Failure and Growth Mindset

Try It

Bringing a growth mindset to your community has profound impact on how your students view their schoolwork and themselves. A growing number of schools are committed to helping their students develop a growth mindset. But often, the way students are graded, and the message they get about their performance, is counterproductive.  

Discuss It

  • Is a ‘growth mindset’ peripheral to your school, or integral?
  • Do your courses and exams reward perseverance? Encourage audacity and failure?
  • In most of your classes, can a student with a lousy grade midway through still earn a final grade of an A?
  • Contrast the way sports and clubs reward a ‘growth mindset’ versus regular classes?

Go Deeper

Check out the following resources to dig deeper:
Watch Carol Dweck’s TED Talk The Power of Believing You Can Improve or read her path-breaking book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success