The Misleading Concepts of Grit and Mindset Angela Duckworth and Carol Dweck are both extremely intelligent psychology professors who seem to have recently acquired a common interest: success. More specifically, what led students to succeed in their endeavors instead of giving up. In their respective books, Grit and Mindsets, both women write about two similar theories that could explain this success rate; Duckworth argues that students must be “gritty” and persevere for long-term goals, while Dweck writes that success comes from those who have a “growth mindset” and believe that their intelligence and ability can always grow to do better. Both women argue that talent plays almost no role in success and that success is entirely due to effort. However, as beautiful as the two theories may seem, both contain flaws. Logically, both concepts make sense and most people would like to believe them to be true, but in today's practice, just having a little grit and a growth mindset doesn't lead to immediate success. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The idea of ​​having grit and a growth mindset appeals to most audiences for many reasons. For one thing, they're both still fairly new concepts, something that people like to latch on to and test to see how effective they are. On the other hand, the world is finally able to name what leads to success. Not being able to say why one student ends up more successful than another is frustrating, so obviously being able to say that the more successful person was grittier or had a growth mindset instead of a fixed one is a nice concept to have. However, this does not mean that these concepts are applicable to everyone. For example, in her book Mindsets, Carol Dweck states that those with a growth mindset “could turn failure into a gift” (Dweck 4). He states that these students are always learning and their intelligence is not summarized by a grade. Contrary to his words, schools in America – the country where ideas like grit and mindset are most important – go completely against this idea. Each student is summarized by their individual GPAs. Instead of letting a student retake a test or assignment they failed right away, “we grade using an 'F' for failure when we should use a 'Not There Yet' and allowing them to keep trying” (Mizerny par 7). This type of practice does not encourage students to have a growth mindset to try again, but rather to have their intelligence and mindset fixed by that single assessment. Schools also “encourage speed and competition rather than reflection and collaboration” (Mizerny par 10). There is a high expectation that students will do something well the first time instead of allowing them multiple attempts to better learn the material and encourage their growth. Dweck writes that “you can change your mindset,” but this is nearly impossible to do when you are stunting the growth of your mind by failing without even being able to try again (Dweck 14). According to Dweck, and to an even greater extent Duckworth, effort comes before talent, no matter what. Duckworth's entire thesis in her novel is that “talent is no guarantee of grit” and “what matters is grit” (Duckworth 10). According to his reasoning, “we would all have the ability to be Olympic athletes if we would just focus” (Mizerny par 23). Perseverance alone can only lead to success with help, 108(3), 374–391.