The ‘mindset’ mindset: What we miss by focusing on kids’ attitudes
Carol Dweck is a psychology professor at Stanford University and a renowed researcher in the field of motivation. She has written important works, including the award-winning “Self-Theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development,” and has been published in numerous publications, including The Washington Post, The New Yorker and The New York Times. She is famous for her theory of “mindset,” fixed vs. growth. In the former, students believe their intelligence and abilities are fixed traits; in a growth mindset, they believe that they can develop talents and even intelligence by working hard. The growth mindset has become popular among educators to understand how students achieve and can improve their academic performance. Now, author Alfie Kohn takes a look at the sacred cow of growth mindset. Kohn is the author of 14 books on education, parenting, and human behavior, including, most recently, “The Myth of the Spoiled Child”(Da Capo Press) and “Schooling Beyond Measure” (Heinemann). He can be reached at www.alfiekohn.org and followed on Twitter at @alfiekohn. This first appeared in Salon.
By Alfie Kohn
One of the most popular ideas in education these days can be summarized in a single sentence — a fact that may help to account for its popularity. Here’s the sentence: Kids tend to fare better when they regard intelligence and other abilities not as fixed traits that they either have or lack, but as attributes that can be improved through effort.
In a series of monographs over many years and in a book published in 2000, psychologist Carol Dweck used the label “incremental theory” to describe the self-fulfilling belief that one can become smarter. Rebranding it more catchily as “growth mindset” allowed her to recycle the idea a few years later in a best-selling book for general readers and an on-line “step by step” instructional program called Brainology® that is said to “raise student achievement by helping them develop a growth mindset” ($6,000 for the all-inclusive kit).
By now, in fact, that phrase has approached the status of a cultural meme and is repeated with uncritical enthusiasm by educators and a growing number of parents, managers, and journalists — to the point that one half expects The ‘mindset’ mindset: What we miss by focusing on kids’ attitudes - The Washington Post: