Growth Mindset
Today I learned about something called Growth Mindset. It is a psychological idea that if we teach children to believe they can improve and achieve, they will. According to this theory, telling children they are smart causes a fixed mindset. They will always take the easy route and are more likely to quit when things get hard. In opposition, if we praise the process and strategies, children will try harder and eventually succeed.
I can see how this would work in an algebra class where kids are showing their work. If the child writes the formula for an equation at the top, shows their steps and still gets it wrong, the teacher can say, "You have the formula down and worked really hard. " He or she can then show them how to get to the correct answer. In my mind, this works because that is an actual process.
This growth mindset does not work for me in al matters of teaching in our current system though. How do you compliment a process of memorizing dates for a history test? How do you even know how a child's thought proccess works, when the achievement of schools is based on a standardized test that is mostly multiple choice and filled in circles? In my opinion, what we really need is to get kids ingaged and having fun again.
In elementary school, I thought learning was fun. It was hands on. We did science experiments and could see how crystals formed. We read books and created dioramas or our favorite scenes instead of writing book reports. We even did plays about historical events, so it would feel real and like we lived it.
Then in middle school, things changed. School became a bunch of memorized facts and reports with minimum numbers of pages. Instead of engaging us, the schools were turning us into robots. We all needed to know the same facts. We all needed to achieve high marks on a test. It was a learn it and forget it style environment.
Based on this experience, I don't think that changing how we praise children is the answer. I think we need to change how we teach. I think that a history class needs to be lead by the kids. Instead of reading boring facts from a book, there should be circular discussions. Have the teacher tell the kids that this year we are going to time travel the past. Let them look up a time period and tell you what they think is important about it. The teacher can place value on the research, and explain how significant events effected everything all the way down tot the foods that were eaten and the fashion. Only by actually engaging with students and making them feel a part of the learning process are we truly going to get life long learners in our future.
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