On Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and a Growth Mindset by Ava

On Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and a Growth Mindset by Ava - February 2023 Scholarship Essay

“Education means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can only be made free.” - Frederick Douglass in his 1894 speech, Blessings of Liberty and Education.

Frederick Douglass is a figure well-known today, for his courage, his intellect, and his pioneering for freedom for his fellow African Americans. He is a role model for many and his character is fully worth our recommendation and admiration-- but without his education, he would not be remembered. He would not be revered as he is today, he would not hold such a place in our history books. It was his education which enabled him to make the difference that he did.
Douglass was born a slave, already dealt an unfair hand in life. It was illegal for slaves to be taught to read (that essential jump-start to learning, long revered, recently ridiculed in our culture), but Douglass, understanding how important it must be if it was so kept from slaves, found ways: he sat in on the lessons of white children, worked extra in exchange for a few moments of instruction, traced letters in the dust at his feet. Although this dream of reading made Douglass’s life harder, he understood how important it was to grow his intellect. Fixed with a growth mindset, he became an extremely well-learned man with a great impact on our history.
Let’s look at a contemporary of Douglass’s, another man whose growth mindset led to the expansion of his worldview and increased his impact on the nation. Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, didn’t come from a place of privilege and opportunity; born to a poor family in a cabin in the woods, his life, too, was full of challenges. Although the law did allow Lincoln to attend school, often his father did not allow it. He kept Lincoln hard at work, either on their own land or “renting” his son’s work for a fee to others. But, equipped with the same thirst for knowledge and growth as Douglass, Lincoln spent every moment he could with books, mostly teaching himself to read. He consumed the classics and many great intellectual works, pulling himself up by his bootstraps to become enough of a learned and accomplished man that the citizens of America would soon trust his hands with the fate of their homeland.
Today I seek to answer the question, “Which soft skill do you think has the biggest impact on a successful education?” There are none who could say that Douglass and Lincoln’s educations were unsuccessful; both were extremely accomplished, and those accomplishments are celebrated again and again in history. I would argue that their educations are even more successful considering the constant challenges and blocks being set up against them; they were forced to educate themselves, to want to be better so much that they were able to overcome such a difficult challenge as that. How did they overcome this challenge? How did they complete such successful educations? Which soft skill did they display which had such an impact on their education? A growth mindset.
If someone has a growth mindset, they thrive on opposition. They see every setback and challenge as something to help them grow. They seek to better themselves, even when it’s difficult, and they don’t give up. Without a growth mindset, Lincoln and Douglass would never have become the powerful role models they are today. Without a growth mindset, no student-- modern or not-- can truly have a successful education.
An education is not built off of outside help (although that assuredly makes it easier). At the core of it, learning, and hence education, is internal. No one can learn something which they are unwilling to; there’s always distractions they can turn to instead, and if learning that thing isn’t important to them, their mind won’t retain any of it. After all, if you think something is unimportant, what’s the point in remembering it?
A growth mindset requires a desire to learn and grow, even when that is difficult, as it often is. It requires a strong character and powerful vision for the future. A student with a growth mindset will make the most of any education they receive, and if it’s a powerful enough mindset, they will make an education for themselves, like Douglass and Lincoln. Without a true desire to learn for the sake of learning, to grow and become better every day, your education will not be successful, no matter how good you are at time management, at listening, at communicating. No matter how smart you are, you must be willing to use that intelligence and to push through the difficulties of cultivating your mind if you are to have a successful education.
A growth mindset promises just that-- growth. And what is education if not growth?