"Don't worry if you're bad in math, you're a really
great writer."
We've all said something like this
before or heard colleagues, parents, even students portraying themselves as
"good" in certain academic areas and “bad” in others. During
extra curricular activities and in our personal lives we divide ourselves into
athletes, artists, nerds, brainiacs, failures, successes, good kids and troublemakers.
By defining ourselves we define our ability to grow academically and as a
person by putting restrictions on what we can accomplish. Defining ourselves
this way is characteristic of a fixed mindset, a way of thought that for
decades has defined generalizations like boys are good in math and girls are
good in writing.
21st century teaching defies these stereotypes presenting
the opportunity for students, teachers and parents to foster increased
cognitive abilities through a new way of thought, the Growth Mindset.
Researchers studying the brain have
long known that neural pathways are carved into the surface of the brain by
repetitive actions causing habits to be formed. These habits are no more
than fixed pathways for stimulus to travel on, stimulus that make us wake at a
certain time or feel the urge to eat desert after a savory meal. It has
been shown that these neural pathways can be rerouted by changing the
repetitive action, creating new paths and new behavior patterns.
So why is this so important?
In a growth mindset students are taught
to understand that the brain grows with learning making them capable of
achieving more. It’s widely known that students who play an instrument
grow a portion of the brain that remains completely undeveloped in their
non-musical peers! Teaching students that their brains can grow with learning
and that they can become better, even strong in subjects they haven't mastered
produces students who are more motivated to learn, exert more effort and take
charge of their own success
When students focus on improvement instead of worrying
about how smart they are, they become better students, learn more academically
AND learn how to position themselves for success outside of the school
environment.
Studies on growth mindset training,
where students have been taught that they can become better academically through
increased effort and focus on personal growth instead of benchmarks has played
a role in increased performance on standardized tests, in decreasing gender
gaps on performance in math, and academic improvement in racial arenas where
students exhibited an increased enjoyment and value of their schoolwork.
Adopting a growth mindset at your school
may come in many forms. For administrators you might see an honest
response to feedback and a willingness to learn from teachers, parents, staff
and students. For teachers, an increased collaboration with peers and parents,
a desire to strengthen skills and a belief that all students can succeed. For
parents a growth mindset allows us to support our children's learning inside
AND outside the classroom focusing on challenging children and encouraging them to put in the effort they need to grow. Finally, students take charge of
their own success, they enjoy the process of learning more and create a skill
set that will serve them outside the classroom helping them meet challenges
they will face as adults.
Changing from a fixed mindset to a
growth mindset will not be always be easy. Sure there will be pitfalls, failures and frustration as
students strive to master difficult subject areas but the payoff of having
students who are self motivated, productive, confident citizens is so much
greater. So what are you waiting for?
-Laura
-Laura
