You will enjoy reading this interview with parent activist Kemala Karmen. She grew up in Louisiana in a family of activists, experienced racial discrimination, and now lives in New York City, where she is active in the Opt Out movement and works with film maker Michael Elliott.
How do we start a revolution and change education for the better for every student?
Start by learning from Kemala.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
She mentioned character development being pushed in schools. There are multiple paternalistic billionaires pushing character development in Los Angeles. One bribed us to use Character Counts! daily agenda planners (not my exclamation point), which are calendars with lessons on building ‘character’. I have been to meeting after meeting in which I was prodded to teach ‘resiliency’ (blue state ‘grit’). I resist. It’s a public school, not a church. I teach my subject matter. It’s a point of my character.
One of my grandsons just completed a humanities course in 6th grade that was devoted to the study of “growth mindset,” aka grit. The class read something by psychologist Carol Dweck.
Dweck, by the way, just won the $3.9 Million Yidan prize established by a Chinese entrepreneur, for her work.
Dweck’s work hangs over Los Angeles like smoke after something important just burned down. It’s everywhere, and smothering. “Mindset” is based on her study of “brainology”. That is not neurology, mind you, but brainology. Brainology is not a thing. She made a word! Brainology’s basic tenant is that a brain is like a muscle, so anyone can be Arnold Schwarzenegger of brains by pumping iron. Do lots of reps. Multiple choice test prep ’till you drop!
Is that Dweck or Dreck?
Or, Dweck, is she dreck!
Diane,
It would appear we’ve disagreed about Dweck. I thought you cited her winning a prize from an entrepreneur as the opposite of a compliment, as I assumed it was an edu-entrepreneur. Oh, well. After reading about her speech in Hong Kong, my mind is changed.
Mine too.
I was ticked off when I learned that my sixth grade grandson was spending six weeks studying growth mindset. I still think it is wrong to have done so. But after I responded to you yesterday, I read what she said and was impressed.
I hope the Common Core fans in my school and district read what you posted. They twisted Dweck’s message into test prep.
I can’t get over the stupidity of teaching metacognition to sixth graders. Vexing.
She also mentioned that the character component of “reform” whether it is called “grit” or “resilience” is mainly about compliance and conformity with autocratic educational practice. There is no evidence that such training will inform other aspects of their lives or their future endeavors.
What the reephormers are hoping for is enough brainwashing of the kids to produce compliant and conformist worker bees eventually, plus enough bedazzlement of school boards and politicians so that they can continue to sell their programs, tests, software, etc, to the schools.
It’s not like they give a rosy rat’s @ss about what’s best for the children.