I recently listened to an audiobook that was recommended by a friend, so I decided to give the book a review on my blog as it did somewhat apply to homeschooling.
The book title was Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. The author was Carol Dweck.
This book is based on years of research by the author on the power of the mind over our lives and what causes different mindsets. She proposes that there are two mindsets, what she calls the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. The fixed mindset, according to her, is very bad, and the growth mindset is very good. She spends the first chapter developing why she believes this and then she spends the remainder of the book giving examples of people that she thought had the fixed mindset and the ones she thought had a growth mindset. She has a chapter on sports, a chapter on education, a chapter on business, a chapter on family and more. I found her theory to be very interesting and I really enjoyed the first chapter. However, I got really weary of all of the examples. I just wish she would have spent more time talking about how to change from the fixed mindset to the growth mindset and a lot less time on stories.
I did take a few pointers from the book though that I have been trying to apply in my home. I would like to help my children develop growth mindsets about everything and not be stuck in a fixed mindset about anything. And when I’ve been facing challenging situations, I’ve been trying to evaluate if I approach things with a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. I think, unfortunately, that I have a bit of each, but I’m going to set out to change that.
So I guess, I’d give the book three stars out of five. If I had only read (I mean, listened to) the first chapter, I think I would have given it five, as I enjoyed the first chapter so much more than the rest of the book.