I have seen schools across the country working long and hard to embed a commitment to the unlimited development of every student into their cultures. The result, in terms of motivated learners and test scores, often is spectacular. Carol S.

Belief in growth becomes self-fulfilling

Most of us grew up in places where potential felt fixed. You were either a math person or you weren't, creative or not, destined for college or destined elsewhere. That framework becomes self-fulfilling—if you believe you can't develop something, you stop trying. Dweck's observation about schools that genuinely commit to growth reveals something we rarely talk about: when institutions actually believe students can improve, students start believing it too. The shift isn't miraculous or even that complicated. It's just consistent.

What's striking is how this works in reverse at most places. A student struggles with algebra, gets told "you're just not a numbers person," and suddenly failure becomes identity. But schools that embed real belief in development—where struggle is treated as information, not verdict—see kids who stay engaged when things get hard. They become curious about their mistakes instead of crushed by them.

The practical side matters too. This isn't just feel-good philosophy showing up in higher test scores. When you're not burning energy defending a fixed sense of yourself, you have energy left for actual learning. That's why Dweck's observation rings so true: the spectacular results she describes aren't mysterious. They're what happens when the adults in a system genuinely believe people can grow, and then organize everything around that belief.