4/22/12 5:46 PMEducation Nation: Is “Accountability” Undermining American Education?

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Is “Accountability” Undermining AmericanEducation?Carol Dweck //Apr. 9, 2012 // 4:39 PM

What is education for? Is it for pouring facts andformulas into students’ heads, or is it for creatinglearners?

At its best, was the U.S. educational systemknown for producing memorizers and test-takersor was it known for producing innovators?

I think we can agree that we want to createlearners and innovators—people who seekchallenges, stretch to learn new things, andbounce back from (or are even energized by)setbacks. If this is what we want, we are going about it in exactly the wrong way. High stakes testingmay in fact be creating the very opposite in our students.

My research shows that an environment that emphasizes evaluation and testing creates a fixedmindset. That is, it sends the message that intellectual abilities are fixed and that the purpose ofschool is to measure them. Students come to see school as the place to look smart and, above all,not look dumb—not a place to create and learn. A fixed mindset also breeds low effort (becausestudents believe that high effort advertises low ability,) and poor reactions to difficulty (because theybelieve that difficulty also reveals low ability.) These are not the habits of people who achieve orinnovate in adulthood.

Growth mindset environments, in contrast, portray intellectual abilities as skills that are acquired notinborn, and put the focus on the learning process. When students are taught a growth mindset—when they are taught that every time they stretch themselves to learn hard, new things, their brainsmake new connections and over time they can get smarter—their motivation to learn increases,their desire for hard tasks increases, and their resilience in the face of difficulty increases. Eventheir achievement test scores increase—because they want to learn, not because they drilled for thetest all year. Plus, when students are taught a growth mindset, girls stay in math and students fromunderserved minority groups earn higher grades.

Now, everybody’s talking about Finland, the country that nearly tops the charts in reading, science,and math on PISA (the Programme for International Student Assessment,) a standardized testgiven to 15-year-olds around the world. But guess what? They don’t really care. Here’s what arepresentative from their Ministry of Education says: “We are not much interested in PISA. It’s notwhat we are about.” Instead he says, “We prepare children to learn how to learn, not how to take atest.”

Quote after quote from educators in Finland communicate a growth mindset and the idea that allchildren, no matter how much they may now be struggling, can master difficult material. Theuniversally shared motto of Finnish educators is “Whatever it takes.” As Smithsonian magazinereports, if one method fails, teachers consult with their colleagues to try something else. And itworks. Out of every country in the world, Finland has the smallest gap on PISA between thestudents at the top and the students at the bottom.

To be sure, Finland has worked hard to increase the prestige of teachers, heighten their selectivity,

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4/22/12 5:46 PMEducation Nation: Is “Accountability” Undermining American Education?

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and give teachers extensive preparation and support, and these are certainly factors in the Finnishmiracle. But my money is on the growth mindset as a key ingredient. Finnish educators recognizethat a focus on growth and learning is critical not only for success in school but also for success intoday’s wildly unpredictable world.

Educator Milton Chen tells of a colleague who was in India, when an Indian educator questioned herabout the American practice of high-stakes testing. As she explained the policy, the Indian educatorsaid simply, "Here, when we want the elephant to grow, we feed the elephant. We don't weigh theelephant."

Have we as a country confused weighing with feeding? I believe we have and in the process wehave undermined young people’s desire to learn and their capacity to innovate. It’s time to rebuildthe growth mindset culture, with its emphasis on tackling the unknown to grow our abilities anddiscover new things. This is what made America for so long the hotbed of creativity and innovation.

Carol Dweck is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University andauthor of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

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