Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Against the growth mindset

No, you're right. 40s is usually considered severe, though, as you say, the precision of the assessments becomes rather loose in that range. It's not that all of them can learn to read, it's that not all of them can't learn to read, if you know what I mean. Also, if you were meeting them earlier in their school experience, they would have been expected to be even earlier in their literacy development. I'm thinking more of IQ 40-50 late adolescents, who have acquired roughly second- or third-grade reading skills, and some 50s late adolescents with grade level decoding skills.

Good point. Interestingly, you can also drastically reduce a child's IQ by having them spend their first few years in a crib most of the time with a rotating staff of temporary caregivers. And then raise it again if they get adopted into a good home, though you can't necessarily reverse the damage completely. Research on institutionalized and post-institutionalized children is probably the best evidence in support of the idea that IQ is malleable. However, what some people overlook is that this research suggests a critical age period, after which IQ stops being so malleable. A kid with a normal potential who has spent the first 5 years in a severely depriving institutional setting will probably remain in the cognitively impaired range even after adoption. If he'd been adopted after 1 year, he'd have turned out a lot better.



Yeah. I have a motor coordination impairment due to autism. If I work really hard in karate, I'll get more coordinated than I am now. But will I ever stop being clumsy? I doubt it.



Interestingly, I've read some research suggesting that Down Syndrome kids (whose average IQ is about 50) have a specific advantage in learning sight word reading. They can often be taught to read as young as preschool age, and learning to read generally improves their speech skills. Which we wouldn't have figured out if someone hadn't decided to try to teach a cognitively disabled 3 year old something most kids learn at age 6.

But isn't sending your child to a "gifted private school" a statement that "you are very smart, so much so that you need an education different from what average children get"? It is a statement backed by tens of thousands of dollars of tuition money.

I don't often directly tell my oldest that he is very smart. But when I had him take the SAT before age 9, one reason was to give him some data on how smart he is. When I tell him he should try to become a competitive candidate for admission to the most selective colleges, that is another way telling him he is very smart.

This blog post on a recent paper co-authored by Carol Dweck, Mindset Interventions Are A Scalable Treatment For Academic Underachievement , confirms my view that she is intellectually dishonest.

GROWTH MINDSET 3: A POX ON GROWTH YOUR HOUSES
by Scott Alexander
April 22, 2015

Some may say that determining whether growth mindset raises grades is an apples-and-oranges application. To the degree that a growth mindset encourages embracing challenge and appropriate risk taking, it might actually lower GPA for students moving from comfortably easy material to studying at their challenge level or zone of proximal development.

This statement may express the views of critics of gifted education.

By contrast, a statement which proponents of gifted education may make might be: "You are ready to take on a challenge, and unfortunately may lose that ability/readiness if you do not have the opportunity to embrace struggle and striving." Note this has no comparison to others, but rather is a statement about one's own developmental needs, and the ways in which the needs may match the available opportunity, and the potential negative consequences if one does not avail themselves of the challenging opportunity.

Some may see this as a statement that a particular program of interest at any of these colleges may provide a challenge worthy of his potential, the proverbial antelope for him to chase.

It certainly is not. My child is not eligible even for public K. The public system does not want us, not the other way around. We have 2 working parents, so we do require some kind of private school or child care. I'm very glad we have found one that seems to work well.

I still like Dweck. She has given me a language and toolkit that works for me in my life. And no outpouring of opprobrium will convince me otherwise.

I totally agree with this.

The issue isn't whether your child knows they are smart, but whether being smart is what they are praised for. It is when a child realizes that they are valued for being smart that they develop the need to maintain that appearance at all costs--even at the cost of actually learning or growing. It's when being smart becomes your identity and source of self-esteem that the label becomes a source of anxiety and challenge becomes something to avoid.

Well said.