Growth Mindset

When I was 16 years old, I was hired to be a dance teacher. I had no formal training for teaching, I was just a good dancer who had volunteered as an assistant to teachers every year since I was 10. After 6 years of teaching dance, much of my knowledge has been trial and error. I taught ages 2-18. I noticed that around the age of 8, kids stopped trying their best for fun, and suddenly became frustrated as soon as they didn't do something perfectly. I didn't know how to motivate them to keep trying or help them understand that you'll never do something right the first time. Sometimes you do a step wrong 100 times until you realize how to do it right. 

Source: The World Bank Blog

When I was briefly in the College of Education, I took Educational Psychology. In the course, we watched the same Ted Talk video of Carol Dweck explaining Growth Mindset. It helped me understand not only my own learning process, but how to help other children. Whereas I grew up driven and optimistic, other children are not so secure in themselves and break down when not praised. I realized that I had to praise students not only when they improved, but when they failed. My new phrase I adopted was "If you didn't fall in dance class today, then I didn't push you hard enough." 

I think that in my life outside of school, I have developed a Growth Mindset. I enjoy putting myself in new, awkward social situations. Not because I'm an eccentric extrovert or a sadist, but because I know when I push myself, I learn more. I do things for fun that are outside my comfort zone and teach myself new things while enjoying the process. However, I have yet to apply this mindset to my academic life. I was taught growing up that B's are unacceptable for me. I agonize over every academic failure. I want to succeed because I learned to crave validation from my teachers and peers. When something feels too difficult, I want to shut down. If my peers find something easy that I struggle with, I feel inept. I don't know how to overcome these fears and anxieties, but I try by focusing on how I am learning and improving. 

This semester, I want to focus on bringing this growth mindset into my language classes, particularly my French literature class. As I get into more difficult literature with French, I can feel myself getting behind with vocabulary and I struggle to understand more abstract writing. When I don't know what something means or struggle to follow, I will remind myself that if it were easy, I'd be wasting my time and money in college. I am in that class because it is pushing me to become a better reader.