Beyond a Growth Mindset

Growth mindset is a topic that started to introduce its way into my education when I was in 8th grade. Before hearing about it, my school was more set into what qualities a student inherently possesses, albeit not directly. For example, in elementary school, the honors program was called the "Gifted and Talented Program." The more problematic part of this name is "gifted." The use of the word "gifted" in a learning context became problematic in my early life when I wanted to learn to play the piano. My mother played the piano and agreed to teach me, but I quickly gave up. I struggled reading the music and in moving my hands to the different notes. I took my difficulty to mean that I just wasn't good at playing the piano. While I knew that my piano skills would improve with practice, the thought of naturally talented musicians my age made me feel dejected. I believed that I would never be as good as them, and I may as well give up. The piano practice could have become a fun bonding time between my mother, but instead it a competition that left me bitter.

This negative attitude repeated for multiple activities over the years. I gave up on otherwise fun activities because I believed I wasn't good at them, and I liked the activities I did well in because I did well in them. My self-esteem wasn't majorly affected until school became more difficult.

I always had more trouble in my English Language Arts class than the others. However, once I hit middle school, the struggle became noticeable when Bs and Cs came back in my progress card. I was devastated; I believed that a lower grade meant I was too stupid for a higher one. My stress levels went up, and my performance in my other classes also fell.
I panicked, and I began to study like crazy. I criticized and punished myself when I didn't improve the way I wanted too.

I remember feeling stupid until my 8th-grade English class.

By this point in time, my school presented movies in class revolving around a growth mindset. My 8th-grade English teacher wanted to incorporate growth mindset into the curriculum. She created a learning process which, while it still graded on an A to F scale, put more weight towards the end of the process, and allowed for extra credit that allowed you to get an A because you worked hard and showed analysis in additional assignments. My teacher explained that learning was a process, and her class allowed me to feel that I could learn how to analyze texts.
Once I hit high school, the struggle in English returned. I reread the passages I was supposed to analyze multiple times, but no deeper meaning came to me. I studied hard for English but didn't have any rising grades to show for it. My mother, who was an English major in university, noticed my increasing anxiety. She talked me through the questions I had about the texts and asked me questions about what I thought the test message was. As it turns out, when I slow down my thought process and speak my thoughts out loud or collaborate with someone else, English becomes much easier for me. I just hadn't studied the right way for me.

I believe that a growth mindset is a valuable learning lifestyle that allows people to become more comfortable with challenges. However, I think we can go further with it.

One critique I have is with Carol Dweck's words from her TED Talk, "The Power of Believing that You Can Improve." She said, "Before effort and difficulty made [the students] feel dumb, made them feel like giving up, but now, effort and difficulty, that's when their neurons are making new connections, stronger connections. That's when they're getting smarter."

While it is true that learning is a challenging process, I feel that Dr. Dweck puts too much correlation between effort and difficulty with the amount of knowledge gained.

Different learning strategies better suit different people. One person may be a more visual, quiet learner while another person learns best through collaboration and story-telling.

One person may struggle to understand a math concept by an hour no matter how much they reread the theory on a textbook page, but the instant they liken variables to people they know, they quickly understand and can even teach the concept.

By likening the amount of learning to the amount of effort, students will persevere though difficulty, even when they can learn more effectively bu using other strategies.
In cases where students study for hours but don't improve their grade, such as my earlier English class example, self-esteem problems and lower achievement goals are still present.

The old "Gifted" term to mean "If I struggle, I'm too stupid to do it." turns into "No matter how hard I try, I will never be good enough."

My time at OU has made this transformation more apparent when I see students who haven't learned their study tricks. One distressed classmate mentioned how they barely passed a midterm, despite the long hours of studying they put in. They said they might want to switch majors, discouraged by the lacking results that didn't reflect their dedication to doing well at OU.

Growth mindset is useful in not taking difficulty as a failure, but we should focus more on learning effectively. Study smart, not study hard is rising in many of my courses. This semester, one of my classes doesn't even require any particular textbook. Instead, they provide links to multiple resources, from online books to KhanAcademy. The reason that as upperclassmen in university, we should know how to best learn.

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