When was the last time you learned something new? Not a fact (Did you know that according to a new study, “teens who leave school before graduating, but have access to books, end up with skills equivalent to those of non-reading university graduates”?), but a skill (like changing your oil), or an understanding that made you reconfigure what you thought you knew (you mean everybody isn't as happy and successful as their Instagram account portrays?), or a project of a type or scale you’ve never tackled before (like running a fundraising campaign).
We’ve got a lot of things to teach our students, and we know from all the recent buzz about growth mindset, that if students have one, they’ll be much more successful in learning all those things—both now and on into adult life. There are many ways we can help students with this essential mindset underpinning all their learning, and here’s a blog that lists 6.
One additional way to foster a growth mindset is telling stories about times we learned something. Not in 4th grade. Maybe not even back in college. But in real life—maybe last week. Because learning is scary and uncomfortable at first. Sometimes I want to be angry, or defensive, or quit. Sometimes I get anxious. I have to take risks. I may fail. It can be embarrassing, or worse (especially if it's a physical skill at high speed, like downhill skiing). But eventually, I begin to get better. There’s the thrill of a new competence, of experiencing success. And it gives me a little more confidence the next time I start out on a new thing. Which is good, because learning doesn't end when you graduate.
I felt that discomfort 3 years ago when I moved into my new position as curriculum coordinator. Every time I had a professional development meeting to lead, I’d think, “I’m taking 1 hour of 25 people’s time. Is what I have to offer worth 25 man-hours of school time?” I’d nearly hyperventilate thinking about it. But last week I was positively looking forward to leading a meeting--it's as energizing to see adults engaged and learning as it is to see kids! (See photo below.)
I’ve felt that discomfort about doing writing conferences with students. Over the last 5 years I’ve read Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher and other writing workshop leaders, and I’ve become convinced it’s an important activity. And I’ve practiced it in starts and stops. (See part of my journey in this blog.) But this week, I was actually looking forward to the writing periods I would get to confer with students. I never found myself with nothing constructive to say. They never looked at me like, “Why don’t you go away and let me write?” but always had some elaboration to their “Okay” answer about how the writing is going. (See photo above.)
And when I sat down to write this blog, I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. But since I've been blogging for a while, I was more comfortable with the discomfort, and had a bag of strategies for dealing with it. I started writing about conferring with students, and after a paragraph, I realized that I had actually had the bigger conversation—about what learning feels like, and how sharing our experiences with our students in order to model growth mindset is important—a couple of times this week with other teachers.
And next week, I’ll have it with my students.
Who can you encourage with a story about the last time you learned something new?
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