Interesting article that reminded me of mindset

I was reading in a sports illustrated recently about an NBA franchise that just recently was the best team in the regular season, Golden State Warriors for those basketball fans.  Well last year they were also good for the first time in forever, think Buffalo Bills of basketball.  Well a curious thing happened in the off season, they fired their coach that had just made them relevant again and at time I couldn't see why they would do something like that.  After reading this recent story I found out.  Apparently even though the coach was successful he also had a fixed mindset.  He was afraid to hired successful assistant coaches because he didn't want to seem inferior.  He also had a practice of pitting players against each other to gain their loyalty to him.  It seemed like it was right out of a chapter of the book.  Meanwhile it talked about the new coach this year that hired the best defensive assistant and another well known offensive minded assistant and guess what he impowered them to make his team better instead of being nervous about not being the sole reason for success.  He also asked for player feedback and met individually with players to become better at his craft.  In the end the team had the best regular season record this year and is favored to win the title this year.  So even though they were successful last year someone must have had the vision to see that the previous coach was fixed and eventually would implode.  Very cool article and gives me a team to root for in the playoffs this year!  Go Steve Kerr and the Warriors!  Maybe I will bring it to class if anyone is interested.

Chapter 7

Sorry for the delay in posting...I blinked and April was almost over! 

"No parent [or teacher] thinks, 'I wonder what I can do today to undermine my children, subvert their efforts, turn them off learning, and limit their achievement'" (Dweck 173).  This is the opening sentence of chapter 7, and I loved it!  I made me realize that none of us intentionally sets out to crush or squelch our students' passion for learning, we all try to be and do the best we can.   As I read this chapter I felt a range of emotions.  From:  "Yes, I got this!" when I use a growth mindset when dealing with students...To: "Oh no! I do that...I have a fixed mindset, I have destroyed my students' self worth!"  when I saw myself in a not so flattering scenario.  I realize this range of emotions was okay.  As I reflect back on this chapter, and my practices as a teacher, I am hoping that I can go forward and try to be in the "growth mindset" frame more and more. I want to be better, as I am sure we all do. One of the benefits of this book group, I feel, was to make me more aware of how I can modify my thinking and become more open to a growth mindset.

Through our discussions I hear that some people are somewhat frustrated that Dweck does not provide more "how to" information to foster a growth mindset.  And, I agree with this to a degree.  I felt her "list" on page 177 that demonstrates the kind of praise that focuses on effort and choices to be very helpful, and fulfilled my need for examples of best practices.  Did anyone else?  I almost feel as if I should post this somewhere handy so I can pull from the list when I need it, to avoid praising intelligence or talent.

Also, as I read this chapter, I was struck by how many students I come across that just don't seem to care about their work. Dweck talks about these students in this chapter.  I worry that we are lowering the standards for them, just to get them through the system.  Is this right? Or am I not reading the situation correctly?  Are we as a district heading in the right direction?   I connected with the quotes on page 193 and 195, " Lowering standards just leads to poorly educated students who feel entitled to easy work and lavish praise."  "If you don't give anything, don't expect anything. Success is not coming to you, you must come to it."  Curious to see what you all think?

  

Chapter 7

While reading chapter 7, I was struck by the anecdote about Miss DeLay. When they talk about “challenge and nurture” on page 198 and describe how she pushes the students to do their best, I found that to be a very good way to frame and view how I should interact with my students. The section that says, “That is part of Miss DeLay’s genius- to put people in the frame of mind where they can do their best….Very few teachers can actually get you to your ultimate potential. Miss DeLay has that gift. She challenges you at the same time that you feel you are being nurtured.” I look at this quote as something that I need to keep in mind as I push my students and always remember that there are two parts of my job. I also see this as a very difficult balancing act to accomplish. After reading this I have kept it in mind while working with my students and it can be difficult to know how far to push them and still setting the bar high enough for them to reach their full potential. I think that this will always be something that as a teacher I will need to keep working on and pushing myself to learn each child to know how to support them in multiple ways so that they can realize their own potential.

Chapter 7 - Every word and action...a message to a child

After reading this book thus far, and especially this chapter, have you noticed yourself changing the way you are praising the children in your classroom?  What about the ways you are reacting to the children in your classroom?

Are you messages more about judging their permanent traits or are your messages conveying an interest in their development of processes, strategies, effort and choices?

Page 211 - Growth mindset has  a key role to play in helping us fulfill our mission and in helping them fulfill their potential.

Chapter 6

I found the section that described how Benjamin Bloom attempted to figure out an agreed upon way to research how we measure social ability fascinating.  On page 147 Dweck talks about how we, as a society, don't really understand relationship skills even though, "everything is at stake in people's relationships."  She also mentions that a combination of social-emotional skills (Emotional Intelligence) and mindset can help us understand why some people have long lived and satisfying relationships while others do not.  Dweck goes on to discuss how the fixed mindset makes people want instant compatibility and think that everything comes naturally in relationships.  This is interesting to me because growing up you always hear about the "love at first sight" couple or "the perfect couple" that never disagrees or just knows what their partner is thinking.  They seem to have an effortless relationship.  This myth is debunked by Dweck when she points out that, "a no-effort relationship is a doomed relationship." 
How many people have felt that if someone didn't understand what they wanted or needed at a particular time it meant they didn't care about the relationship?  I know that when I was younger I did have more of a fixed mindset when it came to love.  As I matured I began to see that communication is key and that blaming someone else for the relationship failing never works out.  I love that relationship expert, Daniel Wile, says that choosing a partner is choosing a set of problems.  This should hit home with anyone who is married for the long haul.  I have a real problem with the way society has become reliant on divorce as a quick fix rather than seeing that problems can be solved through hard work.  If we learn to help each other work towards obtaining our own goals and what we want to do we both grow and are fulfilled. 

Chapter 6

I found this chapter particularly interesting.  The focus on relationships is something that everyone can relate to, and the section on bullying at the end is certainly a topic that educators look to understand.

Early on the information presented for each type of mindset included:

Growth Mindset = a person who values communication, is committed, focuses on having to work constantly on the relationship, understanding, giving …
Fixed Mindset = people who feel judged or labeled by rejection, wants revenge or to blame, want to feel better about self …
I was not surprised by the information because I continue to feel like the book takes positive traits/characteristics and labels that as growth mindset, and it takes negative traits/characteristics and labels that as fixed mindset.  I am beginning to believe that everyone has a little bit of each within their personality.  For example, a person may have a growth mindset when they interact with family and friends and a fixed mindset when they interact with coworkers.  Do you believe that the mindset can change based on the topic/situation/experience? 

As for the part on bullying, I found this quote to be alarming, “But it’s startling how quickly average, everyday kids with fixed mindsets think about violent revenge” (Dweck 167).  I also struggled with this quote, “To make matters worse, schools often do nothing about it. This is because it’s often done out of sight of teachers or because it’s done by the school’s favorite students, such as the jock” (Dweck 165).  I do not want to say too much about this but look forward to a discussion on this particular portion of chapter 6. 

Chapter 5

As I involved myself in the discussion of APPR and its relation to fixed mindset/growth mindset, I found myself thinking back to the idea of groupthink, which was touched upon in this chapter. All of the drive to root out all of the ineffective teachers, and to punish those who are not proficient, seems to have come from a sort of groupthink that has been popularized by several media sources. The quote I found to begin the discussion on groupthink was this:

"In the early 1970s, Irving Janis popularized the term groupthink. It's when everyone in a group starts thinking alike. No one disagrees. No one takes a critical stance. It can lead to catastrophic decisions, and as the Wood study suggests, it often can come right out of a fixed mindset." (134)

I find myself wondering if our politicians are all caught up in groupthink at this point. If they are, what remedies might exist for educators to push back? I am not completely sure that this term applies to the present situation, but it is what I started thinking about as I read the comments from the other posts.

Chapter 5- Additional Information

On page 123 Dweck alludes to a Roman emperor, " Jerry Levin of Time Warner was likened by his colleagues to the brutal Roman emperor Caligula."    His actual name was Gaius Caesar.  Caligula is a name he acquired as a young boy because he wore an army uniform with boots.  Caligula is "little boot."  Records depict him as a cruel and unpredictable leader.  People thought he would take after his great- great- grandfather, Julius Caesar and his great-grandfather, Augustus Caesar.  His legacy is that his rule was shaped by lunacy and lust.

Chapter 5
As I read this section of the book on business, it only makes sense that people who are open to change, open to constructive criticism, open to teamwork, and view themselves as a part rather than the whole in a company or business will generally be more successful than those that are not.  Everybody in business is in it to make money and  are judged by the amount of money they make and the longevity of the business.  This is how most view success in the business world.  This seems almost in conflict with the growth mindset which is about learning and improvement, regardless of failure or success.  Don't get me wrong; I understand her point as she redundantly gives anecdotes of failed companies and the egotistical leaders of those companies.  But, I see growth mindset as an opportunity to improve oneself and grow through experience and learning which includes failures.  There really is no room for failure in business.  Therefore, it is understandable that fear of failure is the white elephant in the room in regards to the business world.  In the end, people are judged based on the "success" of that business.  On page 124, Dweck states that, "When bosses become controlling and abusive, they put everyone into a fixed mindset.  This means that instead of learning, growing, and moving the company forward, everyone starts worrying about being judged.  It starts withe the bosses' worry about being judged, but it winds up being everybody's fear about being judged."  I started really thinking about this quote in relation to our current situation in the business of running schools.  The APPR is in direct contrast with a growth mindset.  I have taught 26 years (including this one) and was never really fearful of being observed.  Since the Danielson rubric has been put into effect, my concern is less on improving my teaching with the suggestions of an outsider observing a day in the life of Maria Shea.  My focus is now on being judged and rated a particular score that may affect my standing as a competent teacher based on an observation once a year, regents scores, and other criteria which doesn't necessarily fairly assess me and definitely doesn't help me to grow.  My concern is about including in my lesson what the observer wants to see so that observer can check off a checklist.  I know that some teachers literally create a checklist from the rubric for that one lesson. I also know of specific situations where teachers fought for a "4" on their evaluations and may have been a bit bullyish until the score was changed.  Is this practice supportive of improving teaching and an "enterprising spirit"?  Dweck makes it clear that judgement does not move the "company" forward, but rather forces workers into a fixed mindset due to fear.