Educating Ruby by Guy Claxton Read Free Book Online Page A

learners. One she calls ‘fixed mindset’ and the other ‘growth mindset’. Some children have picked up the idea that their intelligence is basically limited to however much ‘brains’ they were born with. If they can’t do something easily, they quickly conclude they just haven’t got what it takes, andthat’s that. By contrast, there are other children who believe that their brains are more like muscles; they get stronger and smarter through exercise. So they like it when they have to think and try hard, because they see this as mental exercise and an opportunity to get smarter. They see their ability as expandable rather than predetermined. Here’s the kicker: children who have growth mindsets consistently outperform their classmates on public examinations and are generally better at doing all the things that successful people tend to do (e.g. managing their emotions, coming up with creative ideas, having a go at new things). It is not just how clever you are (as measured by some kind of IQ test) that matters, but how you think about ‘ability’ itself. Those who believe that they can get smarter normally can, if they try. Which of these two groups would you want your child to be in?
    Can you move someone from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset? And if so, how? The answers to these two questions are ‘yes’ and ‘by helping them to think differently about the reasons for their successes and failures’. The best way to help someone develop a growth mindset is through the way he or she is given feedback after any activity. For example, if you write an essay and your teacher simply says to you, “Well done, Luke, you’re good at English,” or even, “That wasn’t so good, Anna, I don’t think you’re cut out to be a writer,” all they are hearing is some generalised praise (or criticism) that applies to them as people . Feedback like this is known as ‘person praise’; that’s to say it focuses on the individual rather than on what they have actually done to contribute to the grade achieved.
    As a teacher or a parent it is easy to give this kind of feedback in the belief that we will be motivating the recipient. We’ll be encouraging Luke if we keep telling him how gifted and talented he is. But we are not! We may even bedamaging his likelihood of success. The most useful thing that parents and teachers can do is to give learners accurate, specific feedback on things they have done, especially noting where they have shown particular initiative or spent extra time on some aspect of an assignment. How you praise children really matters. 9 Growth mindset learners make more mistakes – and more interesting mistakes – than those with fixed mindsets. Why? Because we learn most when we are pushing ourselves, not merely staying within our comfort zone, but exerting ourselves to try something more challenging or adventurous.
    It follows that schools which understand the power of a growth mindset will, paradoxically, see making mistakes (interesting, not just slipshod) as something to be encouraged. If you visit such schools, as we do, you will see some subtle differences. For example, in assemblies, as well as celebrating the successes of the First XI, groups of students who have gone the extra mile and really put in effort are routinely acknowledged. In classrooms it is common to have work in progress – warts and all – on display, as well as beautifully mounted examples of final ‘products’. If you are a designer, engineer, musician or actor reading this you will perhaps recognise these as the prototypes or drafts which are essential to eventual success in the real world. The willingness to venture and tinker are as vital to real-world achievement as any innate talent or intelligence you might possess. And these attitudes of tinkering and trying are learned. Schools either strengthen or weaken