until a few weeks ago when you discussed the different mindsets in class. Understanding that a lot of my problems were the result of my preoccupation with proving myself to be “smart” and avoiding failures has really helped me get out of the self-destructive pattern I was living in.
Tony’s internal monologue went from:
To:
To:
Of course, these people will have setbacks and disappointments, and sticking to the growth mindset may not always be easy. But just knowing it gave them another way to be. Instead of being held captive by some intimidating fantasy about the Great Writer, the Great Athlete, or the Great Genius, the growth mindset gave them courage to embrace their own goals and dreams. And more important, it gave them a way to work toward making them real.
Adolescence, as we’ve seen, is a time when hordes of kids turn off to school. You can almost hear the stampede as they try to get as far from learning as possible. This is a time when students are facing some of the biggest challenges of their young lives, and a time when they are heavily evaluating themselves, often with a fixed mindset. It is precisely the kids with the fixed mindset who panic and run for cover, showing plummeting motivation and grades.
Over the past few years, we’ve developed a workshop for these students. It teaches them the growth mindset and how to apply it to their schoolwork. Here is part of what they’re told:
Many people think of the brain as a mystery. They don’t know much about intelligence and how it works. When they do think about what intelligence is, many people believe that a person is born either smart, average, or dumb—and stays that way for life. But new research shows that the brain is more like a muscle—it changes and gets stronger when you use it. And scientists have been able to show just how the brain grows and gets stronger when you learn.
When you learn new things, these tiny connections in the brain actually multiply and get stronger. The more that you challenge your mind to learn, the more your brain cells grow. Then, things that you once found very hard or even impossible—like speaking a foreign language or doing algebra—seem to become easy. The result is a stronger, smarter brain.
We go on to point out that nobody laughs at babies and says how dumb they are because they can’t talk. They just haven’t learned yet. We show students pictures of how the density of brain connections changes during the first years of life as babies pay attention, study their world, and learn how to do things.
Over a series of sessions, through activities and discussions, students are taught study skills and shown how to apply the lessons of the growth mindset to their studying and their schoolwork.
Students love learning about the brain, and the discussions are very lively. But even more rewarding are the comments students make about themselves. Let’s revisit Jimmy, the hard-core turned-off student from chapter 3. In our very first workshop, we were amazed to hear him say with tears in his eyes: “You mean I don’t have to be dumb?”
You may think these students are turned off, but I saw that they never stop caring. Nobody gets used to feeling dumb. Our workshop told Jimmy, “You’re in charge of your mind. You can help it grow by using it in the right way.” And as the workshop progressed, here is what Jimmy’s teacher said about him:
Jimmy, who never puts in any extra effort and often doesn’t turn in homework on time, actually stayed up late working for hours to finish an assignment early so I could review it and give him a chance to revise it. He earned a B+ on the assignment (he had been getting C’s and lower).
Incidentally, teachers weren’t just trying to be nice to us by telling us what we wanted to hear. The teachers didn’t
Teachers didn’t know which of their students went to which of the workshops, but they still singled out Jimmy and
Lately I have noticed that some students have a greater appreciation for improvement.… R. was performing below standards.… He has learned to appreciate the improvement from his grades of 52, 46, and 49 to his grades of 67 and 71…. He valued his growth in learning Mathematics.
M. was far below grade level. During the past several weeks, she has voluntarily asked for extra help from me during her lunch period in order to improve her test-taking performance. Her grades drastically improved from failing to an 84 on the most recent exam.
Positive changes inges nd behavior are noticeable in K. and J. They have begun to work hard on a consistent basis.
Several students have voluntarily participated in peer tutoring sessions during their lunch periods or after school. Students such as N. and S. were passing when they requested the extra help and were motivated by the prospect of sheer improvement.
We were eager to see whether the workshop affected students’ grades, so, with their permission, we looked at students’ final marks at the end of the semester. We looked especially at their math grades, since these reflected real learning of challenging new concepts.
Before the workshops, students’ math grades had been suffering badly. But afterward, lo and behold, students who’d been in the growth-mindset workshop showed a jump in their grades. They were now clearly doing better than the students who’d been in the other workshop.
The growth-mindset workshop—just eight sessions long—had a real impact. This one adjustment of students’ beliefs seemed to unleash their brain power and inspire them to work and achieve. Of course, they were in a school where the teachers were responsive to their outpouring of motivation, and were willing to put in the extra work to help them learn. Even so, these findings show the power of changing mindsets.
The students in the other workshop did not improve. Despite their eight sessions of training in study skills and other good things, they showed no gains. Because they were not taught to think differently about their minds, they were not motivated to put the skills into practice.
The mindset workshop put students in charge of their brains. Freed from the vise of the fixed mindset, Jimmy and others like him could now use their minds more freely and fully.
The problem with the workshop was that it required a big staff to deliver it. This wouldn’t be feasible on a large scale. Plus, the teachers weren’t directly involved. They could be a big factor in helping to sustain the students’ gains. So we decided to put our workshop on interactive computer modules and have teachers guide their classes through the modules.
With the advice of educational experts, media experts, and brain experts, we developed the “Brainology”™ program. It presents animated figures, Chris and Dahlia—seventh graders who are cool but are having problems with their schoolwork. Dahlia is having trouble with Spanish, and Chris with math. They visit the lab of Dr. Cerebrus, a slightly mad brain scientist, who teaches them all about the brain and the care and feeding of it. He teaches them what to do for maximum performance from the brain (like sleeping enough, eating the right things, and using good study strategies) and he teaches them how the brain grows as they learn. The program, all along, shows students how Chris and Dahlia apply these lessons to their schoolwork. The interactive portions allow students to do brain experiments, see videos of real students with their problems and study strategies, recommend study plans for Chris and Dahlia, and keep a journal of their own problems and study plans.
Here are some of the seventh graders writing about how this program changed them:
