In this book, Dweck illustrates the importance of what is known as the "growth mindset." I first was introduced to this two years ago when we were informed that we'd be implementing our RAMP UP To Readiness program at LHS.
Here is a link that outlines the main ideas of the "growth mindset" well.
Basically, Dweck discovered this "growth mindset" when she was studying how children worked to solve complex puzzles.
She was watching a group of elementary aged kids when they were attempting to tackle the problem. Two students in particular stopped her cold in her tracks. One looked at the difficult puzzle and exclaimed, "I love a challenge!" The other confessed, "You know, I was hoping this would be informative!"
Dweck wanted to know why these two kids had such a different perspective on struggling through the hard puzzles. Why did they view it not as failure, but as a learning process when so many others either just solved the puzzle or gave up?
Dweck began doing research to find out one thing: "to understand the kind of mindset that could turn a failure into a gift." Now, I don't know about you, but personally I believe that is the number one thing schools should be teaching. Yes, math, reading, and writing are basics, but if you don't embed the kids with the grit/hustle/desire to struggle through the hard parts, what is the point?
The idea that IQ and intelligence is fixed is false, according to Dweck. Of course, all of this thinking that IQs were the be all and end all of our intelligence began when Alfred Binet invented the IQ test. He intended this test to identify kids who were excelling in school from the kids who were struggling. Binet hoped to then take the kids who were struggling and place them in a different environment or school where they would have different (and hopefully more effective) methods and practices applied to them to get them up to grade level or at least back on track.
Schools, however, viewed IQs differently. They saw them, often, as a way to 'track' kids or - if you like - to separate the wheat from the chaff. In other words - using the IQ test - here are the kids who will be doctors and lawyers and professors and here are the kids who will learn traits and skills and here are the kids who will work in the factories.
This view, of course, doesn't take into account passion, work ethic, and effort.
Dweck states that this belief is referred to as the "fixed mindset," where people see their intelligence and talents as fixed. Another researcher, Diane Ravitch, claims that in all of her studies, travels, and research that this is how most American parents view their children's talents. How many times have either we or our kids said something like, "Well, I'm just not good with math" or "I just don't have book smarts."
Dweck's research, though, uncovered the "growth mindset," where people view their intelligence and talents as fluid. That is, they can be developed, honed, and strengthened through effort, passion, and practice. Ravitch found that this view is predominant among most Asian parents. Amy Chua, the infamous Tiger Mother, who authored the shocking "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior," has this very same mindset when it comes to her kids. She has no room for their supposed 'talents.' She knows that her kids aren't good at anything! Yet. As Chua states - "Nothing is really fun until you're good at it." In American society, we believe that if you enjoy piano and are good at it, you will have fun. Then you'll pour the hours and hours of practice into it that it takes to become a virtuoso. Chua, though, believes that you have to put the hours and hours of practice in first before you become passionate about it. Only after become very good at something through hours and hours of hard practice will you enjoy something and find it fun. In other words, you'd never hear an Asian parent allowing their kids to say "I'm just not book smart" or "I'm just not good at math." Instead, an Asian parent would tell their kids "You will be book smart . . . after you read for four hours a night" or "You will be good at math . . . after you do two hours of homework after you get down with your four hours of reading!"
Now this doesn't imply that you are either a "fixed mindset" person OR a "growth mindset" person. We tend to have both traits or mindsets.
KoKo, when she didn't do particularly well on a big test, adopted the fixed mindset as a cop out. She said that she just wasn't smart like, and she went on to name some of the best students in her class.
I said that she had the wrong view. How well you do on a big test, especially ones like the ACT, is the result of your hard work, not just raw intelligence. I then told her that it was no coincidence that the kids whom she named were also in my College Comp 2 class and when they were done with their work in my class, they were often pulling out the Physics home work or Trig home work. It's all about the effort, which, of course, leads to mastery. And it's the mastery that the test should gauge.
The concept we don't do a good enough job teaching our kids is just how much work it really takes to be good at something really is.
I grew up (naively) thinking that some of the people I looked up to, like Stephen King and James Hetfield and Boomer Esiason, just were so much more talented than anyone else. After maturing and studying more about them, what I know realize is that yes, these people (an author, musician, and quarterback) are insanely talented. But they also work very, very, very hard. King writes for 8 hours every day (except his birthday and Christmas). Hetfield spends hours writing and practicing music. Esiason too had to train tirelessly to stay in top shape to be successful in the NFL.
Now that doesn't mean I could write for 8 hours every day and become the world's best-selling author, like King. A lot of luck is involved (and remember, King throw away his first draft of Carrie. Fortuitously, his wife found it in the garbage and salvaged it. Then King revised it and eventually got it published. The rest, as they say, is history). A lot of it is just God-given talent too (such as Esiason being 6-4 with a very strong left arm).
But a lot of it is hard work and passion and dedication to getting the most out of their talents and attributes.
This is one thing I love about the video below.
It illustrates the results of the growth mindset. This is also clear in Sir Ken Robinson's The Element, where he notes that Elvis didn't make his high school's Glee Club and how Michael Jordan was cut from his basketball team and so on.
This overall concept ties in well with one of my favorite books of this year, Cal Newport's So Good They Can't Ignore You, which debunks the passion myth where if you just follow your passion, you'll be successful. Newport argues that first you should find what your natural talents or aptitudes are (and realize that they are not enough to get your by). Then you should work incredibly hard, using the concept of deliberate practice, to improve your skills and talents. Once you have become very, very good at your talent, that is when your passion for it emerges.
Now most young people don't want to believe this. It's much easier to believe that talent is God-given. It's easier to not have to work hard. But that won't get you anywhere, even if you have a passion for it.
Hard work and passion. Those are the bottom lines. If you don't work to polish and develop and hone them, then you're just letting them rot on the vine.
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