Identity as a Learning Disability

Two recent articles on identity's effect on learning caught my eye.  Both seem to lean toward the possibility that Identity inhibits learning when it focuses more on what I am (we are) than on what I do (we do) ... ontology vs. action/telos.

• "Why Do Some People Learn Faster?" - Wired blog post discussing a new study showing that academic accomplishment is increased by praising effort and inhibited by praising ability.  My reaction: seems like more fallout from a century-old societal shift  from Christian skepticism about fallen humanity to secular optimism about human perfectability.  For more, see Freud , John Dewey, the birth of modern progressivism.  The therapeutic mindset, so strange barely a 100 years ago, is now so pervasive as to be invisible.
• "Can Everyone Be Smart At Everything?" - KQED covering much of the same ground.

This is one of those topics that quickly becomes a lightening rod for all kinds of noise. I suspect it's  not productive to allow culture war issues associated with identity to detract from the task at hand.  As someone who loves to create stories (and despite my antipathy towards pragmatism as a worldview), I liked this quote from a recent Peggy Noonan column:

"Here's the problem: There is no story.  At the end of the day, there is only reality.  Things work or they don't.  When they work, people notice, and say it."