Florida’s rejection of 42 math textbooks for including “prohibited” topics obscures a more nuanced and important issue: Decades of educational research are colliding with American views about freedom and morality.

The books were rejected for including newly prohibited topics like social-emotional learning and critical race theory. At a recent news conference, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis proclaimed that “Math is about getting the right answer. . . . It’s not about how you feel about the problem.”

Yet educators point to a huge body of research showing that how students feel about a math problem is indeed critical.

American education used to pair content with character, and most of us would agree that both are the foundation for success. As agreement on core values has eroded, however, teachers find themselves in the crosshairs of a new political battle that pits the role of emotions in learning — and especially learning to think for yourself — against desires to control the content students are learning. Should school be more about the process of learning how to think, or about content, correct answers and what to think?

Research tells us that confidence and mindset are the result of how we talk to ourselves about what happens to us. Confidence and optimism are temporary and constantly need to be constructed: If we tell ourselves that our missed catch, social blunder, sales error or wrong answer is personal, permanent and pervasive (what psychologist Martin Seligman calls our “explanatory style”), then we are less resilient and more likely to give up.

When a student gets one of those wrong answers that concern the Florida governor, how they think about it is actually critical. Those with what Stanford’s Carol Dweck calls a “growth mindset” see that wrong answer as an opportunity for learning and growth — and that mindset opens a door for more of that growth.

If you believe you can make yourself smarter, stronger or better, research says, you can.

Students with a “fixed mindset,” however, believe that intelligence, skill and talent are fixed, and every failure just confirms the limits of their ability. They believe they can’t make themselves better, and that belief becomes self-fulfilling.

Read the full article about Florida's textbook bans by José Antonio Bowen at The Hechinger Report.