November 30, 2007
Learned Helplessness
The Secret to Raising Smart Kids, by Carol Dweck (rhymes with dreck)
“We found that intelligence praise encouraged a fixed mind-set more often than did pats on the back for effort. Those congratulated for their intelligence, for example, shied away from a challenging assignment—they wanted an easy one instead—far more often than the kids applauded for their effort. (Most of those lauded for their hard work wanted the difficult problem set from which they would learn.) When we gave everyone hard problems anyway, those praised for being smart became discouraged, doubting their ability. And their scores, even on an easier problem set we gave them afterward, declined as compared with their previous results on equivalent problems. In contrast, students praised for their effort did not lose confidence when faced with the harder questions, and their performance improved markedly on the easier problems that followed.”
Yeah, the kids who had their back patted for effort didn’t “lose confidence,” but they still couldn’t solve the difficult problems that followed.
(Aside: Did taxpayers underwrite this “six-module ‘Brainology’ interactive computer program”? You can bet they’ll pay for it!)
There are problems with this besides the awful jargon, “fixed mind-set” and “growth mind-set.” Obviously you want to encourage every kid to work hard to solve problems, but… demonstrating my “fixed mind-set,” I think there are four types of people:
- Smart & Hard-working
- Smart & Lazy
- Dumb & Hard-working
- Dumb & Lazy
The dumb, hard-working kids can do as well or better than the smart, lazy kids but they’ll never touch the smart, hard-working kids, no matter how much you pat them on the back.
The real question is what motivates a smart person to be hard-working as well? Can you teach somebody to be hard-working?
“… great accomplishment, and even what we call genius, is typically the result of years of passion and dedication and not something that flows naturally from a gift.”
Wrong. Great accomplishment is almost always the result of passion, dedication, and a gift. Just ask Tiger Woods.
November 30th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Carol’s piece is doubtless intended to reinforce the politically correct view that everyone is the same. Nonsense.
November 30th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
There is just hard working. Everything else is just arguing semantics.
November 30th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
I’ve always believed that any ordinary person can learn to do just about anything. My attitude flies in the face of my observed conventional wisdom: “you either have it, or you don’t”
Do I mean you can learn to golf like Tiger? Of course not. But can you raise yourself above duffer status through practice and repition? Sure.
My take-away from the article was that telling kids to not bother trying to learn something new just because they don’t have the “gift” is a disservice to them.
November 30th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
steve: I don’t think anyone tells kids, “don’t bother,” do they?
November 30th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
CM: What you classify yourself as?
November 30th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Correction: What “DO” you …
November 30th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Chairman, sadly yes. I experienced it first-hand growing up and have seen it repeated in other families. It’s taken a lifetime to unlearn my childhood lessons. I’m no genius, but taught myself all manner of things through persistence and desire.
November 30th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
@Tom: Lazy and dumb obviously except for when I get a pat on the back, then I turn lazy and smart.
@steve: That’s bad. No one ever told me “don’t bother” but they also didn’t say I was smart. Mainly they just stuck me in the hallway closet. ;-)
November 30th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
“Mainly they just stuck me in the hallway closet. ;-)”
Ah, the Harry Potter method of child-rearing. He turned out OK, didn’t he?
November 30th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Chairman, re: great accomplishment, you forgot luck in your list of contributors. Well, I suppose luck can be considered a gift, when the lights are dimmed.
December 1st, 2007 at 2:11 am
I have discussed this topic with my ex-coworker who is 90 percentile smart and 70 percentile hard-working but maybe 10 percentile gifted as far as I can tell. I’m 60 percentile smart and 60 percentile hard-working, probably 0.1 percentile gifted, and 0.0001 percentile lucky. So I’m here to boost up at least some portion of “smartness”. If I had slightly higher in any of three category, I would be somewhere else enjoying life more than I am now.
December 1st, 2007 at 9:39 am
I totally agree with you, one so need gift/luck to be “great.”
As for raising smart kids: I did notice, the more we praise about Lily’s reading and drawing ability(in general terms, not specific about what makes her drawing good, but only the end result is good), the more she will try to read and draw. But she does shy away from new/unfamiliar tasks. I sense she is afraid of failure, afraid of not getting the high remarks.
So encouragement is a science. You do need to praise for the effort AS WELL AS the end result. I have since changed “tactic”, always trying to remind her “doing her best, try everything” is what makes life interesting.
She still excels at reading and drawing, but she has also tried karate, swimming, ice skating, gym, soccer.. and enjoyed all. She is not the best at any of these(and I don’t expect her to), but she is very happy. And she dances and started piano this term.
December 1st, 2007 at 9:56 am
Joy: So you don’t employ the Chinese style? For smart ones they say 不要骄傲 and for the dumb ones they say 笨鸟先飞.
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:36 am
I like that breakdown into four types. Sometimes I think I am smart and lazy (in that the things I know to do, I do not), but there are those moments where I just might be dumb and lazy and I am deluding myself. Pretty sure I am not hardworking by any means.
I think I am of the “You Can Do It” school of raising kids…not necessarily telling them they are smart but rather that I know they will get the job done.
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:20 am
I am 52, the most relieving day in my life was when I buried my father. His credo was “it doesn’t matter”.
Being raised by a loser tends to slow you down. Hey, it least I am here! :)
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:48 am
Nature vs. nuture has always been a interesting topic. Some people are convinced it’s an innate “gift” whereas others believe the child’s environment plays the most important role in his/her development.
There was a guy in my high school who was a nephew of Nat King Cole and whose father was also a talented and respected jazz artist. The kid could pick up and play any instrument we had at school. Horns, drum set, piano, you name it. Obviously a gift, right? Wrong. He was adopted.
I do believe some people are given genetic gifts, whether physical or mental, but I think success has a lot to do with hard work, the right exposure, and a good bit of luck.