' The Loss Of The Creature, And Walker Percy's Theory Of Intelligence Theory

Carol Dweck’s Brainology sets forth the “growth mindset” as the only factor in a student’s success. However, Alfie Kohn’s The Perils of ‘Growth Mindset’ Education: Why We’re Trying to Fix our Kids When We Should Be Fixing the System, proposes another view. Also, Home Life is a third factor that impacts a student’s success. I believe all three of these are integral to a student’s accomplishments.

“No matter what your ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment.” Carol Dweck made that statement, as she explained her new concept of contrasting mindsets. She called one The Growth Mindset, and the other The Fixed Mindset. These two opposing theories ignited a spark in schools everywhere, and brought up an interesting question. Are students not teachable because they don’t believe they can be?

In his article “The Loss of The Creature,” Walker Percy presents the case that human or “creature’s” experiences are most often trivial because of our preconceived notions. Percy believes we can only truly enjoy these experiences if we leave the “beaten track.” Only then can we see the true beauty of the experience.

During this essay written by Walker Percy, it is clear that his overall opinion of experiencing new things is in the eye of the beholder and/or the hands of those around them and their social status. Percy uses many examples in his writing including that of an explorer, tourist, and local all seeing things for the first time either literally or in a new different light. In this essay, I will play on both sides of regaining experiences, seeing things on a different level then before or the first time. Regaining experiences is a valid argument brought up by Percy as it is achievable. While criticizing each side of the argument, I will also answer questions as to the validity of Percy's argument,

Do you think intelligence is a fixed trait? If you do, then you might be one of many people with a fixed mind-set. In Carol S. Dweck’s an essay, “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids”, she describes fixed and growth mind-sets. She describes how they affect school, and how they affect social relationships as well. The two central ideas of “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids” are that fixed mind-sets can make a person shy away from a challenge and that growth mind-sets can be put into place by parents.

I’m going to tell you how student learn these mindsets. In the 90s parents thought the most important thing that you child should have was self-esteem. But were they messed up is that you cant just hand your kids self-esteem. They took a poll among parents and found that 85% of parents thought that it was necessary to “praise” their children’s abilities to boost confidence. Now were going to talk about growth mindset. These students believe that intelligence is something that can be gained through education and effort. I wish in high school that I would of taken it more serious because now I could have had a growth mindset witch would of helped me out a lot in college. Those students have growth mindsets. They believe that you can gain intelligence through learning. Those with a growth mindset had a very straightforward idea of effort. The idea that the harder you work the greater the outcome is and I think that’s true. When these students had a set back in school they simply just study more or differently next time. That was my biggest set back in high school. Many bright students find grade school fairly easy and get right through it. But later on in life like in college they struggle. They don’t want to put the time into something and feel dumb when they get a bad grade on it. That’s bad because you should never feel dumb about something that you tried your hardest to complete. I hope that this information was helpful

In today’s culture people are not individuals they are consumers and they have lost their ability to have their own experiences. In “The Loss of the Creature” by Walker Percy, he talks about why people have lost their sovereignty and how they can get it back. There are a lot of things that people can do differently and regain their individuality back from the consumer culture that they live in.

“The Loss of the Creature” is an essay in which the author, Walker Percy has communicated his vision of world in an alternate manner. He makes an argument about how having prepackaged idea about something, can create a symbolic complex in individual’s mind, making them to lose the true essence behind it. He composes that understanding can be reached through the true experience. The experiences I like to share based on my essay is the time I flew on a plane, the time I when to Boston for the first time, and my first time on a cruise.

The overall theme of the sources we studied was about growth mindset.The most important thing about growth mindset is that intelligence can be developed. Also, the brain can grow by hard working and practicing. In “You Can Grow your Intelligence,” the author maintains that contrary to the belief that a person is born either smart, average, or dumb, instead the brain is more like a muscle, it changes and get stronger when you use it. Lastly, Carol Dweck, in a Ted Talk titled “ The Power Of Believing That You Can improve,” narrates how she researches about the growth mindset and the fixed mindset, and the benefit of having a growth mindset. Also, in her video she gave many good advice of how you can change a person that have fixed mindset to a growth mindset.

Teachers and parents have dedicated their time to tell children that they are smart and talented every time they get a good grade. Praising children this type of way has had an impact on their lives. Dweck said “many students believe that intelligence is fixed, that each person has certain amount and that’s that”. Students with fixed mindset only care about how smart they look or how smart they appear. By having this fix mindset, they turn down the ability to learn new things. They believe that if you study hard, you are not smart enough, and that if you were smart things will come to you with no effort. This has made students lose their belief in oneself when they face complicated circumstance. Dweck says that the reason for kids to have a fixed mindset is “intelligence

Carol S. Dweck, a professor of psychology, in her article, “Even Geniuses Work Hard,” focuses on, describing how to develop a “growth mindset” for academic learning. Dweck implies that “students with a growth mindset [view] challenging work as an opportunity to learn and grow” (16). She also reports having that has “seen students with a growth mindset meet difficult problems, ones [in fact] they could not solve yet” (16) with optimism and excitement. According to Dweck, having “meaningful work [can] promote learning in the immediate situation” (18). Students with growth mindsets have “a love of learning, and [are resilient] in the face of obstacles” (18). Dweck makes the point that doing homework is an important way to support learning, it

In the article, “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids” by Carol S. Dweck, he states, “The students held hard work in high regard, believing that the more you labored at something, the better you would become at it” (23). What he means by this is that there are students who don’t try in academics or are naturally smart but just lose interest in school. The quote means that students who keep a goal in their mind, the better you will get at it. Dweck also states that “As we had predicted, the students with a growth mindset felt that learning was more important” (23). Again, the quote basically says that students who have a clear mindset on what goal they would like to accomplish, nothing would keep them from learning. Any student can be successful in their own ways, it's just about how they want their mindsets to be. If they have a growth mindset they can accomplish anything if they put themselves to

People believe that in order to be Smart, you have to become Smart, in other hands the brain works like a machine, the more you teach it, the more it learns. Usually students with a Growth Mindset are most likely to Succeed in Society. The changes that should be changed in Schools is that Students should be Congratulated on how hard they’ve worked on an Assignment etc.,“Wow… that’s a really good score, must of Worked hard” (25). The Researcher has Experimented the students with Test to see how they do and how they react to it. College students may pick up this Article to Study for Child Behavior, Counselors may also read this Article to get an ideal on how and why students Fail or Succeed. Schools should complement on how they're doing their work for it can motivate them, “We found that intelligence praise encouraged a fixed mindset more often than did pats on the back for effort” (25). Comparing the Two Articles “Marita’s Bargain” shows how they got their Intelligence unlike this article which states why students Fail or Succeed. After all, the students should be Praised for their efforts and not their

When it comes to the topic of having a growth mindset, most of us will readily agree that students who are praised are motivated to learn. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of how they are praised. Whereas some are convinced that praising students for their intelligence will motivate them to learn, others maintain that encouraging them for their efforts has a better impact on their motivation.

Inspiring people to have a “ growth mindset,” invigorates development rather than having an aptitude, this stimulates high achievers in school and in their