Head of School Ann V. Klotz, and Lisa Damour, director of Laurel School’s Center for Research on Girls.
Perhaps you’ve noticed the oval,
green magnets on cars around town
emblazoned with the word “YET”.
Those magnets are the creation of
the Center for Research on Girls (CRG)
at Laurel School. Head of School Ann V.
Klotz, the founder of CRG, explains: “It’s a
way we talk to our girls about persevering.
When they don’t experience success right
away, we’ll say, ‘You haven’t gotten it yet.’”
That may seem simple and
straightforward, but the idea for CRG’s
YET campaign is actually grounded in
rigorous academic research, most notably
by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck. In
2007, Dweck published the results of a
two-year study she’d conducted at a New
York City middle school. She showed that
the students who had what she termed a
“growth mindset” were more successful in
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math than students with what she called
a “fixed mindset.”
“It’s brilliant work,” says Dr. Lisa
Damour, a Shaker resident who is the
director of CRG. “And it’s a clear idea that
makes sense.” Basically, Dweck discovered
that there are two kinds of students: those
with a growth mindset, who believe that
with hard work, they can improve at math
or reading or anything else – including
in non-academic areas – and those with
a fixed mindset, who believe that there’s
no improving on the talents they were
born with. It’s the difference between:
“I’m just bad at math and I always will be,”
for example, versus “If I work harder at
math, I’ll get better at it.” Not surprisingly,
growth mindset students are, on the
whole, more successful.
YET, then, distills Dweck’s groundbreaking
work into one word that reminds
Laurel students, faculty, and parents to
stick with a growth mindset, a concept
that is taught to the independent school’s
students starting around fifth grade.
As Klotz notes, magnets are practical
and can carry simple but meaningful
reminders. “I feel that everything we do
that is going to be successful needs to be
able to be a magnet to help remind you
– in that moment, with your child – that
this is how to do it.”
Building Bridges Translating academic research such as
Dweck’s into a form that’s practical for
Laurel’s community has been the goal of
CRG from its founding.