They had about a 15% literacy rate.

And I suspect that if you were to talk to someone who could read back then

and ask them, "What percentage of the population do you think is capable of

reading?" They might have said, " Well, maybe 20%, 25%."

Now you fast forward 400 years, we know that's a wildly pessimistic

prediction or assumption. But it's actually 99.99% of the population

is capable of reading. Well, what similar blinders do we have on today?

So, I'm excited to have Carol Dweck here, one of my personal heroes and

who strongly influenced a lot of the work at Kahn Academy.

Carol, great to have you here.

(Carol) Pleasure to be here Sal.

(Sal) So, so, what I like

to start off with this word: growth mindset.

Which I believe you came up with.

(Carol) Mmhm. (Sal) Um, when did you come up

with that? What was the motivation and what is it?

(Carol) A growth mindset is when

students believe that their abilities can be developed. A fixed mindset is

when they think, "I just have a certain amount and that's it."

(Sal) This isn't just kind of feel good talk,

this is actually based in science, that you actually,

the brain actually does grow stronger, neural connections actually do form

when you struggle.

(Carol) In study after

study we have shown that kids

who have a growth mindset get higher grades. It's not a choice

between the outcome and the mindset. It shows that, if kids engage deeply and

effectively in a learning process, their grades and test scores are a natural

byproduct. Kids who are praised for their intelligence, our research shows,

don't want a challenge afterwards, they don't want to work hard on something, and

if they had difficulty, that's it. We find that when we praise or parents praise

the process the child engages in, their hard work, but not just hard work, their

strategies, their ideas, their focus, their perseverance, then the student

learns these are the ingredients of success. If it gets harder,

I'll just do these things. We've already done work

with you, uh, inserting growth mindset statements before a math

problems, and we found together that kids did better.

(Sal) So one thing that I hope is,

the folks listening to these videos, go out there and tell

their parents, tell their children, tell their peers, tell their teachers, tell

their students about growth mindset. Tell them that their brain grows when

they get a question wrong, when they

struggle, when they look at their errors and

they say, "Hey, that's an interesting!" That you shouldn't be

ashamed of your mistake, that you should view that as something

that is interesting; something to explore. When you do that, you will

actually, physically, form neural connections. Your brain will

actually grow.