{"id":668,"date":"2014-11-04T13:31:27","date_gmt":"2014-11-04T13:31:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.childproofingforadolescence.com\/?p=668"},"modified":"2015-01-04T03:41:46","modified_gmt":"2015-01-04T03:41:46","slug":"hes-a-natural-born-superstar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.childproofingforadolescence.com\/?p=668","title":{"rendered":"\u201cHe\u2019s a natural born superstar\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Growth vs. Fixed Mindset<\/h4>\n

A fixed mindset assumes that one is naturally born with talent or giftedness. A growth mindset assumes that competence is gained through hard work. A label such as \u201cgifted\u201d can be a curse if it leads to a lack of engagement in hard work or a reluctance to risk failure \u2013 which is an essential part of learning and growing.<\/span><\/em><\/h5>\n

If you visited a 3rd grade class for a day, do you think you could pick out the kids who will be successful in life? A kid like Anthony would jump right out at you. Anthony was the biggest, strongest, and fastest kid in 3rd grade \u2013 by far. In middle school, he had the sweetest jump shot and the quickest release I can ever recall. Even at that age, the people around him knew he was \u201cspecial\u201d \u2013 and told him so. In high school, he lived up to that label \u2013 setting a state scoring record and then breaking it the following year. Anthony was one of the most highly recruited shooting guards coming out of high school before landing at VSU. To everyone\u2019s surprise, Anthony transferred midseason of his freshman year, unhappy with his playing time. This was not the \u201cone-and-done\u201d route to the NBA predicted by his uncle who was already interviewing agents on Anthony\u2019s behalf (unofficially of course). He was welcomed with open arms by his new teammates at Tremont who nicknamed him \u201cLights Out\u201d after two jaw dropping exhibitions of shooting. Ineligible to play, but free to practice with the team, he became Tremont fandom\u2019s great hope for \u201cnext year\u201d. Again, his uncle had him only playing one year at Tremont before jumping to the NBA. And after one year, where was Anthony? Transferring to his third basketball program in as many years. Once again, he had not gotten enough playing time. There was no doubt Anthony could shoot. On several occasions he came into games late, producing a torrent of scoring. But more often, he entered games only to play mediocre defense and fail to make passes to wide open teammates.<\/p>\n

Anthony and his uncle held a fixed mindset about his natural talent (gifted) and future (golden). Unfortunately his coaches adhered to a growth mindset \u2013 that improvement comes from hard work. Anthony watched with contempt as less highly recruited (and less \u201ctalented\u201d) athletes passed him by in terms of playing time. But if we asked the coach, we would hear a different story. He would paint a sharp contrast between the athlete who sought coaches\u2019 critiques, came to the gym on his own, lifted weights all summer, and never missed an opportunity to play against better competition versus the young man who rested on his laurels and transferred every year. By transferring to a new program and blaming the coach for not playing him, Anthony could hold on to his fixed mindset belief about his \u201ctalent\u201d or \u201cgiftedness\u201d.<\/p>\n

A growth mindset assumes that change is possible, regardless of what natural abilities people are born with. A boy may be well coordinated, but he still has to apply himself to become good at a sport. And regardless of how good he is at present, he can always \u201cgrow\u201d and make himself better. A growth mindset assumes that competence is gained through hard work, while a fixed mindset assumes that natural abilities or deficits determine outcomes.<\/p>\n

The old adage, \u201cYou can\u2019t teach an old dog new tricks\u201d is a good example of a fixed mindset. What we have since discovered, however, is that we can teach an old dog new tricks; it just takes longer. We now know that brains can grow, even in our old age. We also know that brains grow in relation to how much certain skills are practiced. Quite a bit of my brain lights up when I hit a forehand in tennis, but sadly there is barely a flicker when it comes to hitting a golf shot. But that is directly related to how many hours of practice I have dedicated to each sport.<\/p>\n

The well-developed part of the brain related to a skill practiced for 10,000 hours is like a super highway. Without those hours of practice that part of the brain is comparable to a bunch of backcountry dirt roads. Michael Jordan was cut from the varsity basketball team his sophomore year of high school. 10,000 hours of practice later, he was helping North Carolina win a national championship. If talent were all it took, all those grueling hours in the gym would not have been necessary. Jordan\u2019s approach to the game epitomized a growth mindset. Anthony and his uncle somehow missed that part of Jordan\u2019s biography.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suck at math\u201d and \u201cI can\u2019t draw\u201d are also fixed mindsets. If you compare yourself with others who are doing better, you can conclude you simply don\u2019t have the ability. But improvement comes one small step at a time, advancing on developmental time, enhanced by practice, not simply by the passing of chronological time. If a child is expected to keep up with his age cohort in reading or math, he may conclude he lacks the talent to be good at those subjects. Math is learned one concept at a time, with explanations, demonstrations, practice problems, error analysis, and then more problems. Learning math is like building a house, one brick at a time. It occurs on developmental time, not chronological time.<\/p>\n

The scrawniest guy on our high school tennis team epitomized the growth mindset. By all appearances, he felt no shame. Failure didn\u2019t faze him. He just wasn\u2019t a normal guy. He would play anyone, usually someone better than he and didn\u2019t mind losing. In fact, he equated losing with learning. Still short and bowlegged even as a senior, he was the only one who emerged with a full-ride, Division I tennis scholarship. Anyone who watched his growth mindset at work would notice that every week, he was a better tennis player than he was the week before. That could not be said about the rest of us, with our egos safely protected.<\/p>\n

Do you still think you can spot the future successes in 3rd grade? Could you spot the future failures? Can you spot a child with a growth mindset? How about the teacher? The parent(s)? Can a fixed mindset be changed? For Anthony\u2019s sake, let\u2019s hope so.<\/p>\n

Mindset: The new psychology of success<\/em> by Carol Dweck fully explains the powerful effect of a Growth vs. Fixed Mindset for development in all areas \u2013 ourselves, our children, our students, and our players.<\/p>\n

The Talent Code<\/em> by Daniel Coyle explains that people are not born with greatness, but develop it with effective practice.<\/p>\n

Anthony is a fictional composite of all too common “can’t miss” athletes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Growth vs. Fixed Mindset A fixed mindset assumes that one is naturally born with talent or giftedness. A growth mindset assumes that competence is gained through hard work. A label such as \u201cgifted\u201d can be a curse if it leads to a lack of engagement in hard work or a reluctance to risk failure \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[46,45,49,47,48],"class_list":["post-668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-big-ideas","tag-fixed-mindset","tag-fixed-vs-growth-mindset","tag-giftedness","tag-growth-mindset","tag-natural-ability","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.childproofingforadolescence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.childproofingforadolescence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.childproofingforadolescence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.childproofingforadolescence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.childproofingforadolescence.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=668"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.childproofingforadolescence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":756,"href":"http:\/\/www.childproofingforadolescence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668\/revisions\/756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.childproofingforadolescence.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.childproofingforadolescence.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.childproofingforadolescence.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}