It seems as though all that have read can all agree that Carol S. Dweck, PhD, is bias in her views in Mindset. Though I can go on and on about how she repeatedly wrote the same thing throughout the book, I can argue that some of the examples she mentions are relatable. The stories she included about school applied to me since I do care about my grades. With a fixed mindset, one would receive an F on an assignment or a test and give up. They feel labeled by a single score. Those with a growth mindset, as Carol Dweck is promoting, will learn from their mistakes and try harder next time. I do find myself feeling disappointed with certain scores that I am not happy with, but I find it impossible to just give up. Another relatable example is what she called "The Low-Effort Syndrome" which applied to students that tried to portray themselves as using as little effort as possible. In a fixed mindset, a person strives to prove they are better rather than become better through hard work.
So do I have a fixed or growth mindset? I do at times feel discouraged when my scores are not up to my expectation and I feel as though I have tried my hardest. At the same time, I still keep trying harder and harder when I don't succeed and I have no intention of proving anything to anybody regarding my intellectual abilities. I am not certain what mindset I have because Dweck speaks as though you can only be one or the other. She never mentions a balance between the two. It is hard to have a complete growth mindset as it is hard to have a complete fixed mindset. Though one may seem as if they are completely one or the other, a person with a growth mindset has probably been discouraged at some point and a person with a fixed mindset has probably felt the need to put in extra effort to achieve what they desire. Dweck has opened my eyes to not be fixed on a fixed mindset, but has given me little choice on that decision.
Sarah, in my opinion, from what people have mentioned about Mindset, is that a fixed mindset serves as cushion for a people of higher intelligence. In this way, I think that people can have both types of mindsets but at different periods of times in different environments. I believe that people who do not achieve as much do have the capacity to maintain a sort of mixture between these two mindsets, but at a higher because they do not find as many subjects as interesting or passionetly. It just all depends on different subjects that might interest the person such as one might be interested in music more and improving their piano abilities more than algebra.
ReplyDeleteI agree. She did not elaborate very well on both of the mindsets. She mainly focused just on a growth mindset. Having a growth mindset would be beneficial and I would personally like to know which one I have, but from reading this book, I honestly cannot tell.
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