The perils of “Growth Mindset” education: Why we’re trying to fix our kids when we should be fixing the system How a promising but oversimplified idea caught fire, then got coopted by conservative ideology ALFIE KOHN Salon AUGUST 16, 2015 9:59AM (UTC) 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 selffulfilling belief that one can become smarter. Rebranding it more catchily as the "growth mindset" allowed her to recycle the idea a few years later in a best-selling book for general readers. By now, the growth mindset has approached the status of a cultural meme. The premise is repeated with uncritical enthusiasm by educators and a growing number of parents, managers, and journalists -- to the point that one half expects supporters to start referring to their smartphones as “effortphones.” But, like the buzz over the related concept known as "grit" (a form of self-discipline involving long-term persistence), there's something disconcerting about how the idea has been used -- and about the broader assumption that what students most need is a "mindset" adjustment. But "how well they did" at what? The problem with sweeping, generic claims about the power of attitudes or beliefs isn't just a risk of overstating the benefits but also a tendency to divert attention from the nature of the tasks themselves: How valuable are they, and who gets to decide whether they must be done? Dweck is a research psychologist, not an educator, so her inattention to the particulars of classroom assignments is understandable. Unfortunately, even some people who are educators would rather convince students they need to adopt a more positive attitude than address the quality of the curriculum (what the students are being taught) or the pedagogy (how they're being taught it). An awful lot of schooling still consists of making kids cram forgettable facts into shortterm memory. And the kids themselves are seldom consulted about what they're doing, even though genuine excitement about (and proficiency at) learning rises when they're brought into the process, invited to search for answers to their own questions and to engage in extended projects. Outstanding classrooms and schools -- with a rich documentary record of their successes -- show that the quality of education itself can be improved. But books, articles, TED talks, and teacher-training sessions devoted to the wonders of adopting a growth mindset rarely bother to ask whether the curriculum is meaningful, whether the pedagogy is thoughtful, or whether the assessment of students' learning is authentic (as opposed to defining success merely as higher scores on dreadful standardized tests). Small wonder that this idea goes down so easily. All we have to do is get kids to adopt the right attitude, to think optimistically about their ability to handle whatever they've been given to do. Even if, quite frankly, it's not worth doing. But "how well they did" at what? The problem with sweeping, generic claims about the power of attitudes or beliefs isn't just a risk of overstating the benefits but also a tendency to divert attention from the nature of the tasks themselves: How valuable are they, and who gets to decide whether they must be done? Dweck is a research psychologist, not an educator, so her inattention to the particulars of classroom assignments is understandable. Unfortunately, even some people who are educators would rather convince students they need to adopt a more positive attitude than address the quality of the curriculum (what the students are being taught) or the pedagogy (how they're being taught it). An awful lot of schooling still consists of making kids cram forgettable facts into shortterm memory. And the kids themselves are seldom consulted about what they're doing, even though genuine excitement about (and proficiency at) learning rises when they're brought into the process, invited to search for answers to their own questions and to engage in extended projects. Outstanding classrooms and schools -- with a rich documentary record of their successes -- show that the quality of education itself can be improved. But books, articles, TED talks, and teacher-training sessions devoted to the wonders of adopting a growth mindset rarely bother to ask whether the curriculum is meaningful, whether the pedagogy is thoughtful, or whether the assessment of students' learning is authentic (as opposed to defining success merely as higher scores on dreadful standardized tests). Small wonder that this idea goes down so easily. All we have to do is get kids to adopt the right attitude, to think optimistically about their ability to handle whatever they've been given to do. Even if, quite frankly, it's not worth doing. The most common bit of concrete advice offered by Dweck and others enamored of the growth mindset is to praise kids for their effort ("You tried really hard") rather than for their ability ("You're really smart") in order to get them to persevere. (Google the words "praise" and "effort" together: more than 70 million hits.) But the first problem with this seductively simple script change is that praising children for their effort carries problems of its own, as several studies have confirmed: It can communicate that they’re really not very capable and therefore unlikely to succeed at future tasks. ("If you’re complimenting me just for trying hard, I must really be a loser.") The more serious concern, however, is that what's really problematic is praise itself. It's a verbal reward, an extrinsic inducement, and, like other rewards, is often construed by the recipient as manipulation. A substantial research literature has shown that the kids typically end up less interested in whatever they were rewarded or praised for doing, because now their goal is just to get the reward or praise. As I've explained in books and articles, the most salient feature of a positive judgment is not that it’s positive but that it’s a judgment; it's more about controlling than encouraging. Moreover, praise communicates that our acceptance of a child comes with strings attached: Our approval is conditional on the child’s continuing to impress us or do what we say. What kids actually need from us, along with nonjudgmental feedback and guidance, is unconditional support -- the antithesis of a patronizing pat on the head for having jumped through our hoops. The solution, therefore, goes well beyond a focus on what's being praised -- that is, merely switching from commending ability to commending effort. Praise for the latter is likely to be experienced as every bit as controlling and conditional as praise for the former. Tellingly, the series of Dweck's studies on which she still relies to support the idea of praising effort, which she conducted with Claudia Mueller in the 1990s, included no condition in which students received nonevaluative feedback. Other researchers have found that just such a response -- information about how they've done without a judgment attached -- is preferable to any sort of praise. Thus, the challenge for a teacher, parent, or manager is to consider a moratorium on offering verbal doggie biscuits, period. We need to attend to deeper differences: between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and between "doing to" and "working with" strategies. Unfortunately, we're discouraged from thinking about these more meaningful distinctions -- and from questioning the whole carrot-and-stick model (of which praise is an example) -- when we're assured that it's sufficient just to offer a different kind of carrot. Here's another part of the bigger picture that's eclipsed when we get too caught up in the "growth vs. fixed" (or "incremental vs. entity") dichotomy: If students are preoccupied with how well they're doing in school, then their interest in what they're doing may suffer. A 2010 study found that when students whose self-worth hinges on their performance face the prospect of failure, it doesn't help for them to adopt a growth mindset. In fact, those who did so were even more likely to give themselves an excuse for screwing up -a strategy known as "self-handicapping" -- as compared to those with the dreaded fixed mindset. Even when a growth mindset doesn't make things worse, it can help only so much if students have been led -- by things like grades, tests, and, worst of all, competition -- to become more focused on achievement than on the learning itself. Training them to think about effort more than ability does nothing to address the fact, confirmed by several educational psychologists, that too much emphasis on performance undermines intellectual engagement. Just as with praise, betting everything on a shift from ability to effort may miss what matters most. And this brings us to the biggest blind spot of all -- the whole idea of focusing on the mindsets of individuals. Dweck's work nestles comfortably in a long self-help tradition, the American can-do, just-adopt-a-positive-attitude spirit.("I think I can, I think I can...") The message of that tradition has always been to adjust yourself to conditions as you find them because those conditions are immutable; all you can do is decide on the spirit in which to approach them. Ironically, the more we occupy ourselves with getting kids to attribute outcomes to their own effort, the more we communicate that the conditions they face are, well, fixed. Social psychologists use the term "fundamental attribution error" to mean paying so much attention to personality and attitudes that we overlook how profoundly the social environment affects what we do and who we are. Their point is that it's simply inaccurate to make too much of a fuss about things like mindsets, but there are also political implications to doing so. Why, for example, do relatively few young women choose to study or work in the fields of math and science? Is it because of entrenched sexism and "the way the science career structure works"? Well, to someone sold on Dweck's formula, the answer is no: It's "all a matter of mindset."We need only "shift widespread perceptions over to the 'growth mindset'” -- that is, to the perceptions of girls and women who are just trapped by their own faulty thinking. This is similar to the perspective that encourages us to blame a "culture of poverty" in the inner city rather than examine economic and political barriers -a very appealing explanation to those who benefit from those barriers and would rather fault their victims for failing to pull themselves up by their mindset. *** Having spent a few decades watching one idea after another light up the night sky and then flame out -- in the field of education and in the culture at large -- I realize this pattern often has less to do with the original (promising) idea than with the way it has been oversimplified and poorly implemented. Thus, I initially thought it was unfair to blame Dweck for wince-worthy attempts to sell her growth mindset as a panacea and to give it a conservative spin. Perhaps her message had been distorted by the sort of people who love to complain about grade inflation, trophies for showing up, and the inflated self-esteem of "these kids today." In the late 1990s, for example, right-wing media personality John Stossel snapped up a paper of Dweck's about praise, portraying it as an overdue endorsement of the value of old-fashioned toil -- just what was needed in an era of "protecting kids from failure." Their scores stink but they feel good about themselves anyway -- and here's a study that proves "excellence comes from effort"! This sort of attack on spoiled kids and permissive (or excessive) parenting is nothing new -- and most of its claims dissolve on close inspection. Alas, Dweck not only has failed to speak out against, or distance herself from, this tendentious use of her ideas but has put a similar spin on them herself. She has allied herself with gritmeister Angela Duckworth and made Stossel-like pronouncements about the underappreciated value of hard work and the perils of making things too easy for kids, pronouncements that wouldn't be out of place at the Republican National Convention or in a small-town Sunday sermon. Indeed, Dweck has endorsed a larger conservative narrative, claiming that "the self-esteem movement led parents to think they could hand their children selfesteem on a silver platter by telling them how smart and talented they are." (Of course, most purveyors of that narrative would be just as contemptuous of praising kids for how hard they'd tried, which is what Dweck recommends.) Moreover, as far as I can tell, she has never criticized a fix-the-kid, ignore-the-structure mentality or raised concerns about the "bunch o' facts" traditionalism in schools. Along with many other education critics, I'd argue that the appropriate student response to much of what's assigned isn't "By golly, with enough effort, I can do this!" but "Why the hell should anyone have to do this?" Dweck, like Duckworth, is conspicuously absent from the ranks of those critics. It isn't entirely coincidental that someone who is basically telling us that attitudes matter more than structures, or that persistence is a good in itself, has also bought into a conservative social critique. But why have so many educators who don't share that sensibility endorsed a focus on mindset (or grit) whose premises and implications they'd likely find troubling on reflection? I'm not suggesting we go back to promoting an innate, fixed, "entity" theory of intelligence and talent, which, as Dweck points out, can leave people feeling helpless and inclined to give up. But the real alternative to that isn't a different attitude about oneself; it's a willingness to go beyond individual attitudes, to realize that no mindset is a magic elixir that can dissolve the toxicity of structural arrangements. Until those arrangements have been changed, mindset will get you only so far. And too much focus on mindset discourages us from making such changes. Alfie 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. Prominent Scholar Calls Growth Mindset A “Cancerous” Idea, In Isolation 11/12/2017 02:17 am ET Updated Nov 16, 2017 Adriel Hilton Huffington Post A prominent education scholar who specializes on issues facing Black boys and men in education has questioned the utility of the popular concept of Growth Mindset. Dr. Luke Wood, a distinguished professor of education at San Diego State University and purveyor of the nationally broadcast course Black Minds Matter provided an eviscerating critique of the concept in his most recent public course session. In the session, he argued that the research on growth mindset was “not wrong, but incomplete” when applied to the education of boys and men of color. At issue is the assertion that educators should affirm students’ effort, not their ability. The concept of growth mindset is based on the idea that affirming effort will lead to a greater focus on working hard and resilience and thereby produce greater levels of achievement. This perspective has been widely embraced by the educational community as a strategy for enhancing student learning and development. So, Wood’s comments were not without controversy. Specifically, Carol Dweck (who advanced the concept) has vigorously argued: [W]e can praise wisely, not praising intelligence or talent. That has failed. Don’t do that anymore. But praising the process that kids engage in: their effort, their strategies, their focus, their perseverance, their improvement. This process praise creates kids who are hardy and resilient. – Carol Dweck During the Black Minds Matter broadcast, Wood suggested this viewpoint sets up a false dichotomy between affirmation of effort and ability that ultimately hurts the success of historically underserved students, particularly boys and men of color. He contends that educators should affirm both students’ ability as well as their effort. He stated, “if you are a person who has never been told that you have the ability to do the work, how will you be able to do so? We need to praise their effort and ability. If you come from a community where you have never received messages like that from faculty members and educators, it’s important at some point to be able to hear, you know what? You have the ability to do this. I believe in your ability to do this.” His remarks were reacted to across social media among educators. In a follow-up interview after the course, Wood extended his critique further. He stated, “I appreciate the concept, I really do, but I also believe this myopic perspective perpetuates a cancerous idea that tells students you can succeed as long as you work hard while depriving them from messages that affirm their abilities or recognize the external challenges such as racism and oppression that often inhibit their ability to do so. This point is relevant to all underserved students, but particularly to our Black boys and men who experience school as an intellectual and emotional prison.” Wood further noted that Black boys and men often do not receive messages that affirm their intelligence. He stated, “I have worked with students at all levels of education. And, even among my most esteemed masters and doctoral students, I find they have rarely (if ever) been told they have ability, that they are smart, they are brilliant. In fact, these messages are so foreign to them that they often receive them as disingenuous because they have never been told before that they are worthwhile, remarkable, and capable. This is shameful.” Wood mentioned during the broadcast that his own research with Frank Harris III has demonstrated that validation of ability is among the strongest predictors of success for men of color. In fact, he argues validation (including messages that affirm students’ ability) is among the top three most important practices for Black college men. This is documented in his most recent books, Teaching Men of Color and Supporting Men of Color. In challenging a widely embraced framework, Wood is attempting to show how wellmeaning and well-intentioned White researchers often do harm to students of color by “ignoring contextual factors that create totally different educational experiences and realities for these students.” Wood concluded his interview by stating “we must question, incessantly, the scholarship and frameworks that have been perpetuated as foundational. They are incomplete. While they are well-intentioned they are sordidly incomplete.” ACADEMIC SUMMARY An academic summary answers the three following questions about a text: 1. What is the author’s main idea or argument? 2. How does the author support that main idea or argument? 3. Why did the author write the text? Your summary should be detailed enough so that a person who has not read the text can tell specifically what kind of text it is and what it is about. STEPS: 1. Introduce the text to your reader. Note the title, author, type of text, and what the text is about. Remember that your reader may not be familiar with the text, so be as specific as possible. (1-3 sentences) 2. Describe the author’s main idea or argument. Refer to the author by his/her name. Do not use a direct quote: instead, articulate in your own words what you think the point of the text is. (1-3 sentences) 3. Explain how the author supports the main idea or argument. Keep an eye out for how the author organizes and/or divides up the text (are there sub-headings?). Pay attention to the author’s use of evidence, quotes from experts, examples from history, etc. The author might also use certain language or literary devices to support an argument. (1-3 sentences) 4. Interpret why you think the author wrote the text. What is the context, or background, for this topic? Who is the audience? What does the author intend for the audience to take away from the text? Review your answers above and draft a 1-2 paragraph academic summary. Summary Tips: ● Remember that the goal of your summary is to give a concise, specific overview of a text for someone who has not read that text. ● Use author-focused language; refer to the author’s full name first, and then his/her last name thereafter. ● Explain the what/how/why of the text in your own words (minimal use of quotes). ● Incorporate the key concepts that the author uses or refers to in your summary. For example, if a text is about “code-switching,” use that term in your summary. ● Be specific as possible. If your summary can work for any other text, it is too broad. ● Avoid the blow-by-blow, chronological account of everything that happens in a text. You do not have to move through your points in the same order that they are presented in the text. Sample Academic Summary of Jeff Gammage’s “Wonder in the Air” Jeff Gammage’s short essay titled “Wonder in the Air” is about his experiences raising his adopted daughter, and how he has had to change his ideas about parenting along the way. Gammage argues that sometimes preserving a child’s innocence is more important than always being truthful with a child. He supports this argument by explaining the shift he made as a father: when he first adopted his daughter, he and his wife swore they would tell her no lies. But as he was raising her, the myth of Santa Claus during the holidays became a conundrum. He realized that telling his daughter the truth about Santa Claus (that he doesn’t exist) would be more hurtful to her than keeping up with the widespread cultural lie. Gammage uses his experience to reflect on how truth is not always the best policy with a child, and how a child’s sense of wonder about the world is a special thing in itself. Gammage wrote this essay to share a personal experience that illuminates his insights about parenting, children, and the complexities in the world in which we live. Sample Academic Summary of Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” “Girl,” a prose poem written by Jamaica Kincaid in 1983, explores the expectations and responsibilities faced by young women in Antigua. The poem is written as series of commands that an unnamed mother issues an anonymous adolescent girl; the directives that make up the poem instruct the girl in how to properly cook food, clean a house, care for a man, and generally be a respectable woman in that society. Kincaid uses repetition with phrases like “this is how to,” and diction that refers to culturally specific norms, like meals, songs, and common superstitions. Kincaid uses these devices to make her point that women’s roles in this society are circumscribed and heavily dependent on other people’s expectations and judgements, especially those of men. Kincaid both critiques and celebrates the mother’s role in preparing the girl for these expectations. While Kincaid presents the mother as unrelentingly authoritarian, she also implies that this mother is invested helping the girl carve out an independent and happy life. Through the poem, Kincaid suggests that the passing down of gender roles is a complex cultural inheritance in Antigua, one of survival and love. Sample Academic Summary of Sherman Alexie’s “Indian Education” Sherman Alexie’s short story, “Indian Education,” tells the story of Victor Polatkin (Junior), a Native American kid growing up in poverty on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Through the fictional story, Alexie argues that while schools are supposed to be places of opportunity and growth, they often subject poor, minority students to harsh situations of racism and inequality. Alexie writes of teachers who judge and punish Victor: the teacher who demanded he cut his braids, the teacher who forced him to eat paper after he aced a test, the teacher who accused him of being drunk when he was actually suffering from the effects of diabetes. In one key scene, Victor imagines becoming a doctor and saving people in an emergency room, which a sad reminder of how he’s unable to help himself or his struggling parents in his day-to-day life on the reservation. Ultimately, Alexie wrote this story to critique the how the institutions of education betray students and are complicit in maintaining racism and inequality. Summary Support Worksheet Use this worksheet to help with writing a summary for almost any text! An academic summary answers the three following questions about a text: 1. What is the author’s argument or main point? 2. How does the author support that argument or main point? 3. Why did the author write the text? Your summary should be detailed enough so that a person who has not read the text can tell specifically what it is about and what kind of text it is. Here are some sentence starters to help you: __________________________ (title of text), by ____________________________ (author’s full name) is about ___________________________________________________. (Fill in some context or an overview of what the text is about. Be sure to note what kind of text it is.) In this story/article, __________________________ (author’s last name) argues that ____________________________________________________________________________ ______(fill in author’s main point (or the what) in the text, in your own words. If the author makes a lot of points, focus on the point that seems most important overall). _____________________ (author’s last name) supports this point by ____________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ (discuss how the author supports his or her main points--this could include how the author tells the story, expert opinions or facts the author includes, or any sub-points that the author makes). _______________________________ (author’s last name) wrote this text to ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________ (include why you think the author wrote the text).
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