Clip:
It didn’t take long. The teachers—who hadn’t known which students had been assigned to which workshop—could pick out the students who had been taught that intelligence can be developed. They improved their study habits and grades. In a single semester, Blackwell reversed the students’ longtime trend of decreasing math grades.
The only difference between the control group and the test group were two lessons, a total of 50 minutes spent teaching not math but a single idea: that the brain is a muscle. Giving it a harder workout makes you smarter. That alone improved their math scores.
My reading tells me that we do NOT know how to raise intelligence, except in unusual situations where know of something specific that is depressing intelligence which can be remediated. Studying math won't make kids smarter, but it will make them better at math, at least up to a point. It's not news that academic achievement is a product of ability and effort.
I prefer not to motivate my children by telling them things I don't believe.
