Dweck, Carol. Mindset – Updated Edition: Changing The Way You think To Fulfil Your Potential. Robinson, 2017 (pp. 177-204) – highlights and notes
Mindset and School Achievement
The transition to junior high is a time of great challenge for many students. The work gets much harder, the grading policies toughen up, the teaching becomes less personalized. And all this happens while students are coping with their new adolescent bodies and roles. Grades suffer, but not everyone’s grades suffer equally.
No. In our study, only the students with the fixed mindset showed the decline. The students with the growth mindset showed an increase in their grades over the two years.
Here’s how students with the fixed mindset explained their poor grades. Many maligned their abilities: “I am the stupidest” or “I suck in math.” And many covered these feelings by blaming someone else: “[The math teacher] is a fat male slut . . . and [the English teacher] is a slob with a pink ass.”
Is Artistic Ability a Gift?
Despite the widespread belief that intelligence is born, not made, when we really think about it, it’s not so hard to imagine that people can develop their intellectual abilities.
But when it comes to artistic ability, it seems more like a God-given gift. For example, people seem to naturally draw well or poorly.
Most people view drawing as a magical ability that only a select few possess, and that only a select few will ever possess. But this is because people don’t understand the components—the learnable components—of drawing. Actually, she informs us, they are not drawing skills at all, but seeing skills. They are the ability to perceive edges, spaces, relationships, lights and shadows, and the whole. Drawing requires us to learn each component skill and then combine them into one process. Some people simply pick up these skills in the natural course of their lives, whereas others have to work to learn them and put them together. But as we can see from the “after” self-portraits, everyone can do it.
Here’s what this means: Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn’t mean that others can’t do it (and sometimes do it even better) with training.
The Danger of Praise and Positive Labels
After the success, everyone loved the problems, but after the difficult problems, the ability-praised students said it wasn’t fun anymore. It can’t be fun when your claim to fame, your special talent, is in jeopardy.
The effort-praised students still loved the problems, and many of them said that the hard problems were the most fun.
After the experience with difficulty, the performance of the ability-praised students plummeted, even when we gave them some more of the easier problems. Losing faith in their ability, they were doing worse than when they started. The effort kids showed better and better performance.
There was one more finding in our study that was striking and depressing at the same time. We said to each student: “You know, we’re going to go to other schools, and I bet the kids in those schools would like to know about the problems.” So we gave students a page to write out their thoughts, but we also left a space for them to write the scores they had received on the problems.
Almost 40 percent of the ability-praised students lied about their scores. And always in one direction. In the fixed mindset, imperfections are shameful—especially if you’re talented—so they lied them away. What’s so alarming is that we took ordinary children and made them into liars, simply by telling them they were smart.
So telling children they’re smart, in the end, made them feel dumber and act dumber, but claim they were smarter.
Grow Your Mindset
- Think about your hero. Do you think of this person as someone with extraordinary abilities who achieved with little effort? Now go find out the truth. Find out the tremendous effort that went into their accomplishment—and admire them more.
- Think of times other people outdid you and you just assumed they were smarter or more talented. Now consider the idea that they just used better strategies, taught themselves more, practiced harder, and worked their way through obstacles. You can do that, too, if you want to.
- Do you label your kids? This one is the artist and that one is the scientist. Next time, remember that you’re not helping them—even though you may be praising them. Remember our study where praising kids’ ability lowered their IQ scores.
Parents, Teachers, and Coaches: Where do Mindsets Come From?
Every word and action can send a message. It tells children—or students, or athletes—how to think about themselves. It can be a fixed-mindset message that says: You have permanent traits and I’m judging them. Or it can be a growth-mindset message that says: You are a developing person and I am committed to your development.
Parents (and Teachers): Messages About Success and Failure
Listen for the messages in the following examples: “You learned that so quickly! “You’re so smart!” “Look at that drawing.” Martha, is he the next Picasso or what?” “You’re so brilliant, you got an A without even studying!” If you’re like most parents, you hear these as supportive, esteem-boosting messages. But listen more closely. See if you can hear another message. It’s the one that children hear: “If I don’t learn something quickly, I’m not smart.” “I shouldn’t try drawing anything hard or they’ll see I’m no Picasso.” “I’d better quit studying or they won’t think I’m brilliant.”
Praising children’s intelligence harms their motivation and it harms their performance.
How can that be? Don’t children love to be praised? Yes, children love praise. And they especially love to be praised for their intelligence and talent. It really does give them a boost, a special glow—but only for the moment. The minute they hit a snag, their confidence goes out the window and their motivation hits rock bottom. If success means they’re smart, then failure means they’re dumb. That’s the fixed mindset.
Sending Messages about Process and Growth
Does this mean we can’t praise our children enthusiastically when they do something great? Should we try to restrain our admiration for their successes? Not at all.
We can appreciate them as much as we want for the growth-oriented process—what they accomplished through practice, study, persistence, and good strategies. And we can ask them about their work in a way that recognizes and shows interest in their efforts and choices.
“You really studied for your test and your improvement shows it. You read the material over several times, you outlined it, and you tested yourself on it. It really worked!” “I like the way you tried all kinds of strategies on that math problem until you finally got it. You thought of a lot of different ways to do it and found the one that worked!”
“I know school used to be easy for you and you used to feel like the smart kid all the time. But the truth is that you weren’t using your brain to the fullest. I’m really excited about how you’re stretching yourself now and working to learn hard things.”
One more thing about praise. When we say to children, “Wow, you did that so quickly!” or “Look, you didn’t make any mistakes!” what message are we sending? We are telling them that what we prize are speed and perfection. Speed and perfection are the enemy of difficult learning: “If you think I’m smart when I’m fast and perfect, I’d better not take on anything challenging.” So what should we say when children complete a task—say, math problems—quickly and perfectly? Should we deny them the praise they have earned? Yes. When this happens, I say, “Whoops. I guess that was too easy. I apologize for wasting your time. Let’s do something you can really learn from!”
Messages About Failure Praising success should be the least of our problems, right? Failure seems like a much more delicate matter. Children may already feel discouraged and vulnerable. Let’s tune in again, this time to the messages parents can send in times of failure.
Nine-year-old Elizabeth – lanky, flexible, and energetic, she was just right for gymnastics, and she loved it.
Elizabeth did well in the competition, but not well enough to win. By the end of the evening, she had received no ribbons and was devastated.
Here’s what her growth-minded father told her. He actually said: “Elizabeth, I know how you feel. It’s so disappointing to have your hopes up and to perform your best but not to win. But you know, you haven’t really earned it yet. There were many girls there who’ve been in gymnastics longer than you and who’ve worked a lot harder than you. If this is something you really want, then it’s something you’ll really have to work for.”
Teachers (and Parents): What Makes a Great Teacher (or Parent)?
Many educators think that lowering their standards will give students success experiences, boost their self-esteem, and raise their achievement. It comes from the same philosophy as the overpraising of students’ intelligence. Well, it doesn’t work. Lowering standards just leads to poorly educated students who feel entitled to easy work and lavish praise.
High Standards and a Nurturing Atmosphere Great teachers set high standards for all their students, not just the ones who are already achieving.
But are challenge and love enough? Not quite. All great teachers teach students how to reach the high standards.
What about students who won’t work, who don’t care to learn?
When teachers are judging them, students will sabotage the teacher by not trying. But when students understand that school is for them—a way for them to grow their minds—they do not insist on sabotaging themselves.
“There’s an assumption,” he said, “that schools are for students’ learning. Well, why aren’t they just as much for teachers’ learning?”