Competency and Motivation - Part 6
Nurturing a Growth Mindset
When we teach children to have a growth mindset, we are teaching them to approach life positively, expectantly, and hopefully. To a child with a growth mindset, life poses one opportunity after another. They are confident in what they can do. There is no time to blame people or circumstances. There is no time to be a victim. As we discussed last month, the children with a growth mindset have been taught to respond to challenges by rolling up their sleeves and getting to work. Improvement and growth are right around the corner.
Central to this perspective, is teaching children to be problem solvers, not accepting challenging situations passively. Let me illustrate by letting you in on one of my delightful little secrets: I love hearing children’s excuses for why their homework is not turned in or why their work is not done very well. Talk about creativity!
My students are typical. They have a fixed mindset and so they do not yet understand that whenever their performance falls below an accepted standard they can adjust themselves and get better. Instead, they either blame their circumstances or complain about their lack of ability. The more I ask for reasons for their performance, the more they squirm and stretch the truth, looking for some excuse that will somehow pacify their unrelenting teacher. I have my favorites, of course, but the scenario is always same. I ask for homework or class work, and like a skilled lawyer, the negligent student pleads his case.
Once, in my language arts class, Joey’s litany of excuses almost made me laugh. It’s challenging to get little boys to write, but I expect my young students to be able to respond to a classroom writing assignment with an essay of about 300-350 words. When Joey did not do the assignment as I requested he offered his explanations, pausing hopefully after each attempt to gain acceptance: “I didn’t know what to write (I can talk incessantly in class but I can’t write). I’m not a good writer, but look, I wrote three sentences; isn’t that enough? (don’t you understand that I carefully calculated how little I could do yet let it get by your merciless eyes?). . . I lost my pencil (my upper middle-class household had no other writing utensil). . . I was out of paper and my Mom (now he lets his Mom share some of the blame) didn’t have any gas in the car (now it is also the car’s fault) so we couldn’t drive to Walgreen’s for more paper. I forgot my homework notebook at school. . . I didn’t write down the assignment in my homework notebook (as though this was the fault of some mysterious force in the classroom). Jenny (the little girl in class who does everything correctly) wouldn’t tell me what the assignment was (as if he actually asked her and it was her responsibility).”
You get the idea
My response is consistent. I know that mere scolding doesn’t do much, so let’s problem solve; let’s fix this and not make excuses. Let’s exercise a growth mindset.
First, we untangle the convoluted story and identify the real cause. It takes awhile because the last thing Joey wants to do is to assume responsibility. But once we locate the root cause – he did not write down the assignment correctly during class – we are halfway to the solution. We come up with two or three strategies to avoid this same mistake, and set our plan into action.
I have taught too long to believe that this one effort will solve Joey’s problem, but it’s a start and we will have to run through similar scenarios in the near future. But I do know that this is the only way I can help Joey develop a growth mindset and readily face the little problems in his life. He needs to become a problem solver. Face issues. Then systematically seek viable solutions. It will take time to forge a growth mindset, but it will give children an edge throughout life.
By Charles Debelak
