With all the media excitement about grit and
“non-cognitive” skills, educators might
conclude that to ensure students’ success we
just need to get them to resist eating marshmallows,
as documented in the well-known experiment that
revealed that children who managed to refrain from
eating a marshmallow while the experimenter stepped
out of the room had greater academic and life success
(Mischel et al., 2011).
The ability to self-regulate and persist in the face of
challenge is indeed a critical factor in student academic
and life performance. However, teaching “gritty”
behaviors directly may not be successful if students
don’t have the mindset, strategies, and supports they
need to motivate and sustain their growth (Farrington
et al., 2012). Core beliefs, content-specific skills, and
classroom culture are also essential to success.
Fixed vs. Growth Mindsets
Decades of research by psychologist Carol Dweck
and colleagues have shown that we all have fixed
and growth mindsets about different aspects of our
lives (Dweck, 2006). A fixed mindset reflects a belief
in natural talent: one is either good at something or is
not. A growth mindset, on the other hand, is a belief
that one can get good at something through effort and
learning. The mindset we hold in any domain has a
great influence on how “gritty” we will be in pursuit of
accomplishment—whether we will take on challenges
in the first place, how much effort we will expend, and
whether we will persevere if we stumble. For example,
co-author David Dockterman has a growth mindset
about cooking:
I look for new recipes, welcome
challenges, and see failures—which
are frequent—as part of the process of
developing the craft of cooking. When
it comes to dancing, though, I definitely
have a fixed mindset. I see myself as
naturally uncoordinated, and a single
misstep on the dance floor confirms my
inability. One mistake and I’m done for
the night. Actually I’m done until the next
time someone forces me to shake my
booty. Even then, I lower expectations
by affirming to anyone around me that
“I’m just not a dancer.” In addition, I
purposely “goof around” so that any
observers see me as “not trying” as
opposed to trying and failing. Getting
better at dancing requires more than
just furrowing my brow, gritting my teeth,
and trying harder. I need to try smarter.
What movements should I learn first?
What’s the best way to practice? How
do I get feedback on my progress? But
we tend not to ask these questions if we
believe we can’t get better.
Similarly, students (and teachers) have a mix of
fixed and growth mindsets, some more rigidly held
than others. Some students may believe, as many
Americans do, that they’re “just not math people”
or “just not good writers.” When they believe this,
it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: the inevitable
struggles encountered during learning confirm their
inability to get better, and they give up.
Paradoxically, others may hold a fixed mindset not
because of repeated failure, but because of easy
success. They may think, “I’ve always done well in
math without trying very hard. Everyone thinks I’m
good at it. I’m not going to take any chances by putting
myself in a position where they might see me fail.” They
have invested in their image as a math whiz, and they
are afraid to risk it. Or they may fall apart when they
finally encounter a challenge after long-term success:
“I’ve always been praised for my writing, but now this
teacher is criticizing my essay—maybe I’m not really
a good writer after all.” Their prior easy success has
left them without a repertoire of strategies to overcome
difficulty.
In contrast, the growth mindset students, whether high
or low achievers, keep looking for the next challenge.