Transcription
Translator: Xhenis Gj
Reviewer: Helena Bedalli
The Power of "Yet."
I heard about a high school in Chicago where students had to pass a certain number of courses to graduate, and if they didn't pass a course, they got a grade of "Not Yet." And I thought that was fantastic, because if you get a failing grade, you think, I'm nothing, I'm nowhere. But if you get the grade "Not Yet," you realize you are in the process of learning. It offers you a path into the future. "Not Yet" made me delve into a critical event early in my career, a real turning point. I wanted to see how children coped with challenges and difficulties, so I gave 10-year-olds problems that were a bit too difficult for them. Some of them reacted in a shockingly positive way. They said things like, "I really like challenges," or, "You know, I was hoping this would be informative." They realized that their abilities could be developed. They had what I call a growth mindset. But other students thought it was tragic, catastrophic. From the perspective of their fixed mindset, their intelligence was being judged, and they failed. Instead of admiring the power of yet, they were stuck in the harshness of the present. So what do they do next? I'll tell you what they do next. One study showed us that they would probably cheat next time instead of studying more if they hadn't passed the exam. In another study, after a failure, they looked for someone who had done worse than them so they could feel good about themselves. And study after study, they have run away from difficulties. Scientists measured the electrical activity of the brain as students encountered a mistake. On the left, look at the students with the fixed mindset. There is very little activity. They run away from the mistake. They don't engage with it. But on the right, you have the students with the growth mindset, the idea that abilities can be developed. They engage a lot. Their brains are on fire with yet. They engage a lot. They examine the mistake. They learn from the mistake and fix it. How are we raising our children? Are we raising them for the present instead of the future? Are we raising children who are fixated on 10s? Are we raising children who don't know how to dream? Their main goal is another 10 or the next test result. And are they taking this need for constant approval with them into their futures? Perhaps, because employers come to me and tell me, we have already raised a generation of young workers who cannot get through the day without receiving a reward. So what can we do? How can we build a bridge to the future? Here are some things we can do. First, we can praise wisely, not praise intelligence or talent. That has failed. Don't do it anymore. But praise the process in which children engage: their effort, their strategies, their focus, their perseverance, their improvement. This praise of the process creates children who are brave and bounce back quickly. There are other ways to reward the future. We recently collaborated with game scientists from the University of Washington to create a new online math game that rewards the future. In this game, students were rewarded for effort, strategy, and progress. The usual math game rewards you for finding the correct answers in the moment, but this game rewards progress. And we got more effort, more strategy, more engagement over longer periods of time, and more perseverance when they encounter very difficult problems. We are discovering that the mere words "yet" and "not yet" give children great confidence, give them a path into the future that creates great perseverance. And we can actually change students' minds. In one study, we taught them that every time they step out of their comfort zone to learn something new and difficult, the neurons in their brains can form new and stronger connections, and over time they can become smarter. Look what happened, in this study, students who were not taught the growth mindset continued to show declining grades during the difficult school transition, but those who had learned this showed a quick return to their grades. We have now shown this, this kind of improvement, with thousands and thousands of students, especially with students in difficulty. Let's talk about equity. In our country, there are groups of students who are not performing as well as they should, for example, children in urban areas, or children on Native American reservations. They have performed so poorly for so long that people think it is inevitable. But when teachers create growth mindset classrooms surrounded by the future, equity happens. And here are some examples. In one year, a kindergarten class in Harlem, New York scored 95 percent on the international achievement test. Many of these children could not hold a pencil when they arrived at school. In one year, fourth-grade students in the South Bronx, far behind, became the first fourth-grade class in New York State on the math test in the state. In one year to a year and a half, Native American students at a school on a reservation went from the bottom of their district to the top, and that district included affluent sections of Seattle. So Native American children beat the children of Microsoft. This happened because the meaning of effort and difficulty was transformed. Before, effort and difficulty made them feel like fools, made them give up, but now, effort and difficulty is when their neurons make new, stronger connections. It's when they are becoming smarter. Recently, I received a letter from a 13-year-old boy. He said, "Dear Professor Dweck, I appreciate that your writing is based on strong scientific research, and that is why I decided to practice more. I practiced more my school assignments, my relationships with my family, and my relationships with the children at my school, and I felt great improvements in all these areas. Now I realize that I have wasted most of my life." Let's not waste more lives, because once we know that abilities are capable of such growth, it becomes a fundamental human right for children, all children, to live in places that foster that growth, to live in places filled with the future. Thank you. (Applause)