Not Yet

I'm fortunate to have many friends that care about education. Yes, I even have friends who are outside the field who care about it deeply, and they should. We all should. However, it became very clear to me that I had very different ideas than the people who are outside the field of education. For a time, I didn't have a good way of debating against what they were saying; I just assumed that it was more of a matter of opinion. It never sat right with me though, and when something doesn't sit right with me it sort of claws at the insides of my brain until a solution comes forward. Well, I found my rebuttal today.

The question was whether people should be given an education that was more tailored to their interests and skills - sort of like what's done at the college level - or do we keep the education system established as a more general font of knowledge. We all can understand the concept that everyone is usually good at something, that people are usually analytically minded or creatively minded. So why teach analytical subjects like calculus or physics to creative minded people? Why teach art appreciation or literature studies to someone who is more analytically minded? My friends would suggest that we need to find out what students are good at and interested in, and then design curriculums around that. That sounds nice, but what we are really teaching with this model is that, so long as you think you aren't good at something, you don't have to try or succeed at it. 

Now, I've created a bit of a strawman argument in that last paragraph. I'm sure people are shaking their heads and saying, "But Jake, that's not what I meant," and I believe them. Really, I do. But you still can't escape the fact that, when you vouch for an education system that only focuses on your natural abilities and interests, you not only take away the one thing necessary for a republic to function (which is a general education by the way), but you create a fixed mindset.

Carol Dweck does a much better job explaining growth mindset and fixed mindset, but I can tell you that you want students to have a growth mindset, that they can become better at anything they put their minds to with enough practice and effort. When I tell students that I appreciate their effort on something or I recognize that did try really hard, I'm creating a growth mindset. I want to encourage the idea that my students can do anything they put their minds to because I know they can. On the other hand, when a student does well on a test and a teacher tells them, "Wow! You're so smart!" and then the next test rolls around and the student fails it, what message does that convey to the student? That they weren't smart enough to pass that test. See the difference?

So let's go over it again (a lesson wrap up if you will, hehehe). A growth mindset is when you encourage the idea in students that they can do anything. Good effort is what you praise rather than whether the student succeeded or not. A fixed mindset though praises the innate abilities of your students - like their intelligence - which will eventually backfire into making the student think they aren't really all that smart when really they are. A general education - one that encourages students to attempt learning and grow in areas where they otherwise wouldn't be good in - is the type of education system that will win me over every time due to its importance for creating educated citizens of a republic, and creating a population that believes they can do anything they can put their minds to.