CeRP del Este, 2019. Reflective Teaching.

– by Gabriel Molina

Book Report
on
Carol Dweck’s
Mindset – How you can fulfil your potential

Carol Dweck is a Professor of Psychology born in 1946 in N.Y. who has dedicated a great deal
of time to studying how the mind works. This book starts by explaining one of her researches. It begins
with the two mindset division theory of our brains. So far, we are told of two sample groups that are
put, on purpose, on situations that promote one mindset or the other. This procedure is done by
reinforcing a child’s behavior through praising either hard work and effort or present intelligence and
talent. She also tells us about the constant devaluing of effort in our modern society. Finally, she moves
on a bit to tell us about how incorrect we are at gauging our own abilities and how this affects us when
learning effectively.

In chapter 2, Dweck signals the two types of mindsets – fixed and growth – that may be found
on different social atmospheres, like the world of CEOs, sports and human close relationships that she
will be going in-depth later on. She makes some firm assertions on the matter:mindsets are more of a
choice in which you believe that affects your learning in the long run. These choices are analyzed
through brain wave activity during moments when we have to deal with a setback scenario. We can be
either have little to no activity, meaning we are “running away” from these setbacks, or prominent
activity that shows we care for the effort it takes to understand the setback. Should this last event
happen, we are on the right track to attain a more growth-mindset. An example of this is when students
were given the chance to look at a partner’s test. Some chose the ones they thought would have low
scores so the event wouldn’t hurt their identities. Others decided to proceed the other way around due
to not having this obsession with their current ability, but with their learning process (which they
seemed to understand better).
At the end, Dweck offers an interesting disclaimer that basically says not ALL effort is created
equally, so differences do exist, even if they make not that much of a difference.

Chapter 3 begins with a special emphasis on perspectives, which is further elucidated through
the Thomas Edison example. Some people would see him and the light bulb in a specific point in time;
as complete elements. Some others can picture him in his workshop, working long after hours,
accompanied by his team creating and re-creating his contraptions. This is a clear analogy regarding
people’s outlook on success: either a static thing that is too much of a hassle to change or something
more procedural. This procedural approach to learning, endowed by a growth-mindset, is of utmost
importance because people who do it take charge of their own learning. This means they will use as
many strategies and resources to achieve what they set out to do.
This chapter also introduces a vital idea of this theory: the effect of labels. The way we are put
into a stereotypical mold affects us directly and puts us into fixed-mindset states. They, in other words,
define you. Dweck elucidates this with her example on women and math in academic contexts. Even
the most growth-mindset female students would have trouble dealing with this issue.

The fourth chapter starts giving some interesting ideas on the insight of mindsets through the
lens of sports. For instance, Dweck mentions the case of a Baseball player who is able to, after
numerous failures, rise to the challenge and improve a lot by having the opportunity to keep trying
CeRP del Este, 2019. Reflective Teaching. – by Gabriel Molina

without fear or anxiety of being buried even more. He manages this due to having the chance to
practice heavily in a safe environment where you are allowed to make mistakes. She also shares more
on the element of Stretching. This refers to the ability to expand one’s limits on the spur of the moment,
being able to overcome challenges under severe pressure. This is, of course, another aspect of a growth-
mindset. Another strategy she mentions is rising other areas of skill to make up for severe weakness in
others further helping people becoming gritty.

The next chapter deals with mindsets and the world of business enterprises. She makes a point
when talking about talent obsession in our societies here. She, again, mentions how big a mistake is
praising current intelligence instead of effort when dealing with students or co-workers. Dweck uses
the example of Lee Iaccoca, who is, in sum, the anti-Christ of growth-mindsets to explore what a
persistent fixed-mindset can do. He did it all: not admitting one’s errors, Tricking yourself that you are
smarter or even luckier than others, doing the extreme just to avoid humiliation, blaming and giving
excuses all the time, doing away with people who thinks different from us, etc. All these things end up
not letting us profit from our own mistakes to grow as people and move on in life.
Also, we can find here the important concept of a growth-based environment that is fostered
when a growth-mindset leader acknowledges others and avoids a situation of groupthink. It is very
important we don’t become CEO teachers with our students to avoid promoting fixed-mindsets.

Chapter 6 deals with relationships and how fixed-mindset people and growth-mindset ones have
their cope mechanisms to rejection and other hardships. Some important points make their second
entrance here: discrepancies in the relationship that build insecurities in a cycle a la fixed-mindset,
communication problems that accumulate and well-up as trait assigning and finger pointing, etc. The
author also brings the issue of shyness into play, also stating that mindsets directly affect how people
deal with it. Some take shyness as an initial problem and socialize normally at the end of the day once
they realize it’s just another challenge, others, the ones with a fixed-mindset, tend to become frozen in
space, aggravating their own situation.
She, by the end of the chapter, talks about the Columbine Shooting and how these two students,
Eric and Dylan, who participated in it, had been severely affected by a fixed-mindset school
community where constant bullying was commonplace. This strengthens the element of context or
surrounding and how it instill mindsets on people, depending on the type of people it contains.

Number 7 is quite important for us teachers as it takes the mindsets issue, again, to the
classroom environment. The author makes special emphasis on teachers overpraising students’
intelligence instead of hard work. This, as we already know, severely hampers the learning process. She
recommends us to, instead, adopt more growth-oriented praises that fuels students’ growth-mindset
ideas. She expands stresses this, specially on the classroom, as it fosters a real growth environment
among students, too. This is further exemplified with the babies’ case, where several heavily chided
babies would do similarly to their baby mates; some sort of mindset extrapolation among the actors of a
shared environment. Dweck moves on by bringing up a hot topic for education – standards – which she
asserts we should not lower to have access to children’s learning through the easy way. Instead, we
should start thinking about creating atmospheres of trust so we boost the chances of everyone doing
their best effort. This can be achieved, mainly, by “[telling] … students the truth and then giv[ing] them
the tools to close the gap...” Dweck, C, 2006.
The chapter closes with the case of Knight, B. a renowned basketball coach who would go
berserk when students would lose a match. However, Mr. Knight didn’t always have a fixed mindset.
He is what Dweck calls a complicated mindset case, which could happen to anyone. Knight dealt with
CeRP del Este, 2019. Reflective Teaching. – by Gabriel Molina

the way his student players grew in a growth-mindset way and had a fixed-mindset for his own identity
as a coach. Should students lose a game, he would take it as a personal offense and humiliation to his
identity as a great coach, which limited his own learning related to mistakes, setbacks and failure. With
this man’s case, the author creates a solid example that sheds light on the way we may have both fixed
and growth-mindset aspects to our personalities and ways of dealing with problems and how difficult it
can be to actually pinpoint them (we are bad at surveying ourselves).

The final chapter, 8, does two things. First, it explores the program Dweck and her team have
implemented in some institutions called Brainology that offers useful advice, materials and resources
for students and teachers regarding mindset training for a cost. She clearly states that the weakness of
the program is that it can be difficult to personalize for every single student (as it should) in large
groups of students. The second part of the chapter goes through an important exemplification of the
two types of mindsets in use during different situations (which address the reader directly). Dweck
divides these scenarios in three steps: the setback or complication, then either a fixed-mindset reaction
to the dilemma followed by a growth-mindset progression towards an actual solution to it. In others,
though, she hows how some of us can directly take either the growth-mindset way or just ditch learning
and growth and wallow in a fixed-mindset state.

To finish this book report, It would be a pleasure to offer some ideas for the classroom so as to
promote these growth-mindset ideas in ourselves and our students to become better professionals.

Always have in mind the CEO disease and avoid it at all costs. We can’t promote a growth-
based environment in our classrooms if we ourselves emit fix-mindset messages all around us.
A simple idea is to stop praising the dominant students who believe they can do everything easily,
without any effort. Instead, we should promote a helping environment where these students are instead
praised for helping students who are trying but are left behind for the moment (due to time constraints
for instance. In those cases, they will surely see that teaching others is a lot of effort, specially if they
want their classmates to get what is being taught.

Another thing I would like try out is to be crystal clear about what is expected from them in the
classroom. If we adopt this with a growth-mindset approach, they will be expected to work hard,
putting all the effort they can to their commitment in the classroom. This, I think, can be helpful for
groups who have high levels of extrinsic motivation, such as the case of adults in my night shift that are
delighted to know they will receive twelves for handing in work or participating in class. I believe
having them know they will receive these marks for actually putting on their best effort, whether if they
succeed in the meantime or not, is a great way for them to realize we care for their learning and not
only their products.

Finally, and as Dweck points out, mindsets can and should be trained. A way to do this is to prepare
long term goals that we put effort into. She explains that saying that you will do something is not
enough: the best idea is to have them write down, from simple to complex, a list of things related to
their everyday lives or the classroom that they think they will be able to do if they put a bit more of
effort into it. In other words, helping them focus in the yet, or the long run, instead of the now, which
may be overwhelming (or too easy) for some.

Sources: Dweck, C. 2006. Mindset – How can you fulfil your potential. Robinson. Retrieved on April 15, 2019.