Brainology By Carol S. Dweck On English Enrichment Classes

Your mind a powerful thing. The stories you tell yourself and the things you believe about yourself can either prevent change from happening or allow new skills to blossom. Recently, I've been learning more about the link between our beliefs and our behaviors. Dweck is well known for her work on “ the fixed mindset vs the growth mindset”. She describes the difference between these two ideas and how they impact your performance.

Growth mindset and the fixed mindset: The two focal points of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success written by Carol Dweck. Pushing yourself further and further so that you can strengthen your intelligence, versus believing that the knowledge you know and have cannot be brought to a higher level. Even though the book was a difficult read, it really opens the mind to the different views on life, and the many ways that people go about their lives. How the fixed mindset may bring someone to success at first but later in their life lead them to a crisis. Or how the growth mindset may be difficult to grasp and achieve, but it will enact success in the future. The book advises ways to go from having the fixed mindset to the growth mindset, from saying things such as, “Yet those people with the growth mindset were not labeling themselves… Even though

Next, When students fail in school, teachers don’t bother to care nor to help because it was the student's decision to fail, although having parents jump in to the students problems; no matter what they will always support because the parents want the best out of him/her student. Also, parents look out for their child in the education challenges that gets to them. For example, Karther, Diane E. Lowden, Frances Y states,”Despite their own low school achievement, many parents value education, believing it to be a pathway to success for their children”(41). Parents are good reason why student tend to succeed in school after getting in the way of struggling by failing a class. One good reason that students will tend to focus in school and get a good passing grade is getting told by parents at home to do homework if not value electronics gets taken away. Teachers have limited control of students lives, so

I didn’t know it at the time, but I believe because of my experience that set the foundation for the student that I am today. My brother started Kindergarten and my mother would drop me off at the babysitter so she could go to school. My first “academic memory” is remembering my mother sitting at the table saying she had homework, my brother not wanting to be bothered because he had homework. So when my mom didn’t have school and my brother had school together WE did homework. That became our time together, she didn’t send me to school, she created school at the kitchen table. She had books, worksheets, cards, and my own folder. My mother loves to remind me how I use to tell everyone that I didn’t go to preschool. Fast Forward five years, my friends were getting grounded for their grades and asking me why I never got in trouble for mine. My friends and I spoke with my mom and her reply was, “I believe if you do your best, try your hardest, and do everything you can to be the best you can- I don’t believe in punishing Bethany. Now, If Bethany didn’t try her best, try her hardest, do everything she could to get the best grades she can then we will look at why.” My friend looked at me and said “Oh, you're lucky! I wish I had your mom!” I never shared that all my grades were A’s, because I did my best, I tried my hardest and I did everything I could to get the best grades I could and I still do. If I need to study for 3 hours, If I need to seek out a teacher, plan a study group with friends or students who can help, I’ll do what I need to do. I appreciate the academic recognitions as they continue to motivate me. I am not afraid of hard work and I believe this will benefit the National Honor

Basically, individuals with a fixed mindset often feel measured by a failure, sometimes permanently. Unfortunately, failed attempts are viewed as a label rather than an opportunity to plan a new path of succes. On the other hand, an individual with a growth mindset views a failed attempt as an opportunity to take action, to confront obstacles, to keep up with their schoolwork, and/or to better manage and organize their time. Growth mindset individuals believe that qualities can be developed, expanded, and eventually result in a successful outcome. A second lesson learned is the power of labels and the stereotype of ability; this lesson is undoubtedly one of the most enlightening. Dweck discovered in one of her studies that, “... ability praise often pushed students right into a fixed mindset, and they showed all the signs of it too. When we gave them a choice, they rejected a challenging new task that they could learn from. They didn’t want to do anything that could expose their flaws and call into question their talent” (72). One’s mindset determines their reaction to labels and stereotypes. An individual with a fixed mindset will settle for a positive label and chose stagnation and permanent inferiority rather than risk losing the label; whereas,

From my days as a little kindergartener till now, I have always taken school very seriously and worked hard to be an honor roll student. I have never missed a day of school in my entire life and I have never failed to turn in an assignment. I have always been determined to be the best in my class and never give up. What drives me to work hard, are the lessons my parents have instilled in my mind at an early age. Since I was little, my parents have preached the importance of school and working hard for my future. Their lessons have taught me profoundly and I can’t thank them enough.

As an adolescent I had many birth issues and illnesses including asthma. These issues had kept me out of school, giving me less time to learn the basics of reading, writing, and math. Because my mother coached varsity volleyball at Novi High School, most of my childhood was spent in the gym. My father did not always have the best grades, in fact high school was the same for both of us; however, as he continued to college he had increased his study habits and earned himself over a 3.0 GPA. My two sisters are both really school smart, and then there was me, the one who struggled with school. In my Junior year my father got sick and I was on constant worry about my family and how he was doing. School became harder for me to focus on because of this issue and none of my teachers helped me out with the number of assignments. Family was always first with us, then it was education and school, and continued off with friends and fun such as sports.

There are two basic mindsets, growth and fixed. Carol Dweck, a world-renowned psychologist from Stanford University, discovered that people who operate in a growth mindset, believe that their simplest abilities can be advanced through commitment and diligent work. Growth mindset people think that their intelligence can be improved, and if they try hard and persevere they will succeed. Growth mindsets are the opposite of fixed mindsets. Fixed mindsets are people who think that they can’t change anything and were born with certain talents. In contrast, people with a fixed mindset imagine that their most fundamental qualities can not be changed and that, without effort, only talent can create

To fail is to succeed. Most people have had failure in their life from minor upsets to major problems, such as your favorite football team losing to getting rejected from a college. A fixed mindset would take that as a problem of their team losing, while the growth mindset would see that as an opportunity to put in new players and fresh faces. A fixed mindset would see being rejected from a college as a missed opportunity and they will never get accepted to any college, while a growth mindset could see that as an obstacle and apply to a college that they would never have thought of. For years I had a fixed mindset on math; I failed algebra 1 twice and algebra 2 once. I didn’t like math because I thought it wasn’t worth my time and I would

Debbie Millman once said, "If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve". When you doubt yourself, you have already convinced yourself that you will fail. The problem with this "fixed mindset" is that when things get difficult, kids who have been praised for performing smart, become insecure. They will believe that because they do not know the answer, they are not smart. This causes them to run away from challenges and fail to apply themselves. A person's attitude towards their level of intelligence determines their potential growth. Having a fixed mindset inhibits your intellectual growth, though believing intelligence is a potential, you are focused and motivated to apply yourself to difficult tasks in order to grow.

I have notice that you're not as motivated on schoolwork as you need to be. Which is something I’m willing on helping you achieve it. Having a Fixed Mindset can affect you in many ways. Therefore, I’m seeing that is affecting you in school. You think that you are not smart enough and/or can not do certain things. Let me tell you that you are wrong. In order to success you first fail. It may sound ridiculous but believe it is true. Not everybody is successful at their first try. Not everybody is born smart. Many people fails so many times that they lose hope but that is the point of failing because you get to push yourself farther to reach your goal and learn from mistakes. That is the number one step in Growth Mindset not giving up. Asking for help is also a big step in everything. Hence, do not believe that abilities can not be improved.

By reading the book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success people are able to determine if they are fixed-mind set or growth mind set. There are many people across the world who are fixed-mind set and believe that their abilities and intelligence cannot change. They dwell on the problems at hand and fail to recognize alternative ways to solve them. This group tends to have low self-esteem so they will prove themselves to others so they can feel superior academically or skilled related. If they fail at their task, they become more concerned with other’s thoughts, which diverges them from the actual objective. On the other hand, growth mind set is completely different from fixed-mind set. Growth mind set is someone who accepts the problem and thinks of a positive or useful way to fix the issue. This person believes that their strengths and weakness can grow with time and practice. These two mind sets help scientists explain why people act differently when faced with the same difficult situation.

School did not come easily to me as a child even after I learned how to speak and read English fluently. At one point, my third grade teacher suggested that my parents hold me back a year, but my parents decided against it because they believed that I could do better on my own. I did not immediately improve and still struggled a bit through middle school, but I started to work harder My parents’ support gave me my own desire to motivate others. I want be a source of encouragement for others in the learning community similar to how my parents are mine and provide alongside that my own unique perspective.

Carol S. Dweck, a psychologist, filmed one of her lectures in 2012 called “The Power of Believing.” In this video, she points out potential flaws in the education system. She points out that one of the reasons kids fail in school is mainly based on what mindset is put in a child’s mind during early education. Throughout the video, Dweck discussed two types of mindsets that people categorize into —fixed mindset and growth mindset.

Fixed mindset: For most of my life, I have thought of myself as “unathletic”. I never did sports when I was growing up, I hated PE in elementary school, and the thought of any physical activity made me nervous. When I was in middle school, my friends convinced me to join the school cross-country team with them. I bought new shoes and running clothes to get ready for the season. Then, I chickened out and quit a few days before the season began without even trying because I convinced myself that I just was not good at running.