MINDSET: The New Psychology of Success

Okay, back to that article about "Mindsets" and how we respond to failure at http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/marapr/features/dweck.html. SOme folks at school were so inspired by it that our professional development folks got us a copy of Dweck's book, _mindset THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY OF SUCCESS_.
Yes, right now I am noticing that the title is all lowercase, the subtitle all caps.
I was very inspired by the article, and the book came in hours before we departed for the holidays. I am working on a Comprehension Companion for the Midwife's Apprentice and I decided that it would be a great idea to stop and read the book as inspiration, because a strong theme in that book is that not giving up is much more important than success.
The book has many (MANY MANY) anecdotes to illustrate "fixed" mindset as opposed to a "growth" mindset. Then there are questions at the end of chapters to guide us in thinking with that growth mindset and arresting the fixed one.
I'm afraid, though, that I can't say it was inspiring; rather, that I felt like the guy in the airline ad who's asking for the next flight out because of the absurd role-playing exercises he's being subject to. The exercises and anecdotes aren't absurd, but they were consistently oversimplified and delivered in "rah-rah" amateur motivational speaker voice.
There were some interesting anecdotes & research references along the way. I strongly identified with the idea that fixed-mindset folks pay attention to their *grades* more so than the comments on how to improve; the growth mindset folks, vice versa. Fixed mindset folks, when getting a poor grade on a test (tho' the details as far as how and why that happened - was the situation manipulataed? If so, how many of those folks knew it... I am picturing the typical Psychology Student Participation in Research exercises where you know you're being manipulated but hey, it's easier than writing a paper and this person needs their degree) ... when these poor performers were allowed to look at everybody else's tests, the FMs looked at people who did worse than they did "so they could feel better" (though the source of this attribution is undisclosed), while the GMs looked at tests of people who did well.
These stories could be useful to me in my teaching and tutoring, and I have to say that the target, based on the back-of-the-book blurb, *is* the person wanting to know about shifting the mindset.
At one point I wondered if this book wasn't a "textbook example" of How COmmercialism Has Contaminated Academia. "Brainology" - their program for middle schools to shift the mindset - was touted. So, not only was research being presented in a highly-processed-food kind of way, rife with the intellectual equivalent of high fructose corn syrup, but there was Product Placement and, I speculated, perhaps a dose of "don't say too much in this book or they won't buy product X."
ON the other hand, I visited the Brainology site before and it seemed to me that they were offering the fruits of years and years of work for dirt cheap, as would people who cared more about Getting Good Things To Students than making a buck. This is different than stuff I see with "yea, it's expensive - get a grant!" stamped all over 'em. I also love the idea that teachers can be learning how they can steer those mindsets; how praise doesn't always make the good stuff grow, but it can if we think about how to do it. That's why I wonder if the author would have written this differently in a different time.
Basically, the book didn't have much more meat than the article - and you have to eat a *mess* of filler to get to it. However, one woman's filler is another woman's protein. I'd read the first chapter befoer buying - if the first chapter inspires you, go for it; it builds in the same direction.
When I'm back on a campus, I'll see how much of the research I can read... and now, back to that Comprehension Companion...