La clave: ¿la habilidad o el esfuerzo? (consejos para estudiantes)

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Sigo con "consejos para estudiantes"; esto es tomado del blog orgtheory.net, un artículo de Carol S. Dweck:

http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2007/12/06/you-definitely-need-more-than-talent/

"(...) I developed a broader theory of what separates the two general classes of learners—helpless versus mastery-oriented. I realized that these different types of students not only explain their failures differently, but they also hold different “theories” of intelligence. The helpless ones believe that intelligence is a fixed trait: you have only a certain amount, and that’s that. I call this a “fixed mind-set.” Mistakes crack their self-confidence because they attribute errors to a lack of ability, which they feel powerless to change. They avoid challenges because challenges make mistakes more likely and looking smart less so. Like Jonathan, such children shun effort in the belief that having to work hard means they are dumb.

The mastery-oriented children, on the other hand, think intelligence is malleable and can be developed through education and hard work. They want to learn above all else. After all, if you believe that you can expand your intellectual skills, you want to do just that. Because slipups stem from a lack of effort, not ability, they can be remedied by more effort. Challenges are energizing rather than intimidating; they offer opportunities to learn. Students with such a growth mind-set, we predicted, were destined for greater academic success and were quite likely to outperform their counterparts.

We validated these expectations in a study published in early 2007. Psychologists Lisa Blackwell of Columbia University and Kali H. Trzes niewski of Stanford University and I monitored 373 students for two years during the transition to junior high school, when the work gets more difficult and the grading more stringent, to determine how their mind-sets might affect their math grades. At the beginning of seventh grade, we assessed the students’ mind-sets by asking them to agree or disagree with statements such as “Your intelligence is something very basic about you that you can’t really change.” We then assessed their beliefs about other aspects of learning and looked to see what happened to their grades.

As we had predicted, the students with a growth mind-set felt that learning was a more important goal in school than getting good grades. In addition, they held hard work in high regard, believing that the more you labored at something, the better you would become at it. They understood that even geniuses have to work hard for their great accomplishments. Confronted by a setback such as a disappointing test grade, students with a growth mind-set said they would study harder or try a different strategy for mastering the material.

The students who held a fixed mind-set, however, were concerned about looking smart with little regard for learning. They had negative views of effort, believing that having to work hard at something was a sign of low ability. They thought that a person with talent or intelligence did not need to work hard to do well. Attributing a bad grade to their own lack of ability, those with a fixed mind-set said that they would study less in the future, try never to take that subject again and consider cheating on future tests".

Creo que de esto podemos sacar lecciones valiosas. Siempre he creído que la inteligencia como virtud está sobreestimada. En la vida universitaria y académica la inteligencia ciertamente es importante; pero creo más en el trabajo, la perseverancia, la humildad. Además, ellos pueden ayudar a desarrollar la inteligencia. La inteligencia sin trabajo y perseverancia queda en la promesa de algo que nunca llega a realizarse, a concretar. Pasecitos, huachitas, pero sin remates y sin goles. Sin humildad, sin reconocer nuestras limitaciones, nunca las superaremos.

Como dice el artículo, sobreestimar la inteligencia o entenderla como algo innato, que se tiene o no se tiene, hace no valorar el esfuerzo, hace temer la posibilidad de equivocarse (porque eso demostraría que no se tiene aquello que no se puede adquirir), lo que inhibe el arriesgarse y experimentar. Acaso por eso estudiantes brillantes no terminan haciendo sus tesis, o satisfaciendo las expectativas que despiertan. Y terminan cubriendo sus falencias con palabrería u otras coartadas, un arte que sí descansa en una suerte de habilidad innata. Lo importante no es tanto aprender, sino parecer inteligente; lo que lleva a no exponerse a situaciones donde uno podría mostrarse tal cual uno es en realidad, lo que lleva a buscarse un entorno mediocre. Aquí lo mejor es ser la cabeza de ratón.

Por el contrario, entender correctamente que es la práctica la que hace al maestro, lleva a esforzarse, trabajar, y avanzar sobre la base del ensayo y el error. No hay que tener miedo a equivocarse. Lo importante es aprender de la experiencia. La cosa es producir, atreverse, a veces acertaremos y a veces nos equivocaremos, pero a la larga avanzaremos. La cosa es perseverar, buscarse un entorno del cual uno pueda aprender, es decir, buscar a quienes son mejores que uno, no iguales o peores. Es mejor ser cola de león. Así es como se avanza.

Digamoslo así: por ejemplo, la mejor experiencia al asistir a una conferencia no es escuchar cosas de las que uno ya sabe, o constatar que uno conoce y está al tanto de los términos del debate; es cuando uno descubre la magnitud de su ignorancia; cuando uno descubre territorios totalmente inéditos, caminos totalmente inimaginados. Ese es el momento en el cual uno empieza el aprendizaje.

Esto que funciona para los estudiantes funciona también para uno, y para los colegas, ciertamente.

COMPLEMENTO:

Eduardo Dargent me recomendó leer un artículo del NYT que viene a cuento: ¿qué tipo de estudiantes y qué tipo de habilidades promueve el sistema educativo? Esos estudiantes con esas competencias, ¿son los que se necesitan para enfrentar nuestros problemas? Se necesita inteligencia, trabajo, disciplina, pero también independencia, sentido crítico, iniciativa... "Perhaps it’s simply impossible for a top-down memorization-based elite to organize a flexible, innovative information economy, no matter how brilliant its members are".

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/opinion/04brooks.html?ex=1197435600&en=5c7d3c6f0877c735&ei=5070&emc=eta1