On the last day of school, our principal joyously passed out copies for all staff of Carol Dweck's Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. It was no secret that we as a school had a tough year and this was the final period at the end of the sentence, "Things have to change next year." We were assigned to read the book over the summer as it would become a focal point of discussion in the academic year ahead.
I happened to already own a copy of the book. I want to say I bought it after an orientation session where the concept of growth mindset was introduced. When people recommend books to me, I am quick to buy them on Amazon and make them a part of my collection. Sometimes they are useful as reference tools, but this particular book, I devoured the book from a personal, self-help approach. I was just beginning to develop my own mind of independence in my early 20's and it truly helped me shape my ideas during this time.
Aspects of relationships and communication spoke volumes to me. The book helped me identify all the things that I was doing wrong in my personal relationships and justify why I felt like things weren't right. The book provided the "aha!" moment to things I was feeling and couldn't express. Suddenly, "fixed-mindset" and "growth-mindset" became a part of my day-to-day language. These concepts were shared with friends and family, and more specifically family that I felt would truly benefit from this new psychology and way of thinking.
Now, as I re-read the book through the lens of an educator and apply it to my upcoming academic year, I am having a different reaction. The chapter on teaching is written in a way that exposes growth-mindset as the only way to think if you are a teacher and the fixed-mindset as the evils that are bringing down society. Yet, in the beginning the self-reflection explains that we can change and just because we are on or the other does not make us wrong or right. Now for those that already have a spirit of growth in the classroom, I think that this book preaches to the choir. It gives anecdotes that you can apply to your classroom and move forward. However, if you are the disciplinary-type who has done things the same way for many years, this book may make you defensive (mostly because of your fix-mindset; see what I did there?).
There passage that led me to write this blog can be found on page 197:
"Teachers with the fixed mindset create an atmosphere of judging. These teachers look at students' beginning performance and decide who's smart and who's dumb. Then they give up on the "dumb" ones. "They're not my responsibility." As a special educator, I know I have heard people say that the special education students are the responsibility of the special educator. I am sure that kids have felt judged in certain environments, but I have a hard time believing that any educator truly gives up. We might feel like we should out of frustration, but most educators I have come across will keep trying. Education is a give and take. I have seen teachers who have a "fixed-mindset" classroom have much success even with the hard-to-reach students. Perhaps this is because the students were also of the fixed-mindset.
The question arises, if there needs to be a culture change in a school, how do you make people change? By reading a book you may become more aware of what is "wrong," but without being given practical ways to change it throughout practice, this book will soon become a dust collector. Awareness is step one, but I truly hope this book is backed with more understanding and self-reflective activities that will make the growth mind-set a part of our culture. There is no way we can teach it to children if we do not believe in what it is saying.
If you are not willing to listen to the message, it may become hard to digest. I wish the book was more wrought with statistical information. Much of the information is anecdotal and/or situational. While the author has notes in the back of her book, much are memoir materials. She briefly discusses the neuroscience behind positivity, but I wish there was more information. Unfortunately, this may be a case of her "dumbing" down reading material for the masses, yet doesn't that go against her own psychology? Especially since she introduces herself as a researcher, it would be nice to have more of the research embedded into the text.
This article gives more more light into Dweck's research and credibility: https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=32124
