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The Growth Mindset: Why We Should Be Fixing The System

Decent Essays

ESSAY 1 Carol Dweck’s Brainology sets forth the “growth mindset” as the only factor in a student’s success. However, Alfie Kohn’s The Perils of ‘Growth Mindset’ Education: Why We’re Trying to Fix our Kids When We Should Be Fixing the System, proposes another view. Also, Home Life is a third factor that impacts a student’s success. I believe all three of these are integral to a student’s accomplishments. Dweck’s ‘The Growth Mindset’ postulates that if a student’s intelligence is something that can be improved thru hard work and being challenged, he (she) will only get smarter. And too, she proposes adopting new strategies to learning if effort and challenges fail to work. In Wes Moore’s book The Other Wes Moore, Wes Moore (the Rhodes …show more content…

One of the contestants was a history teacher. Alex Tribeck, the host, asked him how he got students interested in what they were learning. He related that if they were studying a period, he would research the dances and music of that period. As the students learned the dances, they would pick up the dates along the way. This corresponds to what and how they are taught. Classes can be made more exciting by introducing song (such as hip-hop) into how pupils are taught. Getting real life experience can address what pupils are taught. Page 2 A young person’s Home Life is the third and probably most important factor in their success. External things such as parents, structure, health, housing, clothes, peers, transportation, siblings, and environment or lack of these play a deciding determinant in their success in school. These possessions or lack of can greatly influence them. The value placed on education is extremely vital too. I will expound on 2-3 of these elements of home life. The prisoner Wes Moore’s mother left for work early and returned late. He had to fend for himself. He lacked parental guidance. He wasn’t good in school and usually skipped. One time after deciding to skip, he found his mother’s weed stash. He, his friend Woody, and some older boys got high and drunk. Soon he was a lookout for drug dealers in his neighborhood. The Rhodes Scholar Wes’s mother left for work early too, but his grandparents made sure he made it to

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