In January of this year, we conducted the first in a series of parent education evenings at school. The topic of discussion was Carol Dweck's book "Mindset". The purpose of the evening was to establish some understanding of how we can nurture a growth mindset within ourselves; parents and teachers, and also train, teach, coach, and/or inspire our children to develop growth mindsets. Following a ten-minute overview of how the growth mindset has become such a huge player in the education of our children, we watched a recent TED Talk with Carol Dweck, and then separated in groups of five to discuss some prompts regarding he implementation of a growth mindset.
(http://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve?language=en)
A strategy I use for helping develop my own growth mindset, while hopefully cultivating the same in my students, is to understand the power our hearts have in our decision making. When we hear of social and emotional learning (SEL) it so often appears to be related to how children react with other children and how they deal emotionally with their development through puberty. But what about how we emotional react to our learning? Or more importantly, our failings. Failings which in reality are a vital component in the process of learning, yet in our hearts we take them as devastating setbacks, and even more further proof that we are just not good enough. And never will be.
Being told that something we have done is not right, or not good enough, or needs just a little more to make it great can be a painful experience. I have kids come and sit with me to go over their essays or narrative pieces, and while I'm positive and confident that I am going to help the child move on, and give them stellar feedback and advice on how they can improve (at whatever level they are at), they tell me they are nervous and feel sick inside. No gold medals are at stake in 6th grade humanities. Ever! So what's with the stomach cramps? There is an expectation that if it isn't "perfect" the first time, "they" are the failure. Failing is likely, expected, and encouraged. Perfect is not expected, not likely, nor ever encouraged. We aim for "great" and it is expected that we will all get there at some point. And one example of "great" will probably look very different to another. Why? Because we all have our own way of doing things that are great. Eventually. And notice how it is the things we do that are considered great. Not the kids themselves. All kids are generally great (in their own way) but their actions and achievements are not a reflection of them as a person. They are a reflection of the individual skills, efforts, and character strengths that they used to achieve their successes. And it is the character strengths and skills that we can applaud, salute, nurture, develop, and improve through the use of academic challenges.
Let's take a step back for a moment; learning to walk; learning to ride a bike; learning to write. All time consuming, hard to earn successes. But succeed we did. And so did our children.
Does that make us an overall success? No, nowhere near. Does it give us hope that we can succeed in the things we put time, effort, determination, and desire into? Absolutely. So when we fell flat on our face when learning to walk, and we grazed our elbows and knees trying to stay on two wheels, (and don't even get me started on throwing the pencil across room in tantrums of failed cursive) why did we keep going back for more? What made those challenges so inviting that even all that pain and suffering came nowhere close being enough of a deterrent?
Maybe, we felt it in our hearts that they were worthy challenges and valuable enough for us to break through the pain barrier. Logic didn't come into play. The will to win got us through. No fear. No regrets.
So when our students get a little older and move into late elementary and middle school, does all of that knowledge and intelligence built up from the earlier years actually backfire on us, and more importantly, them? When faced with anything that resembles anything of a challenge, an uphill struggle, a slight inconvenience, how come it all falls apart for some children? Their capacity to progress and grow in a particular area suddenly ceases, freezes, and floats dead in the water. Have we developed their ability to think it through too much? The obvious answer here is that they have a fixed mindset. But what does that mean? And how can we move them to a growth mindset?
Well, let's turn the problem around. A fixed mindset means that there is a requirement to develop some key character strengths in the mental and emotional areas. We need some strategies to build academic and skills based confidence. Here are some suggestions for moving from a fixed to a growth mindset:
• We need to build confidence. Confidence; however, is not a character strength in its own right. It requires elements of HOPE, PERSEVERANCE, OPEN-MINDEDNESS, BRAVERY, PERSPECTIVE. and PRUDENCE. Now, we aren't going to get these on Amazon.com with free shipping, so we have put a plan of action together to help our child develop these individual blocks so that they can be forged to create a more confident learner.
• A way to start might be by asking questions about other things they have learned, and other successes they have had in the classroom. How were they achieved, if we are not intelligent? Develop some prudence and work towards the student reversing their "decision" on their apparent incompetence.
• This in turn should develop some hope and optimism; however, we can still build on that hope by explaining that we aren't actually learning anything new here. This isn't an astrophysics doctorate, it's middle school math or language or humanities. The answers are all out there. The freedom to think and experiment and try things out and fail and fail and fail is a rather timeless commodity at that age. But we aren't exploring anything that others haven't found solutions and responses to. It is a hopeful task.
• So with the hope and optimism that we have succeeded in the past and that everything is out there for us to grasp, we now need to develop some perseverance. I like to use the video game analogy here. Set some easy first levels. Let's get some wins on the table. Then throw in something that's going to take some time to work through. Not necessarily difficult, but maybe something with an extra stage of working out or where they may require to use alternative approaches.
• Moving on to developing the strength of perspective; if you don't succeed the first time try, try again. But don't try it the same way as before, otherwise you''ll get the same outcome (cue Mr. Einstein). Different strategies develop different perspectives, and therefore more ways of thinking.
• At this point, I want to stress how time plays a huge part in all of this. Success is rarely achieved overnight; so called overnight successes generally spend several days, weeks, or even months in the dark before coming to light on the morning of their discovery. The same applies to creating a strong successful growth mindset.
• Open-mindedness is something that we can apply throughout this process by asking simple questions like: What if you could understand this? How would you feel? What would it mean to you as a learner? What would your next challenge be?
• Obviously, there is an element of vulnerability with this approach. Talking about possibilities can be like talking about dreams at this age, but we have to talk about being brave. What's the worst that can happen?
In conclusion, the idea of children developing their bravery, or their wisdom in decision making, and giving them something to be hopeful and optimistic about must surely be an easily sell than the actually problem that is hurting them so much. So if we use the problem to build these strengths rather than wish they had the "trick" to solve an individual problem, the character strength developed will be there long after the "stupid math problem that I'm not going need when I leave school anyway" has long since vanished. And with regular "training" these strengths will be there to help overcome larger academic obstacles in the future.
(http://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve?language=en)
A strategy I use for helping develop my own growth mindset, while hopefully cultivating the same in my students, is to understand the power our hearts have in our decision making. When we hear of social and emotional learning (SEL) it so often appears to be related to how children react with other children and how they deal emotionally with their development through puberty. But what about how we emotional react to our learning? Or more importantly, our failings. Failings which in reality are a vital component in the process of learning, yet in our hearts we take them as devastating setbacks, and even more further proof that we are just not good enough. And never will be.
Being told that something we have done is not right, or not good enough, or needs just a little more to make it great can be a painful experience. I have kids come and sit with me to go over their essays or narrative pieces, and while I'm positive and confident that I am going to help the child move on, and give them stellar feedback and advice on how they can improve (at whatever level they are at), they tell me they are nervous and feel sick inside. No gold medals are at stake in 6th grade humanities. Ever! So what's with the stomach cramps? There is an expectation that if it isn't "perfect" the first time, "they" are the failure. Failing is likely, expected, and encouraged. Perfect is not expected, not likely, nor ever encouraged. We aim for "great" and it is expected that we will all get there at some point. And one example of "great" will probably look very different to another. Why? Because we all have our own way of doing things that are great. Eventually. And notice how it is the things we do that are considered great. Not the kids themselves. All kids are generally great (in their own way) but their actions and achievements are not a reflection of them as a person. They are a reflection of the individual skills, efforts, and character strengths that they used to achieve their successes. And it is the character strengths and skills that we can applaud, salute, nurture, develop, and improve through the use of academic challenges.
Let's take a step back for a moment; learning to walk; learning to ride a bike; learning to write. All time consuming, hard to earn successes. But succeed we did. And so did our children.
Does that make us an overall success? No, nowhere near. Does it give us hope that we can succeed in the things we put time, effort, determination, and desire into? Absolutely. So when we fell flat on our face when learning to walk, and we grazed our elbows and knees trying to stay on two wheels, (and don't even get me started on throwing the pencil across room in tantrums of failed cursive) why did we keep going back for more? What made those challenges so inviting that even all that pain and suffering came nowhere close being enough of a deterrent?
Maybe, we felt it in our hearts that they were worthy challenges and valuable enough for us to break through the pain barrier. Logic didn't come into play. The will to win got us through. No fear. No regrets.
So when our students get a little older and move into late elementary and middle school, does all of that knowledge and intelligence built up from the earlier years actually backfire on us, and more importantly, them? When faced with anything that resembles anything of a challenge, an uphill struggle, a slight inconvenience, how come it all falls apart for some children? Their capacity to progress and grow in a particular area suddenly ceases, freezes, and floats dead in the water. Have we developed their ability to think it through too much? The obvious answer here is that they have a fixed mindset. But what does that mean? And how can we move them to a growth mindset?
Well, let's turn the problem around. A fixed mindset means that there is a requirement to develop some key character strengths in the mental and emotional areas. We need some strategies to build academic and skills based confidence. Here are some suggestions for moving from a fixed to a growth mindset:
• We need to build confidence. Confidence; however, is not a character strength in its own right. It requires elements of HOPE, PERSEVERANCE, OPEN-MINDEDNESS, BRAVERY, PERSPECTIVE. and PRUDENCE. Now, we aren't going to get these on Amazon.com with free shipping, so we have put a plan of action together to help our child develop these individual blocks so that they can be forged to create a more confident learner.
• A way to start might be by asking questions about other things they have learned, and other successes they have had in the classroom. How were they achieved, if we are not intelligent? Develop some prudence and work towards the student reversing their "decision" on their apparent incompetence.
• This in turn should develop some hope and optimism; however, we can still build on that hope by explaining that we aren't actually learning anything new here. This isn't an astrophysics doctorate, it's middle school math or language or humanities. The answers are all out there. The freedom to think and experiment and try things out and fail and fail and fail is a rather timeless commodity at that age. But we aren't exploring anything that others haven't found solutions and responses to. It is a hopeful task.
• So with the hope and optimism that we have succeeded in the past and that everything is out there for us to grasp, we now need to develop some perseverance. I like to use the video game analogy here. Set some easy first levels. Let's get some wins on the table. Then throw in something that's going to take some time to work through. Not necessarily difficult, but maybe something with an extra stage of working out or where they may require to use alternative approaches.
• Moving on to developing the strength of perspective; if you don't succeed the first time try, try again. But don't try it the same way as before, otherwise you''ll get the same outcome (cue Mr. Einstein). Different strategies develop different perspectives, and therefore more ways of thinking.
• At this point, I want to stress how time plays a huge part in all of this. Success is rarely achieved overnight; so called overnight successes generally spend several days, weeks, or even months in the dark before coming to light on the morning of their discovery. The same applies to creating a strong successful growth mindset.
• Open-mindedness is something that we can apply throughout this process by asking simple questions like: What if you could understand this? How would you feel? What would it mean to you as a learner? What would your next challenge be?
• Obviously, there is an element of vulnerability with this approach. Talking about possibilities can be like talking about dreams at this age, but we have to talk about being brave. What's the worst that can happen?
In conclusion, the idea of children developing their bravery, or their wisdom in decision making, and giving them something to be hopeful and optimistic about must surely be an easily sell than the actually problem that is hurting them so much. So if we use the problem to build these strengths rather than wish they had the "trick" to solve an individual problem, the character strength developed will be there long after the "stupid math problem that I'm not going need when I leave school anyway" has long since vanished. And with regular "training" these strengths will be there to help overcome larger academic obstacles in the future.