The Four Steps

I have been reading about the Growth Mindset in Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset,  and it has inspired me to push harder to stifle my fixed mindset and nurture my growth mindset in my personal and professional life.  I am fortunate that the school district in which I am teaching has already started to expose teachers to the Growth Mindset idea, so I have a little background experience with using the Growth Mindset in my classroom.  

The idea is that there are two mindsets.  The fixed mindset is the voice that makes us want to stay where we are; to not take risks, and tells us that we really can’t change our trajectory in life.  The growth mindset is what spurs us to try new things, and to move beyond our comfort zone, even if we make some mistakes, because that’s necessary for growth.  

As teachers, we want our students to adopt that growth mindset because we want all our students to learn and grow, and to develop the perseverance it takes to move beyond obstacles.  This is crucial to success in life.  However, we all have students who have a very fixed mindset, and you can identify those by their reluctance to try, or to take risks.  The saddest ones are the ones who have just given up, because they think they will never be able to achieve.  The growth mindset is so important because growth in education is not a passive thing.  All learning starts with the willingness to try.  Every teacher will tell you that we can’t just educate our students — we can only put the information and the opportunities out there, and our students have to willingly take in the information, learn it, and actively participate in the experiences we provide them.  And yet, students get locked into patterns of low achievement that they can’t seem to break free from, teachers and schools are punished for student lack of growth, and so many of us (students and teachers) feel we are locked into this pattern for good.  But, the reality is that it doesn’t have to be this way.  By adopting the growth mindset in our own classrooms and encouraging it in others, we can bring about real change in the educational system, starting with our students.  Students with a growth mindset will embrace learning, and understand that it is a process that sometimes involves making mistakes, and even failure, before we reach our goals.  

My favorite thing about the Growth Mindset is the catchphrase, “Yet.”  It’s such a tiny word, but it carries with it such empowerment.  By adding the phrase “yet” onto the end of a statement, you can change its meaning, entirely.  In my classroom, one of the most repeated complaints is “I can’t draw.”  But add the word, yet, and this complaint becomes the beginning of a plan:  “I can’t draw YET.”  I am creating a large piece of artwork for my room that simply says “YET” and I will point to it whenever a student complains.  “I don’t know how to draw a horse… yet!”  

I also want to find a way to incorporate this word into my professional development sessions.  I see a lot of teachers who are just getting technology for the first time and are very hesitant to learn to use it.  Teachers will walk into the room and before they’ve even said hello, will cross their arms and say “I don’t even know why they gave me this iPad.  I haven’t even taken it out of the box.”  This resistance to try new things used to really get under my skin because why would anyone keep such a fabulous resource in the box?  But now I am looking forward to someone saying that at my next session, so I can point to the huge, beautiful YET I’ve drawn on the whiteboard.  Then I will get them to open the box, and maybe turn the thing on, and we’ll celebrate that growth, because just doing that simple thing is growth.

Carol Dweck has outlined four steps to changing your fixed mindset to a growth mindset on her website.  Though I have been familiar with the Growth Mindset concept for a while, I am new to her four steps, and I have been using them to try and deal with my fixed mindset when it comes up.  The first step is to learn to hear your fixed mindset “voice.”  I am starting to see that it is also a good idea to learn when your fixed mindset is most likely to start talking for you.  For me, that usually happens when I am tired and/or stressed-out.  When I am feeling stretched too thin, I know that my fixed mindset might come out, so I try to keep my stress levels low and get plenty of sleep, especially when I know I have a challenging task coming up.  

Secondly, she recommends that you recognize that you have a choice between a fixed and growth mindset.  This reminds me of a time I complained to a friend that I was so stressed out about something that I was going to lose my mind.  She put her hand on my shoulder and said, “but you don’t have to.”  That was a breakthrough for me because I realized at that moment that I could feel any way I wanted to, and I did not need to lose my mind.  When my fixed mindset tells me that I am going to fail, I will hear in my mind my friend telling me, “but you don’t have to.”  

Next, Dweck recommends that you talk back to your fixed mindset with a growth mindset voice.  I have already implemented this with my students by creating a series of posters that take typical fixed mindset statements (like “I can’t draw”) and replaces them with growth mindset ones (like, “I can draw if I keep practicing.”)  These posters help my students by giving them a reminder of the growth mindset, but they help me, too, when I am feeling that fixed mindset come out, and I need a reminder to turn it around.

Lastly, Dweck suggests that you take the growth mindset action.  You can think anything you want to, but if you choose the growth mindset action, you will be moving in a growth direction and away from the fixed mindset way of life.  And as you feel more growth and success in life, you will find it easier to move past those fixed mindset challenges.    

I would like to incorporate these four steps into my professional development offerings.  Just incorporating these four steps into our practices as teachers would go a great way toward changing the culture of our schools.  If every teacher who attends one of my sessions would teach their students these four steps (and to recognize both fixed and growth mindsets), the impact on the school culture in my district would be huge!  

It is easy to find resources for Growth Mindset to help nurture your growth voice.  I’ve found that many of my favorite movers-and-shakers in education are people who echo the growth mindset in their own attitudes toward education.  One of my favorites is Sir Ken Robinson.  My favorite TED Talk of his is “Do Schools Kill Creativity.”  Though the title, itself, is about a very fixed mindset that schools tend to have, his presentation uses a Growth Mindset to point out what schools ought to be.

I also want to promote the Growth Mindset in my schools.  One of my schools, in particular, would benefit from this the most.  This school is an inner-city school with a lot of poverty, and all the problems that come with it.  This school gets a lot of bad press, has been through a lot of turnover, and students, teachers, and administrators all tend to have a very fixed mindset view of our situation.  But, this is a beautiful, new building, with many young teachers who want to change the way we do school, and we have an amazing new principal who wants to turn the school around in some really huge ways.  As an Apple Vanguard Coach, I conduct professional development sessions for teachers, and I would really love to start a Growth Mindset initiative for this school.  I can also model it in my own classroom, but because I really don’t have much contact with other teachers, that will only help somewhat.  

I have to thank the Growth Mindset for even going back to school.  I had to quit grad school in 2006, and for a long time, I really believed that my opportunity to reach this goal had passed me by.  It was only after I started using the Growth Mindset on my own that I started working toward completing a lot of my life goals that I had sort of written off for a long time.  I plan to use the Growth Mindset to help me through the challenges of this higher degree program, especially since I am a Mom and a working teacher, and it is such a challenge just to go back to school.  There will be failures, and growth is always a little bit messy, but keeping it in perspective will help me to get through it.  

1. Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Press.
2. Dweck, C. S. (2016, Oct. 15). How can you change from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset? [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://mindsetonline.com/changeyourmindset/firststeps/
3. Robinson, Ken. (Speaker. (2006, February). TED2006 [online video broadcast]. Monterey, CA: retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.