for them and are not surprised when they fall short. We teach them with resignation. After all, what can you expect given their backgrounds?
It’s evident that students who perceive that they are seen as “not smart” would find little reason to expend effort in school. There’s often not much in schools to suggest that effort would change one’s academic lot. Such students give up in the face of failure. They may invest enough to get by, but little more. The messages they get from school affirm their detachment from things academic.
Interestingly, however, Dweck’s research explains Matt as well. His status had always come from “being smart”—not from effort. Like many other bright kids, Matt had come to believe that smart was something you were or you weren’t. Smart kids don’t have to study—certainly don’t have to work doggedly. Trying hard is evidence that you aren’t smart. Smart and effort are incompatible, and besides, what’s the point of effort? If you’ve got it, you’ve got it. If you don’t, you don’t.
And Matt’s dilemma wasn’t a middle school slump. Dweck’s work has found the same phenomenon from preschool through college. I see Matt in my university graduate students regularly. They come accustomed to being “the best”—a big fish in a little pond. In the new ocean of scholars, their status is less certain. A few students respond with words or actions that say, “Hey, this is kind of cool. I’m really going to have to work here, but if I do, I can see myself taking a quantum leap forward.” Many more students say, “Just tell me what you want in the paper. I just want to get it right”—or “I don’t think I belong here. I don’t have what it takes.” And in an odd way, they’re right.
They have the ability, of course. What they don’t have is a growth mindset—a sense of the possibilities in them, so long as they fuel their potential with persistent effort and a desire to learn rather than to achieve status.
Why I Wish I’d Known
I still think about Matt, and wish I’d been able to discuss Mindset with him.
discuss Mindset with him. What I really wish, however, is that I had understood how I was a part of the fixed mindset orientation of schools. I wish I’d seen how my practices supported competition for status rather than a hunger to learn. I wish I’d been aware when my teaching supported competition against peers rather than against oneself. I wish I had understood how I had been groomed to value “smart” over “effort”—and even groomed to be at peace with teaching some kids as though they weren’t smart.
I’d like to have been more adept at talking with Matt. But what I really wish is that I had been more adept at teaching for the satisfaction of learning and at celebrating effort and growth rather than rankings and grades.
I don’t know whether I could have changed things enough to help Matt, but I do know I’d have been a different teacher—and a better one.
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Helping Kids Define Success
I wish I’d been aware when my teaching supported competition against peers rather than against oneself.