of a problem than when there is no relation to effort. This means there is a reinforcement of the effect reported in the article.

underachievement: neurology or psychology?

Neurology is very interesting and is like a painting of reality to me. Especially if it represents reality in detail. Even better are descriptions that move in time like models or machines or those where you can manipulate and see what happens. But that's it. It is not what happens inside the box or is it? If we look at underachievement, is what happens the activity that stops in the brain, or is this an accurate and interesting show of what events you can observe from the outside? It does show that it is imperative to get enough experience in failure not to shut down when it happens. Hmm... Thanks neurologists for this support.

why some schools don't have underachievement

Some of our schools don't only call themselves schools, but are schools. I like that this school doesn't think of children as a standard that they can push to perform in the standard way. They see children that have needs to develop into good citizens. They can see the potential behind the problems.
They don't emphasize problems, but emphasize the processes of change and development.

do you know this process that when you write something, you learn about what you write and what you write seems already perished? That's why it took a long time before I decided I would write. Because I felt that whatever I write, there is always something wrong about the ideas. That I would never write down the final idea, until I realized that writing is not about the final score, but about the process of living, experiencing and learning.

example of a school that handles underachievement
It is important to realize that there are different kinds of underachievement. What works in problems with many social problems may not work in other areas. Schools should resist standard solutions and embrace knowledge, mediation skills, specific problem solving.
example of someone who thought about what really happens

My second book is about underachievement. I'm working on a theory.

why some schools have underachievement

Underachievement. I tried to find an article that had the title: "why some schools have underachievement." (in dutch) but couldn't, because I live too far from real libraries, except for internet. Some articles are cited in other articles and are difficult to get.
Maybe I should have tried harder. I had other things to do. Because now it seems that this school has it.
When turning to the web, I come up with this (incomplete) list:
immigration difficulties
material deprivation and labelling
being a boy
communication skills

hmmm... I'm wondering whether underachieving is influenced by culture. In the Netherlands, the culture of "don't raise your head above the mowing field" is said to be one of the causes of underachievement.

busy, busy...

These are busy days... I'm busy with the children and school, administration and groceries. In the middle of that I got a new idea for two new books. One a very practical book for education, the other a comprehensive theory, explaining and predicting mechanisms. I'm excited about these ideas. But how will I find the energy and the time?
I also have an idea to translate a book that I think should be translated. (I have to check if it isn't)

about the necessity to understand scaffolding

Two of my children are possibly ill or possibly demotivated to go to school or both.

I have not been reading about underachievement for nothing.

Many teachers don't know that underachievement can be caused by too easy learning materials and lessons. They don't know about the mechanism nor do they know how much it affects children and their families. At the primary school I could see which teachers understand it just by looking at the grades of my children. You might argue that the grades only reflect the ability to teach and not how the teacher handles underachievement. True. In my opinion both are true. The successful teacher handles the underachievement better and gives better answers to difficult questions in the learning material. It is about scaffolding again.
citation of an article
"The first task during mediation is to discourage surface or superficial learning. Children are likely to engage in surface strategies as a matter of pragmatics; as a means of self preservation."
Now back to my reality. I hope it is the flue... but I'm pretty sure it is not. This is why we are thinking of moving to a region with better scaffolding, after five years of trying to manage.