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Thumbnail of The power of believing that you can improve | Carol Dweck | TED

The power of believing that you can improve | Carol Dweck | TED

BeginnerAmerican accentTED talk10 min

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  1. 0:13 The power of yet.
  2. 0:16 I heard about a high school in Chicago where students had to pass a certain number of courses to graduate,
  3. 0:23 and if they didn't pass a course, they got the grade "Not Yet."
  4. 0:28 And I thought that was fantastic, because if you get a failing grade, you think, I'm nothing, I'm nowhere.
  5. 0:34 But if you get the grade "Not Yet", you understand that you're on a learning curve.
  6. 0:41 It gives you a path into the future.
  7. 0:44 "Not Yet" also gave me insight into a critical event early in my career, a real turning point.
  8. 0:55 I wanted to see how children coped with challenge and difficulty, so I gave 10-year-olds
  9. 1:05 problems that were slightly too hard for them.
  10. 1:09 Some of them reacted in a shockingly positive way.
  11. 1:14 They said things like, "I love a challenge," or, "You know, I was hoping this would be informative."
  12. 1:24 They understood that their abilities could be developed.
  13. 1:30 They had what I call a growth mindset.
  14. 1:34 But other students felt it was tragic, catastrophic.
  15. 1:39 From their more fixed mindset perspective, their intelligence had been up for judgment, and they failed.
  16. 1:50 Instead of luxuriating in the power of yet, they were gripped in the tyranny of now.
  17. 2:00 So what do they do next?
  18. 2:02 I'll tell you what they do next.
  19. 2:04 In one study, they told us they would probably cheat the next time instead of studying more if they failed a test.
  20. 2:14 In another study, after a failure, they looked for someone who did worse than they did so they could feel really good about themselves.
  21. 2:25 And in study after study, they have run from difficulty.
  22. 2:31 Scientists measured the electrical activity from the brain as students confronted an error.
  23. 2:40 On the left, you see the fixed-mindset students.
  24. 2:44 There's hardly any activity.
  25. 2:47 They run from the error.
  26. 2:49 They don't engage with it.
  27. 2:52 But on the right, you have the students with the growth mindset, the idea that abilities can be developed.
  28. 2:59 They engage deeply.
  29. 3:01 Their brain is on fire with yet.
  30. 3:04 They engage deeply.
  31. 3:07 They process the error.
  32. 3:09 They learn from it and they correct it.
  33. 3:14 How are we raising our children?
  34. 3:17 Are we raising them for now instead of yet?
  35. 3:22 Are we raising kids who are obsessed with getting As?
  36. 3:27 Are we raising kids who don't know how to dream big dreams?
  37. 3:32 Their biggest goal is getting the next A, or the next test score?
  38. 3:39 And are they carrying this need for constant validation with them into their future lives?
  39. 3:48 Maybe, because employers are coming to me and saying, "We have already raised a generation of young workers who can't get through the day
  40. 4:00 without an award."
  41. 4:02 So what can we do?
  42. 4:05 How can we build that bridge to yet?
  43. 4:09 Here are some things we can do.
  44. 4:11 First of all, we can praise wisely, not praising intelligence or talent.
  45. 4:19 That has failed.
  46. 4:20 Don't do that anymore.
  47. 4:22 But praising the process that kids engage in, their effort, their strategies, their focus, their perseverance, their improvement.
  48. 4:33 This process praise creates kids who are hardy and resilient.
  49. 4:39 There are other ways to reward yet.
  50. 4:43 We recently teamed up with game scientists from the University of Washington to create a new online math game that rewarded yet.
  51. 4:54 In this game, students were rewarded for effort, strategy and progress.
  52. 5:00 The usual math game rewards you for getting answers right, right now, but this game rewarded process.
  53. 5:10 And we got more effort, more strategies, more engagement over longer periods of time,
  54. 5:19 and more perseverance when they hit really, really hard problems.
  55. 5:25 Just the words "yet" or "not yet," we're finding, give kids greater confidence,
  56. 5:33 give them a path into the future that creates greater persistence.
  57. 5:39 And we can actually change students' mindsets.
  58. 5:45 In one study, we taught them that every time they push out of their comfort zone to learn something new and difficult,
  59. 5:55 the neurons in their brain can form new, stronger connections, and over time, they can get smarter.
  60. 6:04 Look what happened: In this study, students who were not taught this growth mindset
  61. 6:11 continued to show declining grades over this difficult school transition,
  62. 6:16 but those who were taught this lesson showed a sharp rebound in their grades.
  63. 6:23 We have shown this now, this kind of improvement,
  64. 6:29 with thousands and thousands of kids, especially struggling students.
  65. 6:36 So let's talk about equality.
  66. 6:40 In our country, there are groups of students who chronically underperform, for example, children in inner cities,
  67. 6:51 or children on Native American reservations.
  68. 6:54 And they've done so poorly for so long that many people think it's inevitable.
  69. 7:01 But when educators create growth mindset classrooms steeped in yet, equality happens.
  70. 7:13 And here are just a few examples.
  71. 7:17 In one year, a kindergarten class in Harlem, New York scored in the 95th percentile
  72. 7:27 on the national achievement test.
  73. 7:31 Many of those kids could not hold a pencil when they arrived at school.
  74. 7:38 In one year, fourth-grade students in the South Bronx, way behind,
  75. 7:45 became the number one fourth-grade class in the state of New York on the state math test.
  76. 7:55 In a year, to a year and a half, Native American students in a school on a reservation
  77. 8:05 went from the bottom of their district to the top,
  78. 8:12 and that district included affluent sections of Seattle.
  79. 8:17 So the Native kids outdid the Microsoft kids.
  80. 8:25 This happened because the meaning of effort and difficulty were transformed.
  81. 8:33 Before, effort and difficulty made them feel dumb, made them feel like giving up,
  82. 8:42 but now, effort and difficulty, that's when their neurons are making new connections, stronger connections.
  83. 8:51 That's when they're getting smarter.
  84. 8:55 I received a letter recently from a 13-year-old boy.
  85. 9:00 He said, "Dear Professor Dweck, I appreciate that your writing is based on solid scientific research,
  86. 9:11 and that's why I decided to put it into practice.
  87. 9:16 I put more effort into my schoolwork, into my relationship with my family, and into my relationship with kids at school,
  88. 9:27 and I experienced great improvement in all of those areas.
  89. 9:34 I now realize I've wasted most of my life."
  90. 9:41 Let's not waste any more lives, because once we know
  91. 9:51 that abilities are capable of such growth,
  92. 9:56 it becomes a basic human right for children, all children,
  93. 10:03 to live in places that create that growth, to live in places filled with "yet".
  94. 10:15 Thank you.

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