How to GROW your mind?

Implementing growth mindset:

I am a big believer in developing growth mindset within akonga. I know the benefits of it myself, and that it can support akonga as a life-long skill or way to perceive life in general.

Dr Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University coined the terms ‘fixed mindset’ and ‘growth mindset’ they are underlying beliefs we all have about our own learning and intelligence, they are the way we perceive life.

Growth mindset- believing that one can develop and learn

Fixed mindset- believing that one has basic abilities and fixed traits

We see it all the time in adults, some have the ability to bounce back from a failure and others don’t have that ability. It can be attributed to socio-economic opportunities, external factors, natural abilities and skills.

How does one implement this in the classroom?

The power of mistakes- present errors in a positive light, encourage discussion, ‘THINK IT GREAT’ is a concept I learned through my time as a teacher at Riverdale School. It’s an approach I use with Dance and Drama. Akonga will perform a dance or sketch, have it recorded, then play back the footage. We then reflect on it using a PMI chart and evaluate how to make our performance ‘GREAT’. The same can be done with any curriculum area. I've used this approach to evaluate solutions to a problem as well- applicable during literacy when analysing a story arc resolution or even watching an extract from the weekend's rugby or netball game and then discussing 'how could they have been great?'. All of this can help an akonga to see the possibilities in a mistake and how this can be applied to their own life.

Now versus yet- thinking and saying aloud “I can’t do it yet” gives permission to not know ‘now’ and gives one the hope and potential to realise this later. It's not difficult to google search or to search on youtube for examples of famous people and the times they've struggled to get to where they are. It's therefore entirely possible for a kaiako to use these as a real life example of not achieving ones potential or reaching the goal 'yet'. Knowing that even famous people started somewhere is great for akonga to see the possibilities in dreaming, and knowing that hard work brings about results.

Losing the answer key- the struggle is worth it. Too often in our excitement to finish and get to the end of our teaching sequence. We rob our akonga of the learning they would get from the journey, from learning from their mistakes. I was recently sat with a group of top tier learners, and one tier 3 learner who all were sitting the ICAS spelling test. He kept asking me questions and I kept repeating, I'm so sorry mate but I'm not allowed to read the words to you. I can read the question but not the spelling words. The akonga was beside himself, as an ESOL learner I totally understand the frustrations of striving to be the best one can be and not having the skill level to understand what a test is asking. By the end he was balling and shaking and I reinforced that it's ok, you just don't know yet how to answer these types of questions. But you'll get there, and my colleague reinforced that he had done his very best and we were very proud of him. We both said, just shake it off. Sometimes learning is going to be really hard, but you'll get there. This akonga is full of life and really enjoys being at our kura. One day soon I'll go check in on him and ensure that he is still striving and showing perseverance.

Praise with substance- acknowledging effort is important , but it’s also about learning and growth. It’s about saying more than ‘ka pai ‘. What applies here is- naming it to tame it. An akonga needs to feel they are succeeding and so kaiako should praise and acknowledge this 'wow, you did so well with the problem, it was tricky' and then take it further 'I like the way you used... to solve the problem, could you show 'xyz' how you solved it'. Giving praise with meaning and sincerity and elevating an akonga's mana is what is necessary for growth mind set.

Grit- akonga need support to develop skills in perseverance. They need to overcome the challenges of giving up at first failure. Again, showing extracts from youtube is helpful here. I think there are copious examples of characters. One such example is Kung Fu Panda*, he shows grit and tenacity in the face of great odds, KFP was made to feel insignificant and not worthy of being chosen as the Dragon Warrior. But he stayed at the Jade palace to prove his worth. In the end he learned what he needed to, in order to become the Dragon Warrior.

GRIT & NOW VERSUS 'YET':

In this video we see KFP struggling with his training, but he perseveres and then it all gets easier and by 4.46 KFP is able to defeat Master Sifu and claim the Pork Bun. A funny but great example of Grit and Now versus 'yet'.

Drew

*I was recently reminded of this amazing movie which I re-watched several hundreds of times with my nephew when he was a toddler. Now that my son has arrived we've started watching it. Hopefully he'll grow to love it and see the potential in himself.