Carol Dweck

Carol Dweck’s research connects with Habits of Mind by emphasizing its core idea. She speaks of how children are always curious, experimenting, learning, and attacking the most difficult tasks with tremendous enthusiasm which are just a few habits of minds. She then goes on to mention how a few years later they seem bored and uninterested in learning new things. This was noted as a fixed mindset that can make students afraid of challenges and set-backs. It causes students to not study deeply, make a front of just looking smart, consider effort a bad thing, and setbacks as negative. These children struggle with the habits of mind. Those with the growth mindset dive into learning, do not mind being wrong, view hard work, practice, and effort as a good and consider setbacks positive. These traits relate to those of the habits of mind such as persistence, thinking flexibly, questioning, and thinking interdependently can be seen in those with a growth mindset. Her video pushed me to thinking of my brain and those of my student’s like a muscle one would exercise to grow rather than an organ. Putting this idea in this perspective has helped me move away from my usual thinking of creating more intricacy in a brain through the building of synapses and other connections that facilitate learning to making my brain stronger through the growth mindset. Her ideas brought to mind the old saying “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”, because you can. You can teach people how to utilize a growth mindset, a thought that is very comforting and brings me hope. Challenges I see in fostering a growing mindset would come into play when dealing with members of the community that are older. Not because they cannot be taught a growth mindset, but because many become complacent once they have reached a certain age. Not only is this an influence, but the fact that they come from a very different time when compared with ours. Older generations had upbringings that might make it difficult for them the relate with the idea that they too can make a positive difference in helping resolve major problems we face today.