In her renowned TED talk, “The Power of Yet”, Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck espouses the virtue of “yet”, describing a school with a grading system that includes a category for “not yet” instead of a fail:
“If you get a failing grade, you think, ‘I’m nothing, I’m nowhere.’ But if you get the grade ‘not yet’, you understand that you’re on a learning curve. It gives you a path into the future.”
Social media jumped on this idea. Many translated Dweck’s words to mean that we simply need to add the word “yet” to every negative statement students make about themselves.
It’s become an appending catch-cry:
I don’t get it … yet.
I can’t do it … yet.
This doesn’t work … yet.
It doesn’t make sense… yet.
I’m not good at this … yet.
Even Sesame Street jumped on the “Power of Yet” bandwagon.
For me, there is a little problem with this fixation with the word “yet”.
By highlighting the word “yet”, the focus shifts from what the learners are to what they are becoming. It helps them to be less concerned with “the now” and more concerned with what they must do to improve. Essentially, Dweck wants students to take action to change themselves.
The problem is when we focus on the “yet” and overlook action. Learners must act to achieve growth. The power of yet is not what leads to improvement. It’s the power of yet combined with effective effort.
The “Power of Yet” isn’t to be dismissed. As Dweck points out, the Growth Mindset and the word “yet” give students a path into the future.
However, I think we can do better than “not yet”. The more positive alternative is, “what’s next?”
When we focus on what we are going to be next instead of what we aren’t yet, we more clearly carve out Dweck’s “path into the future”.
“What’s next?” makes our learner's environment positive. It emphasizes the skills, ideas and competencies that students will master next. It carries the positive presupposition that there are things the students have already mastered.
When Dweck coined the phrase “not yet” to encourage a Growth Mindset, she was advocating the need to show students a pathway to future learning. But when it comes to positive reinforcement and encouraging students to act, “what’s next?” is the more powerful alternative.
-Melissa Strout
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