The Secret To Raising Smart Kids Summary

Raising Smart Kids In the article The Secret to Raising Smart Kids, Stanford Professor of Psychology Carol S. Dweck wrote about children who coast through the early grades under the dangerous notion that no-effort academic defines them as smart or gifted. A brilliant student, Jonathan sailed through grade school (Dweck, 2006). Jonathan completed his assignments receiving A’s, he wonders why some of his classmates struggled with the material, and his parents told him that he had a special gift. In the seventh grade, however, Jonathan suddenly lost interest in school, refusing to do homework or study for test (Dweck, 2006). His grades dropped, and his parents tried everything to boost their son’s confidence by assuring him that he was smart. But their attempts failed to motivate Jonathan (who is composite drawn from several children) (Dweck, 2006). Our society worships talents, and many people assume that their …show more content…
Humans typically learned to repeat acts that brought rewards and avoid acts that brought unwanted results. Many people learned new behaviors by observing events and by watching others in the process. More than 200 years ago, philosophers such as John Locke and David Hume echoed Aristotle’s conclusion from 2000 years earlier: We learn by association (Myers, 2006) p266. The mind naturally connects events that occur in sequence. As we repeat behaviors in a given context sleeping in a certain posture in bed, walking certain routes on campus, eating popcorn in a movie theater the behavior become associated with the contexts (Myers, 2006) p.266. One British research team asked 96 university students to choose some healthy behaviors such as running before dinner and to do it daily for 84 days, and record their miles in running. On average, behaviors became habitual after about 66 days (Myers, 2006) p. 266. Students ran every day that they made it a new