The Making of a Growth Mindset

To begin Maker class this school year, we (my classmates and I) started to learn about Growth Mindset. This is essentially a way of thinking so you or whoever else develops one, knows how to learn from mistakes, accept challenges, and work harder. Having a growth mindset is the option everyone should take over a fixed mindset. If you have a fixed mindset, then it’s easy to get caught up in failure, instead of progression, seeing others succeed and being mad, not learning, or thinking that abilities (ex. soccer) are not meant to be improved. When we received a test on grit, it was to see how we would persevere when/if school, or other activities got tough. I was satisfied with the score I got, though there was definitely room to do better. To understand how growth mindset would apply to us all differently, we then worked on a chart that focused on things that were hard, and how mindset would help. Along the way in this unit, I learned some really useful tips or ideas through some videos, and with a few of them, I made sketch notes (words and images that are key to the video or main idea).

A funny video of perseverance is about Timo, a real tough cat.

If you’re interested in a more in-depth talk about growth mindset, this TedTalks one was really interesting.

One quote I especially like is “When you’re green you grow, but when you’re red you rot.” This is in reference to a tomato, and saying if you or someone else is the very best at something, there is nowhere to go from there, it only gets worse. This is versus being green, maybe not so good at something, and being able to get better and better.

A giant part of growth mindset is being ok with not being perfect first try, or failing. To most humans with a fixed mindset, failing doesn’t seem like an option, while those who are willing to get better after failure end up doing better. There was an interesting test done, where several kids were asked to take a test that was quite difficult. When the results came back, everyone failed. Everyone was asked what they would do the next time to prepare to take it again. The kids who had a growth mindset said they would study harder, while those with a fixed mindset said they already failed, so why bother. The thing is, anyone’s capability can be changed if worked at.

Anyone can be as successful as Steve Jobs or Chris Hadfield. The large part of these men’s success was because they had a drive, a passion for what they wanted to be good at. I know this to be true, because when I’m learning music, if it gets hard, I want to keep going because I love to play and want to be successful. If I didn’t and wasn’t bothered, I don’t think I’d be any good. An easy way to have a growth mindset is to take the thing you’re feeling negative about and add yet to the end. “I can’t do it…yet.”

To finish this unit, the selfie project was assigned. This is a project where we all wrote out and refined a goal for this school year, and layered it on a picture of ourselves that was edited. I really hope to meet my goal this year, and want to become better at using a growth mindset, because “whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re probably right”.