What does success mean? Is it a specific lifestyle, a title or accolade, or a state of mind? Depending on your age and background, the term can mean many things.

Success, as it is conventionally defined, is understood as the favorable outcome of a goal. That is to say, it can look as transformative as a family emigrating to another country in search of opportunity or it can look as ubiquitous as a child earning a passing score on a school quiz. For many parents and children, success is often tied to knowledge acquisition and academic performance.

In Becoming Brilliant (2016), Drs. Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek  problematize existing beliefs around the emphasis on content in our current education system and offer an alternative perspective on child achievement and assessment. Rather than focusing on two-dimensional measures of success, Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek argue that there are six skills—known as the 6Cs—that are pivotal to a child’s long-term personal and professional success.  The 6Cs detailed in the book were taking into consideration when developing KB’s Amped up philosophy

The 6Cs are:

  1. Collaboration
  2. Communication
  3. Critical Thinking
  4. Creativity
  5. Content
  6. Confidence

With exposure to settings that will foster these skills, children will develop habits that will allow them to confidently engage with others, actively listen and speak, ask questions, offer alternative solutions to challenges, and retain information on their soundings. These skills call for an experiential method of learning that can be cultivated with exposure to settings where the child must engage thoughtfully with the material. According to Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek, this could look like inviting your child to help with a new household task, creating avenues for confidence-building, or encouraging your child to approach a homework assignment in a hands-on way. At KB Gym, our classes—based on our A.M.P.E.D.U.P philosophy—are also informed by the 6Cs discussed in Becoming Brilliant.

KB Gymnasium highly recommends the book.

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https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Brilliant-Successful-Children-Lifetools/dp/1433822393