Limitations

Developing a growth mindset is a great start in achieving success in both your academics and life. One limitation with a growth mindset is that there is more to becoming successful than just adopting the mindset. An English article on growth mindset stated if we teach that the difference between a successful and unsuccessful student is their mindset, it could be making a “toxic” trait. A growth mindset is also easier to develop if the student had experienced success in the past. Another limitation would be pushing the students who have experienced little to no success in the past into believing in the mindset change. For these students and all students, it is important to model a growth mindset in both the classroom and the entire school. That being said, a growth mindset isn’t an easy concept to get behind especially if they have been using a fixed mindset their entire lives. Getting your staff on the same page and flexible enough to buy into change can be one of the major obstacles when trying to practice a growth mindset in school. Going off that, we live in a fixed mindset world and that includes our curriculum and standards. Educators should also be cautious in praising mistakes. Students will often take this too far and purposely fail or not give their best because they know “mistakes are okay”.

References

30, heatherfblog May, et al. “The Limits of Growth Mindset.” David Didau, 30 May 2016, https://learningspy.co.uk/psychology/limits-growth-mindset/.