A second experiment involved 82 ninth graders who were starting algebra I in a high school in a middle-class neighborhood in California. Teachers had found that kids who haven’t passed this class by the end of their freshman year tend to drop out of school, in part because most academically oriented students are already in algebra II by this point. The researchers wanted to find out if teaching the kids that effort matters and intelligence is not fixed at birth would make a difference. To make sure they weren’t simply teaching optimism, they taught one group that intellectual ability can grow
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