I've run across Dweck's ideas about fixed and growth mindsets in other contexts, but I don't think they've been mentioned here. I find them to be useful guidelines.
Anyhow, for your reading pleasure:
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I have never heard it explained that way, but I totally agree with what he was saying. I don't think there is anything wrong with using the word smart, but rather teaching kids that smart means willing to learn and using the tools they have to grow rather than smart just being something you "are or arent".
Great article!
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I hadn't ever seen official research, but as a teacher the growth mindset was something we constantly talked about with our students. How, when you get frustrated, really it means you're getting smarter. We told them that thinking is like exercising your brain and you have to keep going until its not easy. When a kid struggled to answer a question, the others learned not to chime in but to say gleefully "oooh, she's getting smarter!" It's one of my favorite parts of teaching.
For my own son, I always try to give process praise, but it's hard sometimes to not let the "you are so smart!!" slip out.
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@honeybear: I 100% agree with this. I think this is one area where we in American culture fail, big time. I listened to a weeklong education series on NPR last year, where they were studying what makes education in other countries so successful.
One common aspect that kept popping up is that in other countries (that have higher education rankings), the focus is on how hard you study, how long you work, how hard you try---you aren't praised for getting a concept quickly and called smart, you are praised for working hard and long until you understand.
I think it does a disservice to our kids to divide it into "smart" and "not smart" because it makes kids feel like if they don't understand a concept immediately, they aren't good at that subject and they give up.
For instance, students in Japan were given a math problem they'd never seen before and were asked to solve it. They worked many minutes longer on it before giving up than the US students, who gave up almost immediately and just said "I don't get it".
As a teacher, I've had so many parents tell me their kid is so smart, the child is already smarter than them. Yikes. Even if your child is literally a genius, they are not smarter than you, their parent, who has many years of wisdom and life experience, you know?
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We just got growth mindset training at work. I think it is highly valuable for people to learn about it if never exposed to it.
Here is where I am at: I think it is important not to be judgmental when someone makes mistakes and to live by the understanding that we all struggle with something. I still value thinking smart and being smart as well as getting smart. -
I love this! I will definitely be more mindful of my wording when praising LO!
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@honeybear: Thank you so much for sharing this. I will definitely keep it in mInd.
What I want to figure out is how to keep/minimize others from telling your kids how innately smart they are? My LO is only 6 moaths old and I already hear people saying, "you're such a bright/smart baby" or "he's going to be so smart."
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Wow, this is a totally new concept to me and I love it! Thanks for sharing!
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@Leah: I think it's okay to say those things as long as it is in response to an action/thought process and not just a blanket "oh you're so smart". I tell lo he is smart when he is trying to figure something out, like when he is upside down looking at how the wheels on his truck work, I might say "wow, you're so smart for trying to figure that out! Or if he is clearly problem solving something, I might say it as he is working to reinforce the perseverance it takes to find the solution.
ETA: when people say stuff like that you could follow it up by saying "yes he is smart because xyz" and explain a process involved in whatever inspired that person made the comment.
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This is cool! I started reading a book called "The Up Side of Down" that did a great job of explaining this; especially why highly praised kids tend to burn out in their 20s, etc., because they become fearful of failure. But the book didn't apply any real academic language, so this is cool.
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Great article! Thanks for sharing!!
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We have studied this at work and I totally agree with it. I think a huge disconnect with our education system is the mindset of "fixed" knowledge. I believe with the right effort and support all children can learn.
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@808love: that's cool you got training on this at work. If you know can you message me what the training was on?
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Yes we've been teaching malleable intelligence for quite a while with our students.
@JoyfulKiwi: This is so cute-- "oo she's getting smarter!" I'm going to use that with my intervention kiddos. -
I completely agree with this article!
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http://ed.ted.com/on/4BNXOeGm#review is a 1 minute growth mindset 'commercial' that briefly lays the foundation. If you google Dweck on Ted Ed or Ted Talks you will come up with a few videos. Basically we did a pretest, watched the video, then reflected on what we learned from the videos and discussed how it applied to our professional growth and students.
I think it puts a little more science behind the basic premise all children can learn.
@t.h.o.u.:
Here is the exact 10 min. video we watched. It was on youtube
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