The Two Way Traffic of The Mindsets

flyingcat y
Nov 7 · 9 min read
Photo by Toby Christopher on Unsplash

In the book Mindset, Dweck claims that our mental mindsets can and must be changed. According to her book, there are two mindsets introduced — a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. A growth mindset emphasizes that people are capable of improving their abilities by investing effort and embracing challenges; a fixed mindset indicates that people see their intelligence, basic skills and talents are just fixed traits. I agree with Dweck’s point that growth mindsets lead people accomplish their goals in positive learning ways; however, not all goals are guaranteed to have expected outcomes by growth mindsets. I also strongly agree that fixed mindsets are dangerous and one-sided, but at some point, I may have to admit the fact that intelligence and talent really matter with success under very limited and competitive environments. In the case that it is controversial to say which one is good or not, I maintain the point that we should view both of the mindsets in two different directions since one way traffic mindset is restricted in real life. To be fair, what about to adopt the good sides of the two mindsets and get rid of the bad ones?

The growth mindset is a great concept that we should apply throughout our life, from academic study, career achievement, personal development and so on. It benefits you not only personally but also contagiously spread to bigger circumstances like families, offices, teams and classrooms. I considered myself as a growth mindset at the very beginning stage of my life. My parents with growth mindsets always encouraged me to cope with challenges in new topics and life skills. I was very willing to learn and practice things with enjoyment. Everything was so smooth and delightful on learning new knowledge. Typical topics in school can’t satisfy my curiosity any longer so I tried to discover some other topics like how to win every “ rock-paper-scissor” game by observing other people’s behavioral reactions on each game; how to make recycled paper or DIY stuff at home because I watched a channel called “The Art Space” too much. I felt like I was a child with strong curiosity to explore and learn what I wanted to with no boundaries. Also, I was not afraid of failing at all. I enjoyed the moments when I finally figured things out.

The time of my growth mind period lasted until I entered primary school when rank system became a significant indicator of intelligence and learning ability level in our education system. I was able to choose challenges of topics that intrigued me as a child, but lately I found that I had no choice but to adapt to the new sick learning mode as an adolescent.

As someone who experienced high schools in both China and America. I could tell that the education system in China was completely different from the mode in the US, mostly due to the large amount of student population in our country. The education department had to set the contents of study and tests very hard, and even harder as the grades were higher. It was a road-map process of filtering that everyone was push to go through so that students could go to various tiers of schools or universities eventually.The higher levels of education and ranks of schools you went to, the more elites with incredible strong learning abilities you will meet likely, people could not follow up the fast-pace learning styles got deleted.

A lot of young generations now go to European, or North American countries for middle/high school and undergraduate study today. Going abroad is a way that many students’ choices to avoid and escape from a depressed education system. The giant frame of the education system may be automatically assumed as fixed mindsets environmentint in China from my point of view. Inversely from the mentioned features of fixed mindsets, people tend to give up easily or refuse the challenges or try to look smart for approval, but most of us had to accept challenges and force ourselves not to give up for approvals from better ranks. It is hard to say what mindsets that students in this situation have, and my guess would be half growth/half fixed possibly .

At the first day of my primary school, the advisor asked what we wanted to be when we grew up as adults. I remember that most answers were about prestigious jobs, and my answer was just one of many from “the most answers”. We passed the entry tests and survived, the advisors celebrated for our first step, also labeled us as smart kids. We all had dreams of being members of halls of fame someday when we were labelled as smart! That was the beginning of how I transitioned from a growth mind to a fixed mindset. All top ranked primary schools in the central city area had two entry tests, and the results would directly determine if you could get a space in those schools. The first test was about abstract math, and the second one was about literacy level. Being too average and ordinary would be wiped out from the entry list. Many abstract math and literature questions were never taught in my prior classes though, I was glad that I knew them, thanked the credits to my parents’ tutoring and extra book resource for the preparation.

The vibe in my primary school turned out to be more and more intense as the grade level got higher. After the third grade, our school had a new rule that all students must attend Saturday’s intensive training bootcamps. Placement tests were required to distribute students into 4 groups as A, B, C, D. I felt it would be extremely shameful if I was placed into C or D group of any course, and it was a new program so you had no idea how to prepare for the placement tests. All I knew about the Math placement test, the topic I worried the most, was that the question types were randomly selected from the popular Olympic Mathematics books that some students used often outside of the class. Even though I had no clue how to prepare for the test, it was not too bad that I got 98 out of 120. The rank board and class distribution decisions were posted on the front doors of each classroom immediately. So many years had passed by, I could still imagine how flattered students in A&B group were at the first day’s meeting; I could also remember how my classmates and I looked at students in C&D group with contempt. Labeling people was so wrong and we all knew it, however, when the rank system became part of a characteristic culture, we had all turned into a so-called fixed mindsets at some levels.

Dweck had a quote, “ A few modern philosophers…assert that an individual’s intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity which cannot be increased. We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism…with practice,training, and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgement and literally to become more intelligent than we were before.” (5) I found this quote interesting; proponents of growth mindsets ignored the truth of the bigger learning environments. In the context of radical and competitive learning environments, I wonder how Dweck would explain it. I didn’t find an answer from the book. I had an example of how smart people are at top ranks forever to prove that why I disagree with one of her points.

Six years later, it was time for a new chapter. A tough and miserable 3 year of my life. After passed the entry test, I attended a boarding school with “good reputation” under the extremely strict regulations. It was actually not quite different from a cage. No personal electronics, no food outside of school, no books unrelated to study, limited and fixed time on eating and sleeping. We had to spend 6 days a week in school, from 7am to 9pm daily of the class time. Under this vibe, I was unhappy. The rank made me even unhappier. In higher grades, there are more people than students in the primary school who are considered inherently smart.

The fixed class we stayed were ranked as A,B,C,D groups. Each group consisted of 5 fixed classes, people who ranked at top 10 in B group might be around top 20 in A group and top 5 in C group or top 1 in D group. I was in a tier B group and ranked as average. In fact, the rank 20–25 was the most unstable ones. The rank from 1–10 was very stable, some of the people I was familiar with from rank 1–10 didn’t even spend as much time as others do on study but they were just good on grades. I tried to focus on my weaknesses, it improved a bit but it didn’t change my rank too much. Actually many students ranked in 20–25 worked very hard, unfortunately, they never became the academy threats to the top 10 people. It was a class rank thing, we had school rank as well. The top 10 people’s ranks in our class were not stable in school ranks because there were more smarter people than them in A group classes. Well, the fixed mindsets upgraded. Admittedly, I thought smart people were just smart especially on Math and Sciences. Beside the high pressure of study, a lot of dramas went on at the same time. I sort of wanted to quit, but I really didn’t know what else could I do if I quit. Ultimately, I chose the same path for high school in China for another 1 year. Meanwhile, I talked with my parents that I was done for this. Maybe it was just not for me; I was tired of the competitions and getting labeled for years and years by the rank systems. We had a resolution lately, I chose to study abroad with a new environment. In the new environment, I figured that Dweck’s view might fit the American education system better than in China. Although I saw that effort increasingly made the changes because the bigger environment was healthier and not as tough as Chinese schools generally, but I still stand for my view that intelligence mattered. There is a quote I found in the book, “From conception on, there’s a constant give-and-take between the two. In fact, as Gilbert Gottlieb, an eminent neuroscientist, put it, not only do genes and environment cooperate as we develop, but genes require input from the environment to work properly.”(5) It is true that improvements would happen in healthy learning environments with growth mindsets , while higher intelligence lead to people still survive even in those unhealthy learning environments.

From my own experiences, I think we should view fixed mindset in a more realistic way. On the one hand, You may be frustrated by failures after your effort and overwhelmed that there are always people who outshines you exist. On the other hand, you realize that you are not perfect, accepting your weaknesses and trying to fix them if necessary. For me, I would rather immerse into things I value as important at this stage of my life. As I grow up, I feel to make proper decisions and be diversified in development based on facts of ourselves is really crucial. Time and energy are the most precious things, and the decisions of what to do might be involving fixed mindsets. To take a case in point, if someone wants to be a doctor but he or she is very bad on memorizing new terms and understanding the mechanisms of science stuff. Also, he or she is with financial issues currently. Should he or she challenge himself or herself to go to school first for the dream as soon as possible? If I were this person, I would rather fix my current problems first, then I would think of the following problems. If it is worth to take time, energy and money for the goal? What if my goal was not succeed after effort? What are the other options for me right now? The difference between adults and children is that adults will consider the results and if they are able to take the responsibilities of the results whatever it is good or bad; children might think of solely just expected results because of lack of real life lessons. In real life, it is more about solving real problems with many answers and learning from new adventures or previous failures, instead of solving the problems of math and science in school days with fixed answers.You manage the best solutions for yourself, so a fixed mindset might remind you of some useful ideas too when you make some decisions as a grown person.

Granted, I have a strong belief on growth mindsets because we all have chances to face failure in life on different levels. It is definitely not right to give up everything that challenges you easily. Life is always full of unintended results, try hard before thinking of other ways out or let go. At least you learned something from the experiences if you have tried. A positive attitude rewards you permanently in personal development and interpersonal relationships.

To be succinctly, the growth mindset helps me realize that no one is perfect, especially in relationships and work from my own stories as an adult, so I learn to be sympathetic and work hard to be better; the fixed mindset helps me realize my own imperfections, so I can try my best to make proper decisions based on my current facts for myself before facing too many life choices to compensate for my failures.

Mindsets

Student Stories of Growth and Transformation

flyingcat y

Written by

Mindsets

Mindsets

Student Stories of Growth and Transformation

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