A new study published in PsycNet, the bulletin of the American Psychological Association, reviews the research on “growth mindset” and whether it improves students’ academic achievement. The meta-analysis was conducted by B.N. Macnamara and A.P. Burgoyne.

I was particularly interested in reading this review because one of my grandchildren spent what seemed to be an inordinate amount of time in middle school reading about and discussing “growth mindset.” It reminded me of the book I used to read to my children when they were very young about “The Little Engine That Could.” As it struggled to go up a steep mountain, it said to itself, “I think I can, I think I can.” I didn’t realized at the time that I was teaching my children to have a “growth mindset.”

Here is the abstract:

According to mindset theory, students who believe their personal characteristics can change—that is, those who hold a growth mindset—will achieve more than students who believe their characteristics are fixed. Proponents of the theory have developed interventions to influence students’ mindsets, claiming that these interventions lead to large gains in academic achievement. Despite their popularity, the evidence for growth mindset intervention benefits has not been systematically evaluated considering both the quantity and quality of the evidence. Here, we provide such a review by (a) evaluating empirical studies’ adherence to a set of best practices essential for drawing causal conclusions and (b) conducting three meta-analyses. When examining all studies (63 studies, N = 97,672), we found major shortcomings in study design, analysis, and reporting, and suggestions of researcher and publication bias: Authors with a financial incentive to report positive findings published significantly larger effects than authors without this incentive. Across all studies, we observed a small overall effect: d¯ = 0.05, 95% CI = [0.02, 0.09], which was nonsignificant after correcting for potential publication bias. No theoretically meaningful moderators were significant. When examining only studies demonstrating the intervention influenced students’ mindsets as intended (13 studies, N = 18,355), the effect was nonsignificant: d¯ = 0.04, 95% CI = [−0.01, 0.10]. When examining the highest-quality evidence (6 studies, N = 13,571), the effect was nonsignificant: d¯ = 0.02, 95% CI = [−0.06, 0.10]. We conclude that apparent effects of growth mindset interventions on academic achievement are likely attributable to inadequate study design, reporting flaws, and bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

I draw the conclusion that reading “The Little Engine That Could” is as effective as growth mindset.

Opponents of gun control won an important decision in New York State a few days ago, when a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against the part of a state law that restricts carrying guns onto someone else’s private property without their consent, as well as restrictions of carrying a gun in parks or on a public bus. Once again, the gun lobby protects the right to kill.

The Buffalo News reported:

A federal judge in Western New York has granted a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the “private property exclusion” in the state’s new gun control law that includes an attempt to ban carrying firearms on all private property unless the property owners consent, as well as in places like parks and public transit.

The lawsuit was brought by two local gun owners and two national Second Amendment rights organizations in September in response to legislation passed during an emergency session this summer after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down New York’s existing concealed carry law, which required applicants to prove why they needed to carry a firearm.

In a 27-page ruling, U.S. District Court Judge John L. Sinatra Jr. with the U.S. District Court in Buffalo wrote that the state may not interfere with the Second Amendment rights of “law-abiding citizens who seek to carry for self-defense outside of their own homes….”

The two gun owners, John Boron of Depew and Brett Christian of Cheektowaga, and the Las Vegas-based Firearms Policy Coalition and the Second Amendment Foundation of Bellevue, Wash., have said the state law prevents lawful gun owners from carrying firearms in most public places.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a historian at New York University abd a scholar of fascism. She wrote the following for MSNBC. Readers of this blog will not be surprised to read her assertion that DeSantis is no better than Trump, and may even be much worse, given his insistence that there is only one right way to teach, act, and think—and he decides what it is. I think of him as DeFascist.

She writes:

If DeSantis is becoming many Republicans’ answer to their “Trump problem,” his rise is because of his authoritarian sympathies and attitudes, not in spite of them. He promises a more “respectable”-seeming version of illiberal rule than the baggage-laden outrage specialist that is Trump. No wonder dozens of billionaires backed him even before his November re-election….

But let’s be clear: The man whom Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post celebrates as “DeFuture” would, in fact, continue Trump’s relentless attempts to turn back the clock on social progress in America by silencing and disenfranchising tens of millions who don’t fit into Republicans’ white Christian vision for the nation.

DeSantis has made Trump’s lines, and lies, his own.

From his education bills that ban the teaching of critical race theory in public schools to his crusades against commonsense public health protocols like mask mandates, DeSantis has made Trump’s lines, and lies, his own. His preference for ideology over science (his surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Lapado, has spread misinformation about Covid-19 prevention) had tragic consequences for Floridians.

Who can forget DeSantis mocking children who wore face masks? Or firing an elected county prosecutor who defied DeSantis’ hatred of abortion? Or endorsing extremists for school board races? Or spending millions to dupe Venezuelan migrants to fly to Martha’s Vineyard with false promises of jobs?

He may be worse than Trump because Trump was a fool. DeSanctis has the potential to be a fascist, unafraid to impose his personal views on everyone, using the power of government.

Club Q is a gay bar that is known in Colorado Springs for the vivacious entertainment it provides, most notably drag shows where men dress up as women and perform. Lots of people enjoy the fun of drag shows, and they are not necessarily gay. As you no doubt have read, a man barged into Club Q, armed with an assault rifle and other guns. He began blazing away. Five people were killed, and another 20 were wounded and hospitalized.

The toll would have been far higher were it not for the instantaneous reaction of Rich Fierro, a combat veteran who was attending the drag show with his wife, daughter, and friends. When he heard the gunfire, he went into combat mode, pulled down the killer, and pummeled him with his own gun.

In an interview at his house, where his wife and daughter were still recovering from injuries, Mr. Fierro, 45, who left the Army in 2013 as a major, according to military records, described charging through the chaos at the club, tackling the gunman and beating him bloody with the gunman’s own gun.

Richard M. Fierro said he was at a table in Club Q with his wife, daughter and friends on Saturday, watching a drag show, when the sudden flash of gunfire ripped across the nightclub. His instincts from four combat deployments as an Army officer in Iraq and Afghanistan instantly kicked in. Fight back, he told himself.

“I don’t know exactly what I did, I just went into combat mode,” Mr. Fierro said, shaking his head. “I just know I have to kill this guy before he kills us.”

Without Fierro’s immediate intervention, there would certainly have been more fatalities. In 2016, a shooter entered the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and murdered 49 people.

Of the five who died, three were gay or transgender, and two were straight. Club Q was a fun place until the killer arrived.

When the next mass shooting occurs, there may not be a combat veteran available to tackle the shooter. It may happen in a classroom, an auditorium, a bar, anywhere.

Thanks to the National Rifle Association, the Republican party that takes orders from the NRA, and the Supreme Court, which recently struck down state laws that were intended to limit access to high-powered guns or concealed guns, we are all targets. Nowhere is safe.

But let’s give discredit where discredit is due. The Republican Party has skillfully turned anything related to LGBT+ into a huge issue. “They” are coming for your children. Do not say what they are. Do not acknowledge their existence. Pretend they don’t exist. Deny medical care to transgender people and threaten to punish parents who seek it and physicians who offer it.

Crass politicians like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott speak of gays, lesbians and transgender people as the enemy of our righteous social order. DeSantis passed a law forbidding the acknowledgment of such people in K-12, even if they happen to be gay. Books about gay love and gay life are banned. Anything related to gay life is stigmatized as evil. For years, we have heard a steady public repetition of slurs, slanders, and obscenities directed at trans people, as though they were responsible for everything that has gone wrong in our national life.

The seeds of hatred and murder were planted by politicians who treated gays as “less than.” Twisted minds hear the incitement and think they will be celebrated if they kill these enemies of the people.

DeSantis, Abbot and other politicians who have demonized people who are transgender and who are LGBT have blood on their hands.

Words have consequences.