Growth Mindset - Good Idea, but I’m a Skeptic

At first I was a little confused while watching the Ted Talk video about Growth Mindset. Professor Dweck touched on a lot of topics all pertaining to this idea of Growth Mindset, but the shorter video we watched helped me understand what this idea was all about! Growth Mindset, as I understand it, is essentially the idea that when students are making all A’s or really good grades they are not actually learning. Instead Growth Mindsets sees students that are being mentally challenged with concepts in various fields as growing, learning and not just simply already knowing therefor not learning. It is a very simple and very great idea. I just have one problem. The current education system is not set up to measure how much someone learns, but instead it measures if a student has mastered a couple particular concepts. The way testing is set up K-12 I think students are being stunted to not continue to learn past what they are required to do. I really like this idea of a Growth Mindset learning vs. the standard learning system, but I honestly do not see it happening in the near future.

An example of what I mean...
In high school my goals was to get as many A’s as possible because I knew that to get into college I was gonna need A’s and a little luck, and I was out of luck. The question is, how do you get an A in high school? It is pretty simple in the current education system.
Step 1: You a told what to do/ learn
Step 2: You do/learn it
Step 3: You take standardized test with learned material on it
Step 4: You get A or B (hopefully) and then move on to the next required class
The problem is you are not growing very much in the education system. I learn... sure, but I do not learn a lot. In fact, I would argue that in high school I hated learning in the classroom and I learned way more watching Animal Planet or with my mother than I ever did in school, but I cannot blame education for all of that.

If you were a high school student right now and you had the goal to go to college what would you choose... get the A and almost definitely go to college or challenge yourself with difficult courses, make a B or C and maybe go to college. This is similar to the decisions I faced in college and I almost wish I could say I struggled with the decision, but in fact I did not. I chose the route that work best for me to obtain the goals I had. To get into college.

I think Carol Dweck hit the nail on the head at minute 4:13 in her Ted Talk video when she said. “We should praise wisely, not praising intelligence or talent." I can attest that 'in my day a.k.a. not that long ago’ intelligence was praised heavily and this definitely motivated me to become better at learning how to get an A, not learning for the sake of learning.

So in short, I really like this learning system called Growth Mindset. I think it is going to be effective in the future, but it is going to take time... a lot of time by my measure. We need a complete overhaul of the education system and this needs to happen As Soon As Possible!

Sincerely,
Skeptic

Growth Mindset Meme