Marita's Bargain By Malcolm Gladwell Analysis

Do you think intelligence is a fixed trait? If you do, then you might be one of many people with a fixed mind-set. In Carol S. Dweck’s an essay, “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids”, she describes fixed and growth mind-sets. She describes how they affect school, and how they affect social relationships as well. The two central ideas of “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids” are that fixed mind-sets can make a person shy away from a challenge and that growth mind-sets can be put into place by parents.

I’m going to tell you how student learn these mindsets. In the 90s parents thought the most important thing that you child should have was self-esteem. But were they messed up is that you cant just hand your kids self-esteem. They took a poll among parents and found that 85% of parents thought that it was necessary to “praise” their children’s abilities to boost confidence. Now were going to talk about growth mindset. These students believe that intelligence is something that can be gained through education and effort. I wish in high school that I would of taken it more serious because now I could have had a growth mindset witch would of helped me out a lot in college. Those students have growth mindsets. They believe that you can gain intelligence through learning. Those with a growth mindset had a very straightforward idea of effort. The idea that the harder you work the greater the outcome is and I think that’s true. When these students had a set back in school they simply just study more or differently next time. That was my biggest set back in high school. Many bright students find grade school fairly easy and get right through it. But later on in life like in college they struggle. They don’t want to put the time into something and feel dumb when they get a bad grade on it. That’s bad because you should never feel dumb about something that you tried your hardest to complete. I hope that this information was helpful

This is important because it’s hard to really see a lot of growth within a time period. In the article, Carol also backs this up with evidence from a controlled experiment. The experiment was focused on the minds of seventh graders and talking to them in a certain way that influenced their mindsets. The seventh graders were split up into two groups and were to work on an eight-session workshop, however, the control group was taught about what a growth mindset is and how it can be applied into their school life. This factor leads to the control group having improved at the end of the semester. This experiment showed that just by knowing about what a growth mindset is and how it could be applied in life, people are more likely to grow more rapidly than people whose minds are fixed on having a limit to their knowledge or skills. This is important because the sooner that kids know how to make their brain think that there are endless possibilities to who they can be or what they can do, the more they are likely to excel in anything that they attempt, not only in school but in their own personal life. This will allow a person with a fixed mindset to be able to change their way of thinking and start to see more about what they can accomplish with their life.

This is a video was posted on the khan academy’s website where the founder, Sal Khan interviews Carol Dweck a professor of psychology, Stanford. The main aim of this interview is to inform all people about growth mindset and how you can grow and challenge it. Deweck described growth

Adding just an extra ten minutes to each class, the new schedule would create the potential for students to have more homework time, lab time, learning time, and/or valuable free time to read for pleasure, relax with music, draw, etc. (Hadfield). Especially as students get older and more involved in extracurriculars and rigorous academic courses, the need for any spare moment to get assignments done, study, or even sleep increases. When this time is unavailable or extremely hard to get, students are more likely to fall asleep in class, miss school due to illness, misbehave, cheat, hand in incomplete assignments, or drop out altogether. The same is largely true for teachers. The more homework turned in by students, the more grading has to be done by teachers who are already exhausted from a long, often repetitive day of work. Therefore, it is important to emphasize the fact that this extra time should not be used to cram in larger quantities of learning standards or homework problems, but rather to enhance the quality of the already demanding school regulations that are in schools

The overall theme of the sources we studied was about growth mindset.The most important thing about growth mindset is that intelligence can be developed. Also, the brain can grow by hard working and practicing. In “You Can Grow your Intelligence,” the author maintains that contrary to the belief that a person is born either smart, average, or dumb, instead the brain is more like a muscle, it changes and get stronger when you use it. Lastly, Carol Dweck, in a Ted Talk titled “ The Power Of Believing That You Can improve,” narrates how she researches about the growth mindset and the fixed mindset, and the benefit of having a growth mindset. Also, in her video she gave many good advice of how you can change a person that have fixed mindset to a growth mindset.

Growth mindset is the cone to an ice cream. It is the foundation of what I think a successful person is. Without it one couldn’t use the characteristics mentioned above in more ways than one. Someone with a growth mindset believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work, brains and talent are just the starting point.

Basically, individuals with a fixed mindset often feel measured by a failure, sometimes permanently. Unfortunately, failed attempts are viewed as a label rather than an opportunity to plan a new path of succes. On the other hand, an individual with a growth mindset views a failed attempt as an opportunity to take action, to confront obstacles, to keep up with their schoolwork, and/or to better manage and organize their time. Growth mindset individuals believe that qualities can be developed, expanded, and eventually result in a successful outcome. A second lesson learned is the power of labels and the stereotype of ability; this lesson is undoubtedly one of the most enlightening. Dweck discovered in one of her studies that, “... ability praise often pushed students right into a fixed mindset, and they showed all the signs of it too. When we gave them a choice, they rejected a challenging new task that they could learn from. They didn’t want to do anything that could expose their flaws and call into question their talent” (72). One’s mindset determines their reaction to labels and stereotypes. An individual with a fixed mindset will settle for a positive label and chose stagnation and permanent inferiority rather than risk losing the label; whereas,

In the article, “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids” by Carol S. Dweck, he states, “The students held hard work in high regard, believing that the more you labored at something, the better you would become at it” (23). What he means by this is that there are students who don’t try in academics or are naturally smart but just lose interest in school. The quote means that students who keep a goal in their mind, the better you will get at it. Dweck also states that “As we had predicted, the students with a growth mindset felt that learning was more important” (23). Again, the quote basically says that students who have a clear mindset on what goal they would like to accomplish, nothing would keep them from learning. Any student can be successful in their own ways, it's just about how they want their mindsets to be. If they have a growth mindset they can accomplish anything if they put themselves to

When it comes to the topic of having a growth mindset, most of us will readily agree that students who are praised are motivated to learn. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of how they are praised. Whereas some are convinced that praising students for their intelligence will motivate them to learn, others maintain that encouraging them for their efforts has a better impact on their motivation.

Many famous people and non-famous people think that they have a growth mindset, because they are trying to go on a diet for an hour in a half or less; they think that they have accomplished an object that is enormous. But what they do not realize is what they are missing. How it can be cruel to not encourage oneself how to avoid the way that you can have a growth mindset over what they have brought out. To add on, not everyone has the push to begin their life as a smart person or looked at as smart, but what they do practice the most is being looked up to. Even though it should not be that way, having a growth mindset can be satisfying.

Gladwell extends by using different types of evidence through noting stories about KIPP students, especially Marita. KIPP students continue to challenge their poor circumstances by accomplishing their goals and exceeding in

The author, Gladwell's, research focuses on KIPP Academy a public middle school in the South Bronx, New York City. Children enrolled in KIPP live in the poorest neighborhoods and are randomly chosen by lottery to join the school. Their goal is for students to acquire an opportunity of education similar to higher class student. KIPP proves that despite their economic situation, students can achieve high academic grades with time and dedication. They believe students should spend more time in school studying to become successful. Students vacations are limited since they make student’s learning procrastinate

Gladwell’s essay about KIPP schools, tells us that it is in a poor neighborhood in New York City and the students that attend there are mostly from financially disadvantaged families and are what is considered, minorities. Although, KIPP is a low-income school it has gone against the negative expectation and is one of the most desirable middle schools. Gladwell is an English-born Canadian author and is a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996, most of his books and articles often deal with implications of research in the social sciences. The essay, “Marita’s Bargain”, was written to inform families

A growth mindset will allow you to develop your talents and abilities through knowledge and mentoring, while maintaining a teachable attitude.