Yeah, you read that right. I read growth mindset books to my students. In fact, they’re picture books. I started teaching right as the Growth Mindset movement was hitting schools. I was a HUGE fan of it, especially being a child of what I believe to be the failed self-esteem movement. The self-esteem movement lets every kid believe that they can be whatever they want to (which is true), but it leaves out the most important factor – work. No kid can grow up to be the President of the United States just by willing it to happen. And that is where Growth Mindset comes in. The movement is coined by Carol Dweck and essentially says that you can train your brain to learn whatever you want, if you believe that you can do it. Making mistakes is good for your brain – it’s how you learn.
Using “Yet” in my Classroom
As a science teacher, I was 100% on board with the thought of “mistakes make you smarter.” That’s kinda what science is all about. Most of the time, scientists are writing and publishing papers about how things didn’t go according to plan. I mean, Thomas Edison created 10,000 light bulbs before he created the one that he was proud of.
So as a teacher, I wanted to get the concept of Growth Mindset to be a forefront in my high school classroom. I started with “yet.” Getting my students to adopt the new mindset, meant I’d have to get them to believe that they could learn anything with some amount of time and hard work. They simply didn’t understand it “yet.”
The Science Behind Growth Mindset
“Yet” worked for a while. But when I was ready to take it to the next level, I wanted to teach my students about how the brain worked. This concept of “you can learn anything with time and hard work” is backed by science. I started my school year by sharing my struggles with organic chemistry and read them the Growth Mindset picture book entitled Your Fantastic Elastic Brain. In this book, it teaches, at a 3-4th grade level, about the parts of the brain as well as the connections these parts of your brain make when learning new things.
I believe this is an excellent way to start the year because it immediately removes skepticism about Growth Mindset. When you are able to present this information, from a scientific standpoint about the literal structure of the human brain, it makes it very difficult to refute. After we read the book, the students have some questions to answer about their own mistakes and learning. Many of my students are school athletes or musicians, so when it comes to muscle memory (even typing on phones) they understand what Growth Mindset is really about.
But then the school year moves on. I let them retake tests. I create a culture of self-assessment where students begin to value learning over their grades. (Podcast episode on this topic coming next week) And we do our best to maintain the mindset. But it’s hard because chemistry is so hard. The kids are working SO HARD and many don’t see the results they would like to. For many of my students this is the first science class that they have to actually study for and work REALLY hard at. For this reason I bought three more growth mindset books to read at the start of each quarter.
Growth Mindset Reminders Throughout the School Year
I always begin second quarter with The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes. Which pretty obviously is about a girl who never makes mistakes. Until she does. She learns how to handle them and learns from them. This comes in right on time for my students who got off to a bad start and are looking to go into quarter two with a fresh slate.
For third quarter we read After the Fall which is about how Humpty Dumpty deals with his fear after falling off the wall. It’s another morale boost for my students. Humpty Dumpty literally shattered his life when he fell off the wall and seeing how somebody, anybody, even a personified egg can come back from something as devastating as that is pretty remarkable.
But What if My Students are Doing Well?
Now I don’t read all of these Growth Mindset books to my high school students for the sake of chemistry. Some of them ROCK THE CHEMISTRY HOUSE, but they may not be rocking it in math, or history, or their PSAT scores, or the sport they play. And this is something I bring up when we read. These books aren’t about chemistry, and they aren’t necessarily for chemistry. They are for life. We all get knocked down from time to time. Sometimes more devastatingly than others. It’s important that we learn how to dust ourselves off and try again. I may be a chemistry teacher, but my job is to help these kids grow up to be confident adults that can take the world by storm. This is one of the small ways I do it.
Growth Mindset and Self Esteem
At the beginning of fourth quarter, I read Jabari Jumps which is about a boy who is afraid to jump off the high dive at the pool, but finally musters the courage to do it. I know that this is a topic that any person can get some inspiration from, but I think especially with high school students this Growth Mindset books is especially important. My students mean so much to me. The idea that they aren’t confident in their talents or their abilities literally makes me well up with tears. Unfortunately, this is so common with teens.
Every one of these kids is incredible for a multitude of reasons. And the last book I read them is about overcoming fears and doing the things you want to do. Even if that thing is just as small as jumping off the diving board. The messages I leave with my students every single year is that I love them. And they really can do anything they put their minds to, provided they do the work.
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