Growing A Growth Mindset

Over the last five weeks of school before spring break, we worked on a growth mindset journal with Ms. Willemse’s help. The ‘journal’ was an entry in book creator, and every time we split into groups ( in this case, Ms. Willemse’s group for the growth mindset journal, and Ms. Maxwell’s group for the Student Blogging Challenge  ). 

Every time we went into the growth mindset group, we would learn about something new about succeeding, failing, or a number of things related to growth mindsets. We would then record what we had just heard in our growth mindset journal in anyway we wanted to. 

The important thing about the growth mindset journal isn’t the appearance, it’s the content.

Here are a few key things I learned while making my journal:

Grit – Grit is the feeling of perseverance that keeps a person going, and allows them to succeed and fulfil their goal. We learned a lot about how grit can positively affect someone, and how the more grit you have, the better. We then took the grit test. I scored a 3.24, which is apparently pretty average ( I think ). I’ve never even considered my will to persevere, and learning about grit helped me understand why I’m willing to succeed, and how I can improve in the future.

My Mindset – Here we learned about growth mindsets, and fixed mindsets. This part was important, as it directly related to the topic of the Growth Mindset Journal.

For the entry in our journal, we made a chart of how different situations and outcomes are different amongst people with fixed mindsets, and people with growth mindsets. It was interesting to learn about fixed/growth mindsets, as I had no idea that a person’s mindset could impact how they learn, and grow as a person.

Learning, beliefs, and School – Intelligence, and what it means to be intelligent, has changed throughout the years, and that’s what we learned about in this reflection. Before learning about grit, and growth/fixed mindset, I had very little knowledge of what a ‘growth mindset’ was, and as a result, I thought that intelligence was a purely fixed thing. 

After learning everything there is to know about having and sustaining a growth mindset, I learned that the way that society, and schools reward academic knowledge is not good. I believe that the society we live in only congratulates those who have shown immediate signs of excellence, such as a letter grade, or a diploma. I think that this needs to change, as many who succeed do so over a period of time, and that many of those who succeed do not show it immediately, and they might not even show it for many years. 

Failure, and Persistence – In a way, this loops right back around to the grit reflection. Failure is not commonly discussed as it is usually seen as a bad thing, but failure can be helpful in the long run. You see, if someone works without any obstacles, it is imminent that they will only expect success in work, life, love, and everything else. But when they come across one thing they can’t solve, they won’t be able to accept it, and will immediately struggle, or give up.

As for one one who fails occasionally, they will be able to work around it, as they have experienced it previously, and have solutions to help themselves. 

Failure really can be good, even if it doesn’t look that way on the outside.

During the end of the term, when we were wrapping up the Growth Mindset Journal, we made goals for ourselves. These goals are supposed to be based off of the work we did in the Growth Mindset Journal and are specific to us. The next thing we did is take selfies and put our  goals on them. Here’s mine:

To conclude with this reflection post of sorts, I think that the growth mindset journal project has been very interesting, and very informative. I think that learning about this has broadened my thinking about our society, and how it has formed a sort of ideology about what intelligence is, and who succeeds. As for this project, I think that it was interesting, and I quite enjoyed learning about it, and seeing how it impacts an individual, and how it impacts a society. 

Here’s my Growth Mindset Journal :