Yang’s blog 3: Is math a gift?

Synopsis

Is Math a Gift, an academic paper of Dweck, states a brand new angle that it is not the lack of ability, but the combination of entity belief and stereotype makes girls venerable when face academic obstacle. At the same time, girls who believe talent can be gained through effort aren’t not shown grade trap when meet set back. So it is not the difference of ability but different venerabilities to set back that makes women have lower grades in science classes, as boys are less venerable than girls. So the effort to make girls believe in incremental theory may eliminate the gap between male and female in science class, because people’s ability decreases when they believe they have lower ability. Dweck ends up by arguing we should teach students incremental belief in school, implicating we should ignore the influence of the innate element.

Dweck’s assumptions

There are some uncertainties within the author’s assumptions. First, the author points out a phenomenon: the higher IQ a girl has, the worse a girl does when facing difficulty. Then she points out that only intelligent girl who believes that talent is a gift is venerable to setback. The rest of intelligent girls who believe that talent can be nurtured are not that venerable. Then how did she come up with the first theory that girls with high IQ are venerable, since part of them has been defined as “not venerable” later? Second, Dweck focus on top grade girls’ phenomenon at the beginning, saying that girls with high IQ are more venerable than girls with low IQ. But the following parts are focusing on two types of girls who are defined by different beliefs of talent. The author does not mention the girls have top grades anymore at the rest of her article. She highlights the way to classify girls by their grades at first then follows by a different method as to classify girls by their beliefs to talent. I don’t think the two methods are compatible. Third, she doesn’t point out the reason of phenomenon that girls with high IQ are venerable than girls with low IQ. Forth, Dweck also confuses two variables that have small difference: venerability and lack of confidence. The former part of essay is talking about girls’ venerability while the latter part silently switches the point “venerability” to lack of confidence and implicates that they have the same meanings. These two terms are not same.

Don’t tell the truth can be a correct choice

Well, there are some uncertainties in her article, but also, she puts forward an interesting solution for girls’ venerability which may involve complex social paradox: to conceal the scientific truth may be helpful to promote girls’ performance in math and science. And I generally agree with that. In a modern society, equality and humanity is the main thesis. There is even research showing biological difference between gender, race or even different persons, the equality is always the most important thing. We can indeed see the positive effect of the talent-growing belief to women. We have the reason to believe, when the incremental theory collide with education in school, women’s academic performance will improve rapidly. In my high school in china, teachers told us that hard work can bring good grade. There are more and more girls decided to choose engineering or science as major; they think the major could prove their ability in logic and systematic thinking.

 

Other than gender’s issue, there are many examples shows that keep the research truth may be a better way to improve people’s equality. The judgment of certain group’s ability is not moral. There is some research showing that black people’s intelligence is lower than that of other races. The social effect of these research make public and black people themselves see black people with a low grade as normal thing. However, black people show by their effort that they can succeed in academic fields, Derrick Bell, the first black professor at Harvard University, is a good example. So we can clearly say that speaking out some research studies do harm people. A better way is to encourage them and make them believe there is way to promote their ability.

Conclusion

As a conclusion, Dweck states that girls’ belief of entity theory makes them venerable to setbacks. And she argues to apply incremental theory to education to decrease the gap between grades of men and women. Though there are some shortcomings about Dweck’s assumptions, her solution to decrease the gap of ability of women and men is worth thinking.

 

 

 

Reference:

Dweck, C. S. (2007). Is Math a Gift? Beliefs That Put Females at Risk. Why Aren’t More Women in Science? Top Researchers Debate the Evidence.