The growth mindset is an entirely new concept to me, as is the work of Carol Dweck. After watching a few videos of her speaking about it I really like the idea. Her premise is that people, children especially, grow up with this idea that things coming easily to them means they are in their comfort zone and that when society gives you an F that means something was simply too hard for you. She says this way of thinking and doing is limiting to our mindset, to our way of life, and to our dreams and future. This is why Carol presents that instead we need to make challenge the new comfort zone and we need to give "not yets" instead of Fs.
If I pictured myself currently on a growth mindset spectrum I would say that I am guilty of being too comfortable and of occasionally running from classes when I hear they are a challenge to get an A in. In this way I am a little too fixed minded, but I like to think that I have a growth mindset in things outside of the school realm.
I think it's hard for our generation to not care whether we get an A or not because we too were rewarded all throughout school for the accomplishment of an A instead of for the process and work it took us to get there. It's a problem that I didn't really realize existed until learning of the growth mindset principle, but I think its an issue that people young and old could stand to benefit from learning about. After all, I'm sure there are adults who are too comfortable and too fixed minded in their jobs just like we are as young adults and as children in school.
Overall, I like the growth mindset idea and I think it would greatly benefit students if we rewired our brains a little bit to think in terms of the future and of process instead of the immediacy of products of success. Learning more about the growth mindset and striving to work with it on a daily basis in all of my classes is something that I am going to aim to do.
A growth mindset meme about change. Source: Butterfly
I really like the image that you chose for this blog post, it really compliments the message. It is true that, like the butterfly, we don't achieve great things without hard work. Getting an A in our classes are stepping stone to improvement, but there are other ways to look at things. I feel like growth mindset help people look at life like a constant journey, when one piece is really far away we can still reach for it and grow, even if it something we would fail at if we try it tomorrow.
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