It's Not So Simple as Adopting a Growth Mindset
The Dichotomy of Growth Mindset I am of two minds about this idea of a "Growth Mindset". On one hand, I have experienced the pitfalls of having a fixed mindset. There's a fairly large community online of people my age who were high-achieving children, reading way above their grade level, aceing tests with little to no studying, you get the idea. I relate to them. We were praised for being so smart, and for our achievements. But freshman year, I struggled a lot. I didn't have study skills, because I had never had to study before. I felt discouraged when things didn't come to me easily. I wasn't used to having to work for my grades, and it was a huge blow to my esteem that this quality of "smart" which I held as so important to my identity didn't seem to apply now that I was competing with more than just those in my small, rural hometown. A growth mindset would have helped me embrace these harder classes that actually challenged me rather t...