Limitless Mind. Jo Boaler

of being labeled as gifted, with a “math brain,” and the ways this fixed labeling led her to drop the subject she loved. This could be repeated with any subject—English, science, history, drama, geography—anything. When you are valued for having a brain that you did not develop, one you were just given at birth, you become averse to any form of struggle and start to believe you do not belong in areas where you encounter it. Because of my field of specialty, I have met many people who have dropped out of STEM subjects because they thought they did not have the right brain, but the problem is not limited to STEM subjects. It comes about whenever people are led to believe that their intellect is fixed.

      Although I decry the labels given to students—of giftedness or the opposite—I do not maintain that everyone is born the same. At birth everyone has a unique brain, and there are differences between people’s brains. But the differences people are born with are eclipsed by the many ways people can change their brains. The proportion of people born with brains so exceptional that those brains influence what they go on to do is tiny—less than 0.001 percent of the population. Some have brain differences that are often debilitating in some ways, such as those on the autism spectrum, but productive in other ways. Although we are not born with identical brains, there is no such thing as a “math brain,” “writing brain,” “artistic brain,” or “musical brain.” We all have to develop the brain pathways needed for success, and we all have the potential to learn and achieve at the highest levels.

      Bestselling author Daniel Coyle, who has spent a lot of time in “talent hotbeds,” agrees. He has interviewed teachers of the most “talented”—the people Coyle describes as having worked in particularly effective ways. Their teachers say that they see someone they regard as a “genius” at a rate of one person per decade.²⁴ To decide that 6 percent of students in every school district have a brain difference that means they should be siphoned off and given special treatment is ludicrous. Anders Ericsson has studied IQ and hard work for decades and concludes that the people regarded as geniuses—people like Einstein, Mozart, and Newton—“are made, not born,” and their success comes from extraordinary hard work.²⁵ Importantly, we should communicate to all students that they are on a growth journey, and there is nothing fixed about them, whether it is called a “gift” or a disability.

      We are no longer in the fixed-brain era; we are in the brain-growth era. Brain-growth journeys should be celebrated, and we need to replace the outdated ideas and programs that falsely deem certain people more capable than others, especially when those outdated labels become the source of gender and racial inequalities. Everybody is on a growth journey. There is no need to burden children or adults with damaging dichotomous thinking that divides people into those who can and those who cannot.

      The idea that women have to work hard to be successful whereas men are naturally brilliant was a notion I myself encountered in high school—not from my math teacher, but from my physics teacher. I remember it clearly. It was at the time when all students took a practice exam, known as a “mock exam,” in preparation for the high-stakes exam all students take at age sixteen in England. Eight students—four girls and four boys—received borderline scores, and I was one of them. At this point my physics teacher decided that all the boys had achieved their scores without trying, but all the girls had achieved their scores from working hard—and so they could never do any better. As a result, he put all the boys in for the higher exam and the girls were entered for the lower exam.

      Since I did hardly any work in high school (I was bored a lot of the time from just having to memorize facts) and skated by with minimal effort, I knew he was wrong about the girls having worked harder. I told my mother about the teacher’s decision based on gender. My mum, being the feminist she was, complained to the school, so they grudgingly put me in for the higher exam, telling me it was a stupid risk on my part, because the only grades given for the higher exam were A, B, C, or failing. I said I would take the risk.

      Later that summer I received my result—an A. I was fortunate that I had a parent who got the sexist decision the teacher made overturned, and countering his thinking gave me a reason to work especially hard for the exam. The unfortunate impact for me, however, was that I decided I would not go any further in physics. I just did not want any more to do with the man (who was the department chair) or the subject.

      Luckily, I did not receive such sexist dissuasion in math, and some of my best and highest-level math teachers and professors were women. I chose to take advanced mathematics instead—I took all the sciences at advanced levels except physics. This is an example of the particularly insidious impact that men like my physics teacher have when they limit pathways based on gender (or race or other characteristics).

      A group of young women recently shared with me their experience of approaching their mathematics professor with a question after one of their first classes at a top university. When they asked their question, the professor said it was too basic and they should take a class at the local community college. The women, all African American students, decided at that moment to leave STEM subjects for good. They had experienced enough of these messages and, like many other students before them, they walked away.

      Mathematics is, of course, not the only subject that fuels damaging ideas about who can achieve. Art, English, music, sports—all of these are areas where students are initially interested until they begin to struggle and decide they don’t have the right kind of brain (or body). In all cases when students get these damaging ideas, some portion of their future potential is foreclosed. And not only in school. Fixed ideas about potential impact their work lives as well.

      I have now talked with many professionals who tell me that before they learned about brain science, they were too nervous to offer ideas in meetings, in case they were wrong, and they were always living in fear of being judged. This is not surprising, as we have grown up in a fixed-brain world that judges everyone on their “smartness.” Many of us have grown up feeling judged for everything, often feeling “not good enough” and worrying about being found out. When people let go of fixed-brain ideas, they become unlocked, especially when they combine this knowledge with other findings from neuroscience that we will explore shortly.

      Workers suffer the effects of fixed-brain thinking, but often managers do as well. Managers in companies are just as likely to write off an employee as not having a good brain or being smart enough. If, instead, managers saw the limitless potential of the people they work with, they would talk to them differently and open up opportunities rather than close them down. Instead of deciding that some workers are of limited value, managers might decide that they could be given different opportunities for learning—some may need something to read or study or build (more on this in later chapters). This would change the ways many companies operate and empower many more employers to create important ideas and products.

      The first step in living a limitless, unlocked life is to know brains are constantly reorganizing, growing, and changing. Remembering that every day of our lives, we wake up with a changed brain. In every moment of our lives our brains have opportunities to make connections, to strengthen pathways, and to form new pathways. When we face a challenging situation, rather than turn away because of fear of not being good enough, we should dive in, knowing that the situation presents opportunities for brain growth. As we start to recognize the huge implications of the adaptability of our brains, we will start to open our minds, and live differently. The key information that will enable our new pathways and approaches to be enhanced further will be shared in the remaining chapters.