I was recommended to read Mindset when my own child complained that school was too easy and too hard at the same time. It turns out what was difficult were the challenges in the area he was weakest in and that provoked anxiety. However, I noticed that he was able to put in effort to learn and master a new more challenging violin or piano piece. Not that he did not complain or sigh about the learning process, but he was equipped to learn a new piece because his teacher taught him "how to learn" a new piece and all the strategies to successfully learn a new piece of challenging music. He already has a growth mindset for music ... that nothing will be too impossible if the foundation for learning is already in place as well as the strategies to learn.
I believe this Brainology program does the same thing in the academic arena as well as in any effort-required endeavor ... it will teach a child to recognize and appreciate how he learns and how he applies effort. It will also help to develop emotional resiliency as well as develop learned optimism when feeling stymied or stuck. We are still in the process of learning and trying out this program. While I first heard about it at a homeschoolers coop buyers group, the cost is at about $55 or down to $39 per license if many more people committed to buy. I found that I could group-purchase for $20 per license if we had 20 people at a time. I have already group-purchased twice for 40 licenses among schoolers and homeschoolers I am in contact with, and I still have a few more people in the waiting list for the next lot of 20 licenses on the first come, first served basis. If you are interested, please leave me a comment below with info on how to contact you via email.
Here are the basic info:
Each license is for one child only -- gifted kids as young as 6 or 7 can benefit and parents can type their journals for them to track their learning process. Each parent will get a parent/educator account to learn more about the program, and can delay opening their child's account till the child is ready. The program license is good for 6 months only, but there is no expiration date at this point as to when you start. So, a family with a 5-year old might be able to wait till a sibling does the program to see when he/she might start to benefit.
I will accept personal checks only and I will refund those who are in the last-to-arrive group if I do not have enough people to make the last 20 lot. The $20 price is only possible if an order of 20 licenses is made at the same time.
About Carol Dweck's work on Mindset:
"In addition to sports coaches, parents and teachers have written to Dweck to say that Mindsethas given them new insight into their children and students. "One very common thing is that often very brilliant children stop working because they're praised so often that it's what they want to live as—brilliant—not as someone who ever makes mistakes," she said. "It really stunts their motivation. Parents and teachers say they now understand how to prevent that—how to work with low-achieving students to motivate them and high-achieving students to maximize their efforts." The point is to praise children's efforts, not their intelligence, she said.
Last year, Dweck taught a freshman seminar based on Mindset. She chose 16 students from more than 100 who applied, selecting those who expressed personal motivation rather than intelligence. "You can impress someone with how smart you are or how motivated you are, and I picked students who expressed their motivation," she said.
It turned out that embracing a growth mindset was critical to the students' transition to Stanford. The freshmen loved being on campus and quickly became involved in activities, Dweck said, but failed to anticipate the approach of midterm exams. "They were just really overwhelmed," she said. "How did they deal with it? They told me they would have dealt with it poorly, thinking they weren't smart or were not meant to be at Stanford. But knowing about the growth mindset allowed them to realize that they hadn't learned how to be a college student yet. They were still learning how to be successful as a Stanford student." Dweck described the seminar ....
Read the rest of the article here:
Carol Dweck also shares her work at:
| A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality.pdf | 1.93 MB |
| Young children's vulnerability to self-blame and helplessness.pdf |
For more details on the Brainology online program and try it free for a few days, see :
http://www.brainology.us/
Please note that I can only order in lots of 20, and I apologize in advance if you are among the last 19 people
and I do not have one more to make 20. Anyone can organize this group-buy and I am just helping out the last few in my group by getting more orders to make a final 20-lot :)
