As Carol Dweck has stated, “It becomes a basic human right for children, all children, to live in places that create that growth…to live in places filled with yet.” Students have always inspired me in their ability to rise to the level of expectations set before them.
In my PK/ECSE classroom, we have affirmations to keep my 3- and 4-year olds engaged and motivated during an activity. Students are encouraged to “Kiss Their Brain” (thank you, Dr. Jean), to point at themselves and say “I can do challenging things”, “I am my best when I Stay Strong”, “I am not there yet, but I am fabulous for trying”, “This is tough, but I am tougher”, “I will never give up”. Visitors often laugh when they hear preschoolers say such things with me, but then leave impressed when they overhear what they say on their own. While a student couldn’t recognize the letter sound, he responded “I’m just not there yet, right.” Or the student using self-talk as they recited “never give up, never give up” as they try to add one more block to the top of their structure. It is not just the power of instilling a Growth Mindset and the Power of Yet in our students and colleagues that matters. It is that we should model, reinforce, and guide that we can do all things if we put effort into it and exhibit grit. Right? Is this enough?
Duckworth researched who is successful and why in her pursuit to better understand how we can improve learner outcomes. She discovered that grit was one shining indicator of success. She went further to ask, how does one build grit? And surprisingly to me, she responded with “I don’t know”. To me, we build grit through relationships and values that we instill in our classroom community of learners. We build grit in our relationships with our colleagues during PLCs encouraging others to get comfortable with the uncomfortable.
It won’t happen overnight and in fact, it may (in all honesty) not happen at all. The journey to get there may lead us to a path we would not have taken otherwise. I have come to realize that I find myself developing a deeper meaning to my previous outlook on Growth Mindset. I realize I fell into the “false growth mindset” Dweck had reflected on. I would tell my students “great effort” even when they were consistently missing the mark. I became a champion of giving them a false sense of heightened self-esteem with no academic growth attached to it. Did my words match their actions? Was I simply praising the mere fact that they had answered? Yes, I was lulled into being content that they answered, they participated. It takes more than that.
I had become complacent with collecting dots, but not ensuring they were making those connections between participating and internalizing concepts to produce that meaningful growth. It is about continually working through what makes your classroom tick. I pride myself in always having a mentality that there is no other option for my students, but to solve problems within our classroom. As a special education teacher, I have heard my share of educators approach me with “Who put this kid in my classroom?” ; “He needs someone to come in and sit by him”. These are by no means a knock on any of the educators who uttered these words. It’s on all of us, really. We need to develop programs and strategies that meet the needs of our learners.
The goal may be to not look for the point when it all seems to line up and we are on auto-pilot. The goal may be to constantly evolve and become accustomed to the chaos of change. We need to not just expect our students to collaborate amongst each other, but our colleagues to collaborate those solutions and strategies essential for student growth.
References:
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York, NY: Random House.
Dweck, C. (2020, December 1). Carol Dweck Revisits the “Growth Mindset” (Opinion). Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/opinion-carol-dweck-revisits-the-growth-mindset/2015/09
Duckworth, A. L. (2013, May 09). Grit: The power of passion and perseverance. Retrieved July 3, 2019, from https://youtu.be/H14bBuluwB8
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