Educational philosophy has changed a great deal in the 50 years since I was in school. Back then, for example, I had the highest grades in school, but many of my teachers went out of theirway to cut me down because I wouldn't get conceit. Aside from 1the debated question of whether that worked, the point is that 2today, the educational establishment has the opposite philosophy. They tend to tell all kids they are smart. I have seen elementary schools that most students are selected as "Honors Students." 3 Research clearly shows that if students learn best from their 4mistakes depend on a student's self-perception. Research by Carol 5Dweck and colleagues at Stanford demonstrated that the students who are most likely to learn from their mistakes are those whodon't think of themselves as smart as such and smart enough to get 6smarter. They have a "growth mindset," a belief system they can 7get better if they will just invest in the time and effort. In one of 8the group's experiments, half of students were repeatedly praised 9for "being smart," and these students were not good at learning from mistakes. It is not clear why. Maybe they thought the problem was in the learning material, not in them. The other half of students were praised for effort and improvement and thesestudents got better and made few mistakes. Several months later, 10all students repeated a standardized test, and the "smart" students' scores dropped 20%, while the "growth mindset" students scored 30% higher.