Growth Mindset

If you ask me if I prefer to live with limited options versus a world with unlimited possibilities, the answer is easy for me: I choose the unlimited options of the growth mindset. I had the great opportunity of reading Carol Dweck’s book and reflect about it back in August (Growth Mindset), and my life really changed in the personal level and in my work.

I was raised in a mixed mindset family. We were encouraged to try our best in sports and get better so I guess that was growth mindset. On the other hand, my father was a genius so I always felt that there was not even a chance for me to get on his level, so I didn’t even try and I was not encouraged to. It was what it was. I always grew up believing that I had certain amount of intelligence and that was it. I can see now how I did the same thing to my own kids, and I regret not knowing about the growth mindset before. I decided that my kids were not socially good, or they were not good at math, or a lot of little things, and that was not fair. After I read the book, I started changing my thinking and they way I talked to them, and I could see how they became more open to my ideas, and I could feel how they felt that freedom too.

In my school it has been very interesting too. Two of my coworkers saw that I was very passionate about this topic and asked me for the book. One of them returned it to me and told me that she was going to buy it because she saw the benefits of this philosophy. I discovered that my principal loves the growth mindset and we have shared ideas on how to implement it. The other teachers in the team have heard us talking about it and I can tell that they have been researching about it because they now use the vocabulary and pull out resources with information about it.

With my learners the process has been a mixed of responses. I work with second graders so I depend a lot on how the parents are on board or not. Adding to this, the district has to follow the TEA expectations so we finally have to accomplish certain standards by the end of the year.

At the beginning of the year, I made a presentation to the parents about how this idea works. They looked a little bit confused, but they seemed to be on board. My partner and I created a celebration day where we recognize any improvement, and that has been very powerful. We see most of the kids working hard to become better at reading, math, writing, or different skills according to their goals. Furthermore, they are open to feedback because they don’t see it as a bad thing, but as a chance to know how they need to improve.

But, we have had some other problems. We haven't found a way to motivate all of the kids. Specially those kids whose parents don’t respond to school. We have other kids whose parents do everything for them, so you can see how those kids are scared to try anything because failing is not an option for them. Besides, when grades go home, even though, my students are improving, they are not where they have to be so the grades are not there yet. I think growth mindset is the best option but the stress is there when the numbers come and are low. Sadly, the standards don’t measure the growth, they just want all of the kids to be at a certain place.  

It has only been eight months since I learned about growth mindset but I really believe that is the best way to differentiate education because it has in mind every kid’s needs, rhythm, expectations, and goals. The ideal world would be that the standards were aligned with this but that is not the case so the stress will still be there. My intention is not to pass that stress to the kids and just motivate them by guiding them on how to get better. The final goal should be to stimulate our students to learn how to learn, become independent, and get better at whatever they want.

References:

Dweck, Carol S.. (2008) Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Ballantine Books.

Ragan, T. (2018, October 31). How to build a growth mindset.  [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=20&v=V7XjFTrPl6o