Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
By Carol S. Dweck (Ballantine Books, 2006)
Recommended by Elliott Seif
Sometimes a book comes along that has the power to make a significant difference in the education of all children. Mindset is one of those books. It describes how the development of a growth mindset, rather than a fixed mindset, has the potential to radically alter a learner’s educational experience. A person with a growth mindset relishes challenges and finds ways to continue to grow in the face of difficulties and failures, while a learner with a fixed mindset believes that each person is born with a fixed amount of intelligence and talent and no amount of effort will be able to change what has been given to you.
The book is replete with examples of many situations in which growth mindsets and fixed mindsets operate, but the most relevant chapter for educators is Chapter 7 – Parents, Teachers and Coaches: Where do Mindsets Come From? – which describes how the messages these adults give to young people affect the development of either a growth or fixed mindset.
Educators need to pay attention to the messages they send to their students about success and failure and how they can organize classrooms to nurture growth mindsets. In the face of a rapidly changing, challenging, and uncertain world, children’s success today may ultimately depend on whether they see themselves as capable of reinventing themselves, learning new skills, and adapting to new situations.
This article appears in the Fall 2025 issue of Kappan, Vol. 107, No. 1-2, p. 8.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elliott Seif
Elliott Seif is an educational consultant and author. His latest book is Teaching for Lifelong Learning: How to Prepare Students for a Changing World (Solution Tree Press, 2021).
