I always thought that I was too sensible for fads. Then I realised that purposefully avoiding anything fad-like was itself becoming a fad: I was just another teen becoming a devotee of the fad of fad resistance. The realisation sent me into a spiral of existentialist angst, which itself was becoming a bit of a fad when I was in my late teens - we were the emo kids, after all.

So it’s no wonder that I have always had sympathy for Carol Dweck, the Harvard professor behind growth mindset theory. Like me, she has seemingly failed to escape fad status no matter how hard she has tried - and she has tried, repeatedly. I have interviewed her many times over my nine years at Tes; every time, she has attempted to find a route out of the latest fad cul-de-sac she has found herself trapped down.

Of course, she is not entirely blameless for this, but neither are the rest of us. It’s human nature: we long to believe in the simple things that have a veneer of niceness. Like a child who suspects that Father Christmas is not real, we don’t ask too many questions because we know that if we scratch the surface, that nice feeling might stop.

The thing is, in the long run, asking questions and delving deeper has only helped growth mindset theory. As Alex Quigley details in his column this week, growth mindset has become gradually more interesting as more questions have been raised.

But, of course, that is not what many of those calling it a fad intended - they wanted to crush it out of existence. For me, they’re as problematic as the evangelical devotees. Deciding something is a fad based on limited evidence is as bad as suggesting it is the saviour of education on the same data. What we need is nuance.

Standing in the way of that is time. Limited time to make a difference for young people forces teachers into one of two corners when new ideas emerge: a) if we wait and see, what if we miss a chance to make a bigger difference to these young people we are teaching right now? Or b) if we jump in, what if we make things worse for these pupils, and they never get a chance to get that time back?

This situation is a result of the nature of teaching. I read a tweet recently in which a teacher recited the names of the children in a class she taught 20 years ago. That teacher was heavily invested in every single child. If that teacher had not implemented growth mindset and it had proved to be game changing, she would have been crushed. If she had implemented it and it turned out to be a load of rubbish, she would have been distraught.

Teachers so often feel they have to choose a corner and stick to it, because admitting they were wrong would be to admit failure and succumb to a lifetime of guilt. It’s not just growth mindset where we see this, it is with most things in education and it explains the endless dichotomies we see.

We need to change that. As Quigley says, any intervention is a small part of a “complex, interrelated approach”. We should worry less about single missteps and focus on a broader effort of getting things as close to right for as much time as possible.

Or, as emo favourites Jimmy Eat World put it: “Just try your best, try everything you can. And don’t you worry what they tell themselves when you’re away.”

@jon_severs

This article originally appeared in the 18 June 2021 issue under the headline “In the nuance of education fads, we find a true teaching dilemma”