Having read about growth mindset, I admit off the bat that I have some skepticism to it. While the idea behind it is good and has potential, execution is another matter. It seems to be that it is very much toted as a “fix” to the current educational system in place that focuses on grades and state testing. But it’s ironically also feeding to the idea of “participation is all that’s important” that those of my generation had growing up. Who else remembers receiving “participation trophies” for playing on a pee-wee soccer league or in t-ball? Adults nowadays complain that a generation of “demanders” has been raised that demands praise for simply giving effort. But my generation never asked for those trophies: our parents did, the same generation that now complains. Children know when adults are patronizing them; this just seems to take it at an educational level.
Similarly, A. Kohn has a similar point. The studies that he listed point out the same thing that I just mentioned: kids are aware of the difference between praise for effort and praise for intelligence. Receiving lots of the former comes off as condescending and can lead to kids not trying as hard in the future.
This leads to me recalling something my high school psychology teacher talked about a lot: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and how both are developed in the school system. Intrinsic motivation is the desire to do any activity simply for the pleasure of doing it (examples: running or reading, or of course, studying and learning). In these cases, there is an internal drive to do something. Extrinsic motivation refers to behaviors that are done for a reward, such as money, grades, and praise. I can’t recall if my teacher talked about the growth mindset in a presentation he gave to the rest of the staff, but it does fit in with his presentation. But this internal drive later can’t exactly be built in later on in life, and extrinsic motivation is not necessarily a bad thing. There are things in my life that I do only for extrinsic motivation (such as doing homework for certain classes), and humans do this to themselves throughout their life (an example would be telling yourself, “I can have this cookie since I just worked out” or “if I do this difficult thing I’ll reward myself by buying a game”).
Kohn also made an interesting point about how growth mindset is not enough against cultural, political, and economic barricades. It’s in the same category as the American Dream: the idea that if you work hard enough, you too can have everything you want in terms of wealth, job security, and a personal life. While this is a pretty image, in reality in today’s political and economic climate it can be incredibly hard to achieve. For every success story, there is three, ten, or a hundred failure stories.
The concept of the growth mindset is a good one. And seems to have produced several life mottos and motivating sentences that are easy to pin, tweet, or post to a blog. But this is also not enough. Many of these phrases are quoted to aneurotypical people who struggle with depression, anxiety, or other issues. Growth mindset along can’t be used to change children’s view of school, someone’s motivation, or someone’s mental health. Other things must be used too. To me, it seems that growth mindset is but one tool that should be used.
That said, some of those motivational quotes can be pretty funny:
Cha cha real smooth now. Source: Tes Teach
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