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Growth Mindset: Opportunity vs. Effort

This week, I read an article that covered how the growth mindset has strayed from its path, titled, "The Stanford professor who pioneered praising kids for effort says we’ve totally missed the point" by Jenny Anderson.

One thing that this article confirmed for me was that intelligence is a malleable object. Our brain is a muscle and it can be worked out and improved over time. It's interesting though, because the article discusses how when we focus on growth mindset, we get lazy and try to just reward effort as opposed to the opportunities to grow. It seems to me that the growth mindset is about the opportunity to grow, rather than trying with no results. Dweck notes that this is often the case where adults tell children that they have done a good job, but there is no thought on the future.

One thing that I would like to know more about is to what degree the brain can be stretched as a muscle, and if there are any limits that people naturally have. For example, I likely will never be able to bench press 600 pounds no matter how hard I try, but some people can.

Overall, the growth mindset is a great mindset to have, but it must be implemented properly and focus on the most important part: growth.


Intelligence is a dynamic aspect of life- always changing. Source: Wikimedia Commons

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