My goal this summer was to focus on improving my leadership capability. I assigned myself summer reading. This list consisted of Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath, The Innovator's Mindset by George Couros, and Kids Deserve It! by Todd Neslonely and Adam Welcome. Dave Burgess's Teach Like a Pirate is up next. The interesting thing is I've read the three at the same time, during different times of the day. I've enjoyed this rather than finishing one and then moving on. It has suited my untreated adult ADHD well. As I write this, I'm pages away from finishing Innovator's Mindset and David and Goliath. These texts have been inspiring and have helped re-energize me for the upcoming school year. I'll focus more on thoughts from all three books in a later blog but now I want to focus on the idea of having a growth mindset. (Growth Mindset by Susan Dweck is also on deck.)
My oldest daughter is 8. I will preface this story by stating that she is sweet, loving, and thoughtful. She endears her know-it-all older brother and is the best big sister to her 2 younger sisters. But right now she is going through a stage where she has been giving up easily and abandoning difficult tasks. The girl easily mouths the words "I can't" 50 times a day. She uses it as a crutch...her out, her white flag. When I hear the repulsive "I can't" I hit her with my best stink eye look I can muster. At gymnastics class she peers over at the experienced girls, who've been gymnasts since they were toddlers, with envy. She doesn't understand that in her one year of classes (1 night per week) she cannot expect to be as skilled as those who've taken classes for years, several nights a week. I tell her, that doesn't mean you can't do what they do, eventually. Their skills developed over time and so can yours. Watching her and thinking about her has made me compare her "I can't" habit with something I see at school.
Too often I hear educators talk or focus on what kids can't do. I am including myself in this. Unfortunately I can remember making excuses for a student's behavior or undesired achievement by saying he/she just can't do that. Maybe if I'd only phrased it as "He can't do that right now, but if I try strategy X,Y, or Z maybe he can progress." We can't lower our expectations for students or focus on what they can't do. We must focus our energy on growing them, building them up from where they currently are in hopes of helping them create a better version of themselves. We use "she can't" as our crutch and our excuse for our poor performance as educators. Don't give up on students and don't stop trying to reach them just because they perform "poorly" or struggle.
Struggle. That is where I want to go next. My son is starting middle school this year. He has attended school with his assistant principal dad every year of his school career. Over the years he has had some phenomenal teachers who've helped make him into the fine young man he is today. He had a great elementary school career and it will be bittersweet not having him in the car with me to and from school. However, the one thing that never happened for him was a learning opportunity that presented him with great difficulty. Students need opportunities that trouble them and make them think. Not that he wasn't challenged, he was, I just never really saw him bring home a struggle that required deep thought, reflection, and time to process. I want him to face challenges. The growth opportunities that I remember best were getting him to write neat, stay organized, and check over his work. I want there to be questions that he can't answer right now. I don't want his learning processes to always be easy for him. To prepare him for life and career he needs to learn how to make mistakes, struggle, fail, and be frustrated. I firmly believe success requires blood, sweat, and tears. Struggling will also teach him to be resilient, rebound, rethink ideas, and learn from his mistakes. Too often as parents and as educators we focus on keeping everyone happy. Growth does not occur in our comfort zone! Don't get me wrong. I do want him to be happy and enjoy school, I just want school to be challenging for him. I wouldn't mind getting a phone call or email from his teacher giving me a heads-up that he had a hard time at school on a particular day. Maybe his experiment failed. Maybe he couldn't find the flaw in his summary or he couldn't narrow the topic of his Genius Hour project. I would welcome such news. I think back to my own teaching experiences as a 4th grade teacher. I could have done far more to challenge students. I could have devised more challenging ways for them to manipulate their learning content. This idea of struggling that I am promoting must be controlled and intentional. I'm not talking about giving multiplication or division problems to a room full of kindergartners who have just learned to sequence numbers or having 1st graders complete book reports on War and Peace. I am talking about assigning tasks and activities that are designed to be challenging for all learners at their different levels. Without struggle, there is no growth.
This initial blog was pretty exciting to write. I hope to grow as a writer and learn from sharing my experiences. I look forward to receiving the feedback and thoughts of others. In the meantime lets all focus on being the best version of us as possible.
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