Hi there;
Here is the second of the guest blog posts from our terrific Fall 2015 Faculty Inquiry Group, a collaboration between college and elementary faculty. This post is by Mareena Robbins. (I
keep wanting to write these great and complimentary bios of our writers because they deserve accolades, and
then I stop myself: the stories speak for themselves).
Best,
Rachel
How to Kill a Growth Mindset in 3 Easy Steps
This year I had the opportunity to move back into a 5th Grade classroom. I have some experience in teaching and was looking forward to the chance to work with all students. In my previous position as a Gifted Talented Facilitator, I had discovered and promptly fell in love with the work of Carol Dweck, renowned Stanford psychologist and author of Mindset. In Mindset, Dweck tells us of her discovery of individuals who crave a challenge, who look forward to learning and strive to get better, no matter the cost. Failure is just information that these people can use to make change, get better, and grow. These individuals have a Growth Mindset. She also introduces us to individuals who have a Fixed Mindset. The fixed mindset believes that people are born with talent and equate effort with a lack of talent. Fixed Mindset people want to LOOK like they know all the answers; they avoid a challenge because they might fail. Failure is a message about them as a finished product.
The work of Dweck was and is profound for me. It made so much sense in explaining the behavior I saw from many of my gifted students. So many of my gifted students were so fearful of making a mistake! To my gifted students, who have been told they are smart often over the years, the LAST thing they want to do is make a mistake. They want to preserve their smartness. How? They have to continue to be perfect because if they make a mistake, they aren’t smart anymore. When I discussed Growth Mindset with the gifted students, they immediately recognized Fixed Mindset in some of their approaches. My GT students understood that continuing to have a Fixed Mindset would inhibit their learning and joy of learning.
As I made my way back into the classroom, I was anxious to introduce Growth Mindset to my class. I knew that my 5th Graders would embrace the Growth Mindset ideology as my former students and I had done. I thought I had the silver bullet, the answer to all of education’s frustrations. Well maybe not all of them….but a good handful! Which leads me to my first mistake…..
Step #1 for Killing Growth Mindset...Expecting your enthusiasm to be contagious.
I am enthusiastic person. I get excited about stuff. Sometimes I don’t recognize WHY others don’t get as excited about stuff as I do. When I introduced Growth Mindset and how excited I was...well...they just didn’t seem to care. It was defeating. I was hurt. Then I reflected about why kids might respond in this way.
In order to get kids to understand and appreciate Growth Mindset, I should have given them time. As an educator facing the harsh reality of moving all kids forward, I am constantly trying to change and adapt to fit the needs of my students. For me, I see myself as being in control of change. Change and flexibility are a part of my job duties. For many 5th Graders, they see the world as having control over them. Some don’t have the perspective to see how the learning that they do now will affect learning later. They may not completely understand the connection between the right mindset and success.
My Growth Mindset takeaway? I need to give kids time to embrace the Growth Mindset. It takes time to change thinking. It takes time to see results from a change in thinking.
Step #2 for Killing Growth Mindset...Failing to build community.
Since I had known many of my students from my previous position within the school, I kind of skimmed over community building activities that I KNOW to be an important and integral part of developing a learning community. I mean, I know these kids, right? I had spent 3 years with a good portion of them. Doing a bunch of community building would be a waste of instructional minutes, right? (It is okay if you are rolling your eyes….I am rolling them at myself!”) If you are thinking WRONG...you are thinking correctly. To embrace a growth mindset, you must be able to evaluate yourself, admit your shortcomings and be willing to change. Those things cannot happen unless a safe learning environment is cultivated. I didn’t take the time to let that happen.
My Growth Mindset takeaway? A safe learning environment must be cultivated and preserved in order for children to feel safe enough to analyze their own mistakes.
Step #3 for Killing Growth Mindset...start with the science.
The most effective way to kill a growth mindset is to lecture about the science of mindset rather than modeling a growth mindset with real life examples. I truly believed that the students would be as excited about growth mindset science as I was. I jumped in with a powerpoint about Dweck’s data and what it proved about the concept of Growth Mindset. I looked expectantly at my brand new class. Crickets. Nothing. My students didn’t give a hoot about my presentation!
After a brief period of reflection, I realized my mistake. I started with the science when I
should have started with the real-life examples. The author uses Michael Jordan as evidence of a Growth mindset. Starting with a super star would have given the idea of growth mindset a concrete reality. By starting with the abstract, I lost interest...and of course...buy-in.
My Growth Mindset takeaway? Introducing growth mindset as a trait of their sports heroes, musical idols, etc. makes the growth mindset seem like a secret for success rather than the hard grind that it essentially is.
As I reflect about the obvious failure of my implementation of Growth Mindset in my 5th Grade classroom, I realize that I have a definite place to start with my students next year. And perhaps I didn’t do as poorly in teaching Growth Mindset as I had feared. Just yesterday I heard a student say, “That is isn’t a mistake; it is an opportunity to learn!” Growth mindset in action!
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