Based on research she started in the early 1970s, Dweck published her sumptuously-titled book
Mindset, The New Psychology of Success: How We Can Learn to Fulfill our Potential in 2006. By the time I entered this field in 2008, it had gone beyond “
must read” status to the “
what do you mean you haven’t read it?” pantheon.
Like millions of other teachers, I read it. (In fact, I wrote my own book about Mindset:
Learning Grows.)
Across the country, Growth Mindset posters went up on classroom walls. Grading standards changed to include the words “not yet.”
Like any big target, Dweck’s work attracted detractors. Doubts reached their pinnacle in 2018, when Sisk and Burgoyne published two meta-analyses. Their findings: