Education

this is something that happens every single time we take a powerful concept and try to standardize if for mass consumption. It gets watered down, it gets misunderstood, and it gets misapplied.

The concept of the growth mindset is being promoted by admins across the country; that's part of the problem. It's one thing to make sure everyone has heard of it, and to invite people to investigate further. It's another to try to make everyone adopt it.

The adoption of a powerful concept works better from the ground up than from the top down.

My admin has taken a middle course; he gave us all Dweck's book and assigned it as reading, then set aside a couple of meetings to discuss it. He did not, however, go any further than that. He did not, for example, include it in anything required for all of us to enact. That leaves us to digest it and take on whatever resonates, or whatever we feel ready for, as individuals. If it becomes a greater part of our practice, it will happen at ground level.