Growth Mindsets

One aspect of Chicago schools I am keen to learn more about is about the mindset of students; are they ambitious?  Do they believe they can succeed?  Teachers at Dame Alice Owen's School are currently investigating the ideas arising from Carol Dweck's Mindset: The new psychology of success, with a view to integrating them into our school's culture.  Dweck is a social psychologist at Stanford University whose extensive research has enabled her to develop convincingly the idea that success arises from effort rather than talent.  I will be interested to see how pervasive this attitude is generally amongst students in Chicago schools but also whether there are cultural norms of the education system that may further enable this attitude to develop.

Going to America

Adam and I are flying to Chicago on May 29th 2010 in order to visit secondary state (public) schools.  We have been kindly invited by Ken Hunter, Principal of Chicago's Prosser Academy.  In addtion to Prosser, we will be visiting Hanson Park, Jorge Prieto, Whitney Young and Notre Dame. We are also excited at the prospect of visiting a KIPP school which staff at Dame Alice Owen's have recently been reading about in Malcolm Gladwell's 'Outliers'.