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I had heard of Carol Dweck and the growth mindset concept in passing, but I didn't know any details. Everything in the videos made complete sense! I have always found it odd that children are expected to learn at exactly the same speed, and the children who fall behind are shamed and discouraged. Meanwhile, the kids who pick up specific things a little faster than their peers are expected to stop once they've reached a specific plateau of learning, then wait around to be guided to the next one. I believe that some very intensive and wide ranging changes need to be made to our educational system, and incorporating a growth mindset into all aspects of learning would vastly improve it on every level. The videos reminded me of lessons that I learned the hard way about failure and perseverance. As a child, I had an intense fear of failure. School was always easy, so when I faced a difficult challenge, I felt that failing would be the end of the world. It was a sort of perfectionism, I suppose: If I couldn't do it perfectly, why bother doing it? It took a lot of real life failure, in situations that were far more consequential than the classroom, to realize that failure doesn't hurt, not in any way that's lasting. It's just something to be learned from, even if the only lesson you learned was not to do it exactly that way next time. Learning that changed me; it changed how I approached life, and how I interact with other people and the world around me. I guess it made me braver...I just wish that I'd learned that lesson earlier.
What a great graphic, Nancy! I feel really lucky teaching online that people don't have to do all the same things at the same pace, etc. etc. like in a traditional classroom. And you have captured what is to me the real power of the growth mindset: it works for all learners across the achievement spectrum, whether you find school truly hard (and therefore frustrating) or whether you find school very easy (and so you get frustrated if/when you are challenged). I always call myself a "recovering perfectionist" ... and I think that is probably true for a lot of us who become teachers. When I was in school growing up it was grades grades grades all the time... but as a teacher, I am so glad I can say, hey, wait, can we try something different? And online, there really are ways to do things differently. Thank goodness!
ReplyDeleteBetter late than never! I kind of had the same mindset about not attempting something because I thought it was better to not even try than fail, but I learned that is definitely not the best way to do life. I agree that failure is just a lesson to be learned. I’m glad we finally know how to use this approach even though it took a while to learn this type of growth mindset.
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