education
The problem with praising kids for their innate intelligence—the “smart” compliment—is that is misrepresents the neural reality of education. It encourages kids to avoid the most useful kind of learning activity, which is learning from mistakes. Unless you experience the unpleasant symptoms of being wrong, your brain will never revise its models. Before your neurons can succeed, they must repeatedly fail. There are no shortcuts for this painstaking process.
How We Decide (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009), 53–54.