Growing an Academic Mindset
Do you ever find yourself wondering if you might be an idiot? If you have, it might be more fault of your mindset, than its intellect. Though perhaps lacking in the depth required to reap an audience of scholastic educators, Carol Dweck, Ph.D. professor of psychology at Stanford University, provides us with the essay: “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids,” which grants the parents and guardians of students, a look into what is a pervasive problem in the world of education. With this piece, Dweck seeks to illustrate the difference between the “fixed” and “growing” mindsets, and how both influence the way a student shall either grow or falter within the academic system. The former of which, she advances as detrimental to the development of student, valuing initial mastery over the subjects, over actual learning. The “growing”, mindset however she presents as an exceeding alternative, purporting that a more open attitude towards failure will encourage students to seek edification through a process of failures and successes alike, instead of attributing …show more content…
She highlights the benefits of the purposed change of academic ethos, by bemoaning society’s favoritism towards “fixed” ability and intelligence, rather than the benefits of growing these talents over time. She exemplifies this point by stating, “…children hold on to an implicit belief that intelligence is innate and fixed, making striving to learn far less important than being (or looking) smart.” (36) In this way, she is capable of presenting her arguments under the light of insistence, owing to painting a “fixed” mindset as the primary culprit for the bulk of the enrooted student apathy towards education, and expresses further disappointment, as the system fails to adapt around the individual, and opposed to the individual molding to
Do you ever find yourself wondering if you might be an idiot? If you have, it might be more fault of your mindset, than its intellect. Though perhaps lacking in the depth required to reap an audience of scholastic educators, Carol Dweck, Ph.D. professor of psychology at Stanford University, provides us with the essay: “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids,” which grants the parents and guardians of students, a look into what is a pervasive problem in the world of education. With this piece, Dweck seeks to illustrate the difference between the “fixed” and “growing” mindsets, and how both influence the way a student shall either grow or falter within the academic system. The former of which, she advances as detrimental to the development of student, valuing initial mastery over the subjects, over actual learning. The “growing”, mindset however she presents as an exceeding alternative, purporting that a more open attitude towards failure will encourage students to seek edification through a process of failures and successes alike, instead of attributing …show more content…
She highlights the benefits of the purposed change of academic ethos, by bemoaning society’s favoritism towards “fixed” ability and intelligence, rather than the benefits of growing these talents over time. She exemplifies this point by stating, “…children hold on to an implicit belief that intelligence is innate and fixed, making striving to learn far less important than being (or looking) smart.” (36) In this way, she is capable of presenting her arguments under the light of insistence, owing to painting a “fixed” mindset as the primary culprit for the bulk of the enrooted student apathy towards education, and expresses further disappointment, as the system fails to adapt around the individual, and opposed to the individual molding to