Why is it so hard for people to talk and learn about equity, diversity, and inclusion? In this post I argue that part of the answer is that many people have a fixed mindset when it comes to learning about these things.
Carol Dweck’s work on fixed and growth mindset helps to explain why people react differently to challenging situations. In broad strokes, people with a growth mindset believe that ability (as it relates to that situation) can be developed, even when one fails to overcome that challenging situation; people with a fixed mindset approach the same challenging situation with doubt about their ability to overcome the situation despite hard work and they withdraw from the situation to avoid failing.
Mindset changes over time. And, mindset can vary by domain of knowledge–in other words, my self-concept as a learner of mathematics is high and I have a growth mindset about learning mathematics but my self-concept as an athlete is low and I have a fixed mindset about learning sports. (Side-note: it is important to remember that growth mindset is not a silver bullet–most school-based interventions involving growth mindset have been shown to yield modest effects–and that growth mindset doesn’t make up for inequities in educational opportunities in our society.)
All of us need to learn more about equity, diversity, and inclusion, especially those of us who are teachers. We need to learn about the difference between race and ethnicity, sex and gender identity. We need to learn about our own implicit biases. We need to learn about racism, sexism, ableism, and all other forms of discrimination and bias, at the personal, institutional, and societal levels.
Learning about equity, diversity, and inclusion can be scary, especially for progressive, liberal-minded folks who want to believe that we are fair and good. The thought of being labeled as a racist, sexist, *-ist person can be frightening. However, the truth is that we all carry unconscious biases that cause us to exhibit prejudice despite our best intentions. Instead of thinking of being racist as a binary state, I posit that it is more meaningful and accurate to think of ourselves as being on a journey toward ever more equitable, inclusive, and caring words and actions. We’ll never fully get there, but we still work toward that goal.
There are interesting parallels between ways that people think about learning mathematics and ways that people think about equity, diversity, and inclusion. These parallels have to do with the beliefs that people have about their abilities and the ways that they approach challenging situations. Being racist is not an innate character trait in the same way that having the ability to learn math is not a product of one’s genes.
Growth Mindset:
1. “I can learn math with effort and persistence.”
2. “I can learn more about these things with effort and persistence.”
3. “I will try to learn what is needed for me to attempt this and if I mess up I will learn from that experience.”
4. “I will try to learn what is needed for me to attempt this and if I mess up I will learn from that experience.”
Fixed Mindset:
1. “I’m not good at math. My sister has the math brain in the family.” (implying that there is some sort of “math gene” that they lack and that math skill is a binary trait)
2. “I’m a good person. I’m not racist.” (denying the existence of implicit bias, and implying that being racist is a binary trait)
3. “I don’t want to attempt this mathematical task because I’m likely to fail and I don’t want to be seen as dumb.”
4. “I can’t raise any controversial topics in my class because I might say the wrong thing and I don’t want to be seen as racist.”
I draw these parallels because I suspect that appealing to growth mindset might help some educators be more willing to talk about equity, diversity, and inclusion. Many educators are already familiar with the idea of a growth mindset and actively think about how to use it in their own teaching, so they might be able to see how it also applies to learning about equity, diversity, and inclusion. Most educators I know are trying to do the right thing and aren’t overtly racist and sexist. And yet, we still need to work harder to help more folks see equity, diversity, and inclusion as central to their work.
But a growth mindset approach is not enough. For folks who train others on topics relating to equity, diversity, and inclusion, it is important to set a tone of compassion and humility. Shame and guilt often cause people to withdraw from the conversation and put up defenses.
It doesn’t help that we seem to live in an age when people’s mistakes can be captured on video and shared around the world instantly. Call-out culture makes people nervous about saying or doing the wrong thing. And, our human nature is to want to discredit a person or organization entirely once we’ve found some flaw in them/it. The pressure to be perfect is so great–I understand why some faculty want to just sit on the sidelines and avoid saying anything that could be used against them.
We desperately need to transform classrooms and schools into spaces in which instructors and students can be brave with each other and at the same time offer grace to each other when mistakes occur. Part of the solution is to establish classroom norms that foster these things. (See previous post about some possible norms to use.) Part of the solution might also be to use the growth/fixed mindset framework to help debunk myths about ourselves. I invite you to share other things that could also help in the comment section below.
The Problem With Having a 'Growth Mindset'
In September, 2015, Carol Dweck published a very informative commentary for Education Week, which dug deeper into her meaning behind having a growth mindset. In her revisit, which you can read in its entirety here, Dweck explains the meaning behind the heavily researched philosophy when she writes,
But are they really?
Based on the research of John Hattie, someone I work with as a Visible Learning trainer, the growth mindset only has an effect size of .19, which is well below the hinge point of .40. The hinge point means that the influence on learning being used is providing a year's worth of growth for a year's input (in the future, Hattie will further explore and explain the meta-analysis that he used to find the effect size).
Using Hattie's research, I wrote Why A Growth Mindset Won't Work (July, 2015). It seemed to go viral and strike a nerve with readers, so much so that I was finishing a publication for the Post Primary Teacher's Association (PPTA) in New Zealand, and the editor said the blog was hitting all of their teacher sites. That speaks to the power of Dweck's work.
Unfortunately, as important as Dweck's research is, it is at risk of following in a long line of other important research, like Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence, which you can read about here (Gardner) and here (DeWitt), that seems to be misused by schools. As you can read in the growth mindset and learning styles blogs that I wrote, you will see I was guilty of some of these issues.
Growth Mindset & Effort
Dweck explains that one of the issues is how schools approach the idea of effort. Dweck writes,
Dweck goes on to write,
In an effort to reach these struggling learners, they are sent out of the classroom and placed in resource classrooms like Academic Intervention Services (AIS). Resource teachers acquire large caseloads of students, but as new students enter in, other students are not let out. This is not to say that those programs won't help students, because they do, but the caseloads may not have to be as large as they are.
Further compounded in the inability to get out of the program is that it is often blamed on the student's lack of effort or the parents' failure to support the child at home. Students are told to have the growth mindset and they will succeed. In the recently released Know Thy Impact: Visible Learning in Theory and Practice (download for free here), Hattie writes,
In the End
If we truly want to teach the growth mindset it means that we have to dig a little deeper into the practices that we already have in school. The growth mindset is not just about the student "trying harder" but it's also about our teaching practices, and whether we change them to meet the needs of the students, or expect students to change in order to meet the needs of the teacher.
Having a growth mindset isn't about grabbing the low-hanging fruit and saying we are doing it, when we still refer an enormous number of students to special services when they may not need them. It's about teaching students how to use meta-cognitive strategies which Hattie has shown to have an effect size of .69, and providing feedback, which has an effect size of .73. This is hard to do because of so many pressures facing the teacher and school principal.
The problem with the growth mindset, and why it's sometimes a low-hanging fruit, is that school leaders and teachers do a book study on it, but their practices really don't change as much as their monologue does. Talking about a growth mindset is easy, but having one is harder than we may think. We are all guilty of having a fixed mindset at the same time we are touting that we should have a growth one.
Watch for a fixed-mindset reaction when you face challenges. Do you feel overly anxious, or does a voice in your head warn you away? Watch for it when you face a setback in your teaching, or when students aren’t listening or learning. Do you feel incompetent or defeated? Do you look for an excuse? Watch to see whether criticism brings out your fixed mindset. Do you become defensive, angry, or crushed instead of interested in learning from the feedback? Watch what happens when you see an educator who’s better than you at something you value. Do you feel envious and threatened, or do you feel eager to learn? Accept those thoughts and feelings and work with and through them. And keep working with and through them.
My colleagues and I are taking a growth-mindset stance toward our message to educators. Maybe we originally put too much emphasis on sheer effort. Maybe we made the development of a growth mindset sound too easy. Maybe we talked too much about people having one mindset or the other, rather than portraying people as mixtures. We are on a growth-mindset journey, too.
“The growth mindset was intended to help close achievement gaps, not hide them.”
Carol Dweck’s work on fixed and growth mindset helps to explain why people react differently to challenging situations. In broad strokes, people with a growth mindset believe that ability (as it relates to that situation) can be developed, even when one fails to overcome that challenging situation; people with a fixed mindset approach the same challenging situation with doubt about their ability to overcome the situation despite hard work and they withdraw from the situation to avoid failing.
Mindset changes over time. And, mindset can vary by domain of knowledge–in other words, my self-concept as a learner of mathematics is high and I have a growth mindset about learning mathematics but my self-concept as an athlete is low and I have a fixed mindset about learning sports. (Side-note: it is important to remember that growth mindset is not a silver bullet–most school-based interventions involving growth mindset have been shown to yield modest effects–and that growth mindset doesn’t make up for inequities in educational opportunities in our society.)
All of us need to learn more about equity, diversity, and inclusion, especially those of us who are teachers. We need to learn about the difference between race and ethnicity, sex and gender identity. We need to learn about our own implicit biases. We need to learn about racism, sexism, ableism, and all other forms of discrimination and bias, at the personal, institutional, and societal levels.
Learning about equity, diversity, and inclusion can be scary, especially for progressive, liberal-minded folks who want to believe that we are fair and good. The thought of being labeled as a racist, sexist, *-ist person can be frightening. However, the truth is that we all carry unconscious biases that cause us to exhibit prejudice despite our best intentions. Instead of thinking of being racist as a binary state, I posit that it is more meaningful and accurate to think of ourselves as being on a journey toward ever more equitable, inclusive, and caring words and actions. We’ll never fully get there, but we still work toward that goal.
There are interesting parallels between ways that people think about learning mathematics and ways that people think about equity, diversity, and inclusion. These parallels have to do with the beliefs that people have about their abilities and the ways that they approach challenging situations. Being racist is not an innate character trait in the same way that having the ability to learn math is not a product of one’s genes.
| Fixed Mindset | Growth Mindset | |
| Learning math | “I’m not good at math. My sister has the math brain in the family.” (implying that there is some sort of “math gene” that they lack and that math skill is a binary trait) | “I can learn math with effort and persistence.” |
| Learning about equity, diversity, and inclusion | “I’m a good person. I’m not racist.” (denying the existence of implicit bias, and implying that being racist is a binary trait) | “I can learn more about these things with effort and persistence.” |
| Learning math | “I don’t want to attempt this mathematical task because I’m likely to fail and I don’t want to be seen as dumb.” | “I will try to learn what is needed for me to attempt this and if I mess up I will learn from that experience.” |
| Learning about equity, diversity, and inclusion | “I can’t raise any controversial topics in my class because I might say the wrong thing and I don’t want to be seen as racist.” | “I will try to learn what is needed for me to attempt this and if I mess up I will learn from that experience.” |
Growth Mindset:
1. “I can learn math with effort and persistence.”
2. “I can learn more about these things with effort and persistence.”
3. “I will try to learn what is needed for me to attempt this and if I mess up I will learn from that experience.”
4. “I will try to learn what is needed for me to attempt this and if I mess up I will learn from that experience.”
Fixed Mindset:
1. “I’m not good at math. My sister has the math brain in the family.” (implying that there is some sort of “math gene” that they lack and that math skill is a binary trait)
2. “I’m a good person. I’m not racist.” (denying the existence of implicit bias, and implying that being racist is a binary trait)
3. “I don’t want to attempt this mathematical task because I’m likely to fail and I don’t want to be seen as dumb.”
4. “I can’t raise any controversial topics in my class because I might say the wrong thing and I don’t want to be seen as racist.”
I draw these parallels because I suspect that appealing to growth mindset might help some educators be more willing to talk about equity, diversity, and inclusion. Many educators are already familiar with the idea of a growth mindset and actively think about how to use it in their own teaching, so they might be able to see how it also applies to learning about equity, diversity, and inclusion. Most educators I know are trying to do the right thing and aren’t overtly racist and sexist. And yet, we still need to work harder to help more folks see equity, diversity, and inclusion as central to their work.
But a growth mindset approach is not enough. For folks who train others on topics relating to equity, diversity, and inclusion, it is important to set a tone of compassion and humility. Shame and guilt often cause people to withdraw from the conversation and put up defenses.
It doesn’t help that we seem to live in an age when people’s mistakes can be captured on video and shared around the world instantly. Call-out culture makes people nervous about saying or doing the wrong thing. And, our human nature is to want to discredit a person or organization entirely once we’ve found some flaw in them/it. The pressure to be perfect is so great–I understand why some faculty want to just sit on the sidelines and avoid saying anything that could be used against them.
We desperately need to transform classrooms and schools into spaces in which instructors and students can be brave with each other and at the same time offer grace to each other when mistakes occur. Part of the solution is to establish classroom norms that foster these things. (See previous post about some possible norms to use.) Part of the solution might also be to use the growth/fixed mindset framework to help debunk myths about ourselves. I invite you to share other things that could also help in the comment section below.
The Problem With Having a 'Growth Mindset'
In September, 2015, Carol Dweck published a very informative commentary for Education Week, which dug deeper into her meaning behind having a growth mindset. In her revisit, which you can read in its entirety here, Dweck explains the meaning behind the heavily researched philosophy when she writes,
"We found that students' mindsets--how they perceive their abilities--played a key role in their motivation and achievement, and we found that if we changed students' mindsets, we could boost their achievement. More precisely, students who believed their intelligence could be developed (a growth mindset) outperformed those who believed their intelligence was fixed (a fixed mindset)."Over the last few years, thousands of schools around the world have jumped on board with the growth mindset. It seemed to become the low-hanging fruit for schools to easily grab. Going from school to school, posters about effort that focus on "trying harder" and books about the mindset for teachers and students are all around. Some school principals like to start conversations by stating that their schools are "Growth Mindset" schools.
But are they really?
Based on the research of John Hattie, someone I work with as a Visible Learning trainer, the growth mindset only has an effect size of .19, which is well below the hinge point of .40. The hinge point means that the influence on learning being used is providing a year's worth of growth for a year's input (in the future, Hattie will further explore and explain the meta-analysis that he used to find the effect size).
Using Hattie's research, I wrote Why A Growth Mindset Won't Work (July, 2015). It seemed to go viral and strike a nerve with readers, so much so that I was finishing a publication for the Post Primary Teacher's Association (PPTA) in New Zealand, and the editor said the blog was hitting all of their teacher sites. That speaks to the power of Dweck's work.
Unfortunately, as important as Dweck's research is, it is at risk of following in a long line of other important research, like Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence, which you can read about here (Gardner) and here (DeWitt), that seems to be misused by schools. As you can read in the growth mindset and learning styles blogs that I wrote, you will see I was guilty of some of these issues.
Growth Mindset & Effort
Dweck explains that one of the issues is how schools approach the idea of effort. Dweck writes,
"A growth mindset isn't just about effort. Perhaps the most common misconception is simply equating the growth mindset with effort. Certainly, effort is key for students' achievement, but it's not the only thing. Students need to try new strategies and seek input from others when they're stuck. They need this repertoire of approaches--not just sheer effort--to learn and improve."But do we allow the "repertoire of approaches"? In Students Can Learn From Their Mistakes if We Let Them, I wrote that Hattie suggests that "40% to 50% of the time that our students make errors, we correct them. They're never given the opportunity to struggle because we give them the answer before it gets too hard."
Dweck goes on to write,
"It's good that the students tried, but it's not good that they're not learning. The growth-mindset approach helps children feel good in the short and long terms, by helping them thrive on challenges and setbacks on their way to learning. When they're stuck, teachers can appreciate their work so far, but add: 'Let's talk about what you've tried, and what you can try next.'"This idea of "let's talk about what you've tried" is where we break down because of challenges like "time," "pacing," and "curriculum to get through." We often talk about using new strategies more than we teach them, and then the students who struggle are recommended for outside services.
In an effort to reach these struggling learners, they are sent out of the classroom and placed in resource classrooms like Academic Intervention Services (AIS). Resource teachers acquire large caseloads of students, but as new students enter in, other students are not let out. This is not to say that those programs won't help students, because they do, but the caseloads may not have to be as large as they are.
Further compounded in the inability to get out of the program is that it is often blamed on the student's lack of effort or the parents' failure to support the child at home. Students are told to have the growth mindset and they will succeed. In the recently released Know Thy Impact: Visible Learning in Theory and Practice (download for free here), Hattie writes,
"Many years ago, Alessi (1988) reviewed more than 5,000 children referred to school psychologists because they were failing at school. Not one located the problem as due to a poor instructional program, poor school practices, a poor teacher, or something to do with school. The problems were claimed, by the teachers, to be related to the home and located within the student."Dweck supports this by writing, "I also fear that the mindset work is sometimes used to justify why some students aren't learning: 'Oh, he has a fixed mindset.' We used to blame the child's environment or ability."
In the End
If we truly want to teach the growth mindset it means that we have to dig a little deeper into the practices that we already have in school. The growth mindset is not just about the student "trying harder" but it's also about our teaching practices, and whether we change them to meet the needs of the students, or expect students to change in order to meet the needs of the teacher.
Having a growth mindset isn't about grabbing the low-hanging fruit and saying we are doing it, when we still refer an enormous number of students to special services when they may not need them. It's about teaching students how to use meta-cognitive strategies which Hattie has shown to have an effect size of .69, and providing feedback, which has an effect size of .73. This is hard to do because of so many pressures facing the teacher and school principal.
The problem with the growth mindset, and why it's sometimes a low-hanging fruit, is that school leaders and teachers do a book study on it, but their practices really don't change as much as their monologue does. Talking about a growth mindset is easy, but having one is harder than we may think. We are all guilty of having a fixed mindset at the same time we are touting that we should have a growth one.
Carol Dweck Revisits the 'Growth Mindset'
September 22, 2015
For many years, I secretly worked on my research. I say “secretly” because, once upon a time, researchers simply published their research in professional journals—and there it stayed.
However, my colleagues and I learned things we thought people needed to know. We found that students’ mindsets—how they perceive their abilities—played a key role in their motivation and achievement, and we found that if we changed students’ mindsets, we could boost their achievement. More precisely, students who believed their intelligence could be developed (a growth mindset) outperformed those who believed their intelligence was fixed (a fixed mindset). And when students learned through a structured program that they could “grow their brains” and increase their intellectual abilities, they did better. Finally, we found that having children focus on the process that leads to learning (like hard work or trying new strategies) could foster a growth mindset and its benefits.
So a few years back, I published my book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success to share these discoveries with educators. And many educators have applied the mindset principles in spectacular ways with tremendously gratifying results.
This is wonderful, and the good word continues to spread. But as we’ve watched the growth mindset become more popular, we’ve become much wiser about how to implement it. This learning—the common pitfalls, the misunderstandings, and what to do about them—is what I’d like to share with you, so that we can maximize the benefits for our students.
A growth mindset isn’t just about effort. Perhaps the most common misconception is simply equating the growth mindset with effort. Certainly, effort is key for students’ achievement, but it’s not the only thing. Students need to try new strategies and seek input from others when they’re stuck. They need this repertoire of approaches—not just sheer effort—to learn and improve.
We also need to remember that effort is a means to an end to the goal of learning and improving. Too often nowadays, praise is given to students who are putting forth effort, but not learning, in order to make them feel good in the moment: “Great effort! You tried your best!” It’s good that the students tried, but it’s not good that they’re not learning. The growth-mindset approach helps children feel good in the short and long terms, by helping them thrive on challenges and setbacks on their way to learning. When they’re stuck, teachers can appreciate their work so far, but add: “Let’s talk about what you’ve tried, and what you can try next.”
Recently, someone asked what keeps me up at night. It’s the fear that the mindset concepts, which grew up to counter the failed self-esteem movement, will be used to perpetuate that movement. In other words, if you want to make students feel good, even if they’re not learning, just praise their effort! Want to hide learning gaps from them? Just tell them, “Everyone is smart!” The growth mindset was intended to help close achievement gaps, not hide them. It is about telling the truth about a student’s current achievement and then, together, doing something about it, helping him or her become smarter.
I also fear that the mindset work is sometimes used to justify why some students aren’t learning: “Oh, he has a fixed mindset.” We used to blame the child’s environment or ability.
Must it always come back to finding a reason why some children just can’t learn, as opposed to finding a way to help them learn? Teachers who understand the growth mindset do everything in their power to unlock that learning.
A few years ago, my colleague in Australia, Susan Mackie, detected an outbreak of what she called “false growth mindset.” She was seeing educators who claimed to have a growth mindset, but whose words and actions didn’t reflect it. At first, I was skeptical. But before long, I saw it, too, and I understood why.
In many quarters, a growth mindset had become the right thing to have, the right way to think. It was as though educators were faced with a choice: Are you an enlightened person who fosters students’ well-being? Or are you an unenlightened person, with a fixed mindset, who undermines them? So, of course, many claimed the growth-mindset identity. But the path to a growth mindset is a journey, not a proclamation.
Let’s look at what happens when teachers, or parents, claim a growth mindset, but don’t follow through. In recent research, Kathy Liu Sun found that there were many math teachers who endorsed a growth mindset and even said the words “growth mindset” in their middle school math classes, but did not follow through in their classroom practices. In these cases, their students tended to endorse more of a fixed mindset about their math ability. My advisee and research collaborator Kyla Haimovitz and I are finding many parents who endorse a growth mindset, but react to their children’s mistakes as though they are problematic or harmful, rather than helpful. In these cases, their children develop more of a fixed mindset about their intelligence.
How can we help educators adopt a deeper, true growth mindset, one that will show in their classroom practices? You may be surprised by my answer: Let’s legitimize the fixed mindset. Let’s acknowledge that (1) we’re all a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets, (2) we will probably always be, and (3) if we want to move closer to a growth mindset in our thoughts and practices, we need to stay in touch with our fixed-mindset thoughts and deeds.
If we “ban” the fixed mindset, we will surely create false growth-mindsets. (By the way, I also fear that if we use mindset measures for accountability, we will create false growth mindsets on an unprecedented scale.) But if we watch carefully for our fixed-mindset triggers, we can begin the true journey to a growth mindset.
What are your triggers?
However, my colleagues and I learned things we thought people needed to know. We found that students’ mindsets—how they perceive their abilities—played a key role in their motivation and achievement, and we found that if we changed students’ mindsets, we could boost their achievement. More precisely, students who believed their intelligence could be developed (a growth mindset) outperformed those who believed their intelligence was fixed (a fixed mindset). And when students learned through a structured program that they could “grow their brains” and increase their intellectual abilities, they did better. Finally, we found that having children focus on the process that leads to learning (like hard work or trying new strategies) could foster a growth mindset and its benefits.
So a few years back, I published my book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success to share these discoveries with educators. And many educators have applied the mindset principles in spectacular ways with tremendously gratifying results.
This is wonderful, and the good word continues to spread. But as we’ve watched the growth mindset become more popular, we’ve become much wiser about how to implement it. This learning—the common pitfalls, the misunderstandings, and what to do about them—is what I’d like to share with you, so that we can maximize the benefits for our students.
A growth mindset isn’t just about effort. Perhaps the most common misconception is simply equating the growth mindset with effort. Certainly, effort is key for students’ achievement, but it’s not the only thing. Students need to try new strategies and seek input from others when they’re stuck. They need this repertoire of approaches—not just sheer effort—to learn and improve.
We also need to remember that effort is a means to an end to the goal of learning and improving. Too often nowadays, praise is given to students who are putting forth effort, but not learning, in order to make them feel good in the moment: “Great effort! You tried your best!” It’s good that the students tried, but it’s not good that they’re not learning. The growth-mindset approach helps children feel good in the short and long terms, by helping them thrive on challenges and setbacks on their way to learning. When they’re stuck, teachers can appreciate their work so far, but add: “Let’s talk about what you’ve tried, and what you can try next.”
Recently, someone asked what keeps me up at night. It’s the fear that the mindset concepts, which grew up to counter the failed self-esteem movement, will be used to perpetuate that movement. In other words, if you want to make students feel good, even if they’re not learning, just praise their effort! Want to hide learning gaps from them? Just tell them, “Everyone is smart!” The growth mindset was intended to help close achievement gaps, not hide them. It is about telling the truth about a student’s current achievement and then, together, doing something about it, helping him or her become smarter.
I also fear that the mindset work is sometimes used to justify why some students aren’t learning: “Oh, he has a fixed mindset.” We used to blame the child’s environment or ability.
Must it always come back to finding a reason why some children just can’t learn, as opposed to finding a way to help them learn? Teachers who understand the growth mindset do everything in their power to unlock that learning.
A few years ago, my colleague in Australia, Susan Mackie, detected an outbreak of what she called “false growth mindset.” She was seeing educators who claimed to have a growth mindset, but whose words and actions didn’t reflect it. At first, I was skeptical. But before long, I saw it, too, and I understood why.
In many quarters, a growth mindset had become the right thing to have, the right way to think. It was as though educators were faced with a choice: Are you an enlightened person who fosters students’ well-being? Or are you an unenlightened person, with a fixed mindset, who undermines them? So, of course, many claimed the growth-mindset identity. But the path to a growth mindset is a journey, not a proclamation.
Let’s look at what happens when teachers, or parents, claim a growth mindset, but don’t follow through. In recent research, Kathy Liu Sun found that there were many math teachers who endorsed a growth mindset and even said the words “growth mindset” in their middle school math classes, but did not follow through in their classroom practices. In these cases, their students tended to endorse more of a fixed mindset about their math ability. My advisee and research collaborator Kyla Haimovitz and I are finding many parents who endorse a growth mindset, but react to their children’s mistakes as though they are problematic or harmful, rather than helpful. In these cases, their children develop more of a fixed mindset about their intelligence.
How can we help educators adopt a deeper, true growth mindset, one that will show in their classroom practices? You may be surprised by my answer: Let’s legitimize the fixed mindset. Let’s acknowledge that (1) we’re all a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets, (2) we will probably always be, and (3) if we want to move closer to a growth mindset in our thoughts and practices, we need to stay in touch with our fixed-mindset thoughts and deeds.
If we “ban” the fixed mindset, we will surely create false growth-mindsets. (By the way, I also fear that if we use mindset measures for accountability, we will create false growth mindsets on an unprecedented scale.) But if we watch carefully for our fixed-mindset triggers, we can begin the true journey to a growth mindset.
What are your triggers?
Watch for a fixed-mindset reaction when you face challenges. Do you feel overly anxious, or does a voice in your head warn you away? Watch for it when you face a setback in your teaching, or when students aren’t listening or learning. Do you feel incompetent or defeated? Do you look for an excuse? Watch to see whether criticism brings out your fixed mindset. Do you become defensive, angry, or crushed instead of interested in learning from the feedback? Watch what happens when you see an educator who’s better than you at something you value. Do you feel envious and threatened, or do you feel eager to learn? Accept those thoughts and feelings and work with and through them. And keep working with and through them.
My colleagues and I are taking a growth-mindset stance toward our message to educators. Maybe we originally put too much emphasis on sheer effort. Maybe we made the development of a growth mindset sound too easy. Maybe we talked too much about people having one mindset or the other, rather than portraying people as mixtures. We are on a growth-mindset journey, too.
“The growth mindset was intended to help close achievement gaps, not hide them.”
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