Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Against the growth mindset

That's a fair point I think. It also brings us to another part of Dweck-ism which is not comparing oneself to others - instead compare your own current performance with your own past performance. With that in place it really is all about effort and work (since the LD kid will only be compared to where she was yesterday, or last week, or last year).

Yes, I can see how that would be beneficial. I have actually seen an example of that at my son's school. Each month they take a reading achievement test and are then given their results to plot on a graph in their folder. They are told not to share their results with others.

It was only partly effective in my son's case though as he noticed that one of his classmates had to add to his graph because it only goes up to 300 and he scored higher than that. My son's last score was a 297 and he told me that he wants to go over 300 so he can add to his graph too. Some kids are naturally competitive and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I do think it's good for that to not be the primary focus though.

IQ alone can't solve calculus problems.

This is my favorite Carol Dweck quote which I think most folks here would agree with:

"So what should we say when children complete a task—say, math problems—quickly and perfectly? Should we deny them the praise they have earned? Yes. When this happens, I say, “Whoops. I guess that was too easy. I apologize for wasting your time. Let’s do something you can really learn from!”

No here has said that it can. But the same is true of lack of IQ alone, except that 10,000 hours of practice still won't get some people through trigonometric substitution.

Talent matters, and people who try to wish that fact away by dismissing it in favor of lies about invariant outcomes of hard work are spoonfeeding a cruel lie to children. And these same people bleat that they're "giving everyone a chance," and that anyone who disagrees is obviously biased.

So we end up pushing students into courses they're not ready for or capable of, and we find ways to give them extra credit to compensate for low test scores. That way, everyone can get a good grade in geometry by "working hard." And we produce thousands of kids every year who graduate from high school with honors and promptly fail the math and English placement tests before they start their first semester of college.

Here's why I'm skeptical about Carol Dweck:


I would be grateful if someone could name even one mathematician who sat down after lunch one day, created and wrote up a major discovery by tea time, and then went off to the back-patting machine for some well-earned praise.

The thing is, when you have to make a point by lying, you really never had a point to make to begin with.

Bostonian is implying it with a rejection of the notion of the growth mindset and the identification of IQ as a fixed thing. So, IQ alone won't solve calculus... you still have to grow your math skills, regardless of your innate abilities.


Indeed. Ability matters. Effort matters. If we're going to turn this into a binary proposition, then there should be an AND gate in there, in order for the output to be GREATNESS (however you choose to define that). And we'd have to add other inputs: environment, opportunity, and health, for starters.


Well, if we look at the five inputs I've proposed up above, it's not terribly difficult to imagine that a person of above average ability, given great health, environment, opportunities, and effort will manage to do great things. And hey, look around, and you find that it's people who fit that exact profile who have all the power and wealth. So they're clearly on to something.

And in fact, "above average ability" would be something to aspire to for some of our national leaders.

As an aside there is a guy ( www.thedanplan.com ) who is trying the 10,000 hour thing in an effort to become a pro golfer - he is a bit more than halfway through the 10,000 hours and has improved a lot.

Man, NOW I really know what I want for my next big birthday present.

ITA, by the way-- when closely examined, most of the pop mythology about the great discoverers and innovators of Western Civilization comes up as about as close to obejective reality as, say, creation myths from primitive/tribal religious beliefs. It's just turtles, all the way down.

It actually took Newton a bit of effort to come up with just the very rudiments of thinking necessary to THINK about using calculus to solve simple puzzles of classical mechanics and motion. DD was certainly miffed to learn this after having believed (and been told) otherwise for many years.

Myself, I think that she was just disappointed to learn how much bloody hard WORK it all is, even if you're Newton. LOL.

How? Reading a calculus book will teach you that d/dx x^n = n*x^(n-1), which will help you solve calculus problems, but it won't raise your IQ. Thinking that IQ is fixed (or at least, very difficult to raise) does not mean you should not study.