As I reflect on my time of developing a growth mindset within class as well as in my personal life, I have come to the realization it does take work. This has been the case during this time of the Covid -19, I have had more time than ever to accomplish projects on my list. I am a procrastinator by nature and developing a mindset exposes that to me. I have received a variety of opportunities to develop my life into what it could be in my opinion. That fixed mindset can be somewhat of an inhibitor because it allows you to get comfortable with you are accustom to in the thought process and the lack of action following. Yet, that is not the end of the story. Everything comes through intrinsic motivation and reviewing my post 8 months later, I have come to realize there is something to this ‘not yet’ outlook mentality. I look out into the world with the deaths from everywhere and just believe that I will continue to develop my growth mindset not only in my personal life to do today because tomorrow is not promised. There is a time in life when your growth has to more than a mindset, it has to be an action both in the work environment and in my personal life. During this pandemic, I have to shift my personal life to be able to intertwine it work since I have been confined to our house. This have given me a greater acceptance to working with students as I have had to adjust my outlook to being more supportive for students who I come into contact with.
During school, I would allow myself to think outside of the curriculum and let students take the wheel in learning. Of course, when you let go of the steering wheel, you have to be ready to deal with how it goes off the rails. Students have a tendency to have an outlook that is beneficial to them and as educator, I tend want the students to accomplish a specific goal. The growth mindset in my review of what I tried to accomplish has become dual fold. Students can achieve a goal within a genuine learning experience in which they took control over the wheel. I reflect back to the time I had in class with students and not feeling overwhelmed with teaching a new curriculum; but I embraced it in understanding this class was setup to be different from the other classes in which the students had a say so. The curriculum reinforced what they wanted to do as a platform instead of the opposite way of looking into education and students don’t have buy-in to what they are learning.
Students have a need to base their success on what numeric or letter grade is associated to the level of output. As we evaluate our current standard of achievement based upon standards, students have an opportunity to re-evaluate how much effort will be attached to their output. I believe there will be a shift in how schools will invest into the grading process. I think this is a time to reset everything and this is our opportunity to figure what is our education worth? This is an ideal time to reevaluate where the money needs to go for resources to help student improve the educational standard for learning. This does not mean just throwing money at technology, developing a new road map for understanding today’s learner. This is an opportunity for us to grow our learners into the habit of develop mindsets focused on growth.
Time has shown us that when there is a shift in the world, people tend to focus on the length of the problem and things return back to the usual outlook once things begin to turn back normal. This pandemic has allowed people an opportunity to develop some habits parallel to what is happening in this time. We can no longer believe what we cannot do; however, be able to survive through adaptation. This generation of student will forever be changed by what is happening outside their door and inside the house. This is the makings of something extraordinary and those with the growth mindset will be able to lead the way. Those with a fixed mindset will have a difficult time adjusting what the world has become. I hope that as teachers, districts, and governmental agencies began to look toward the future, they will see that students are capable of adaptation. It is up to us to grow the mindset.
Keeping the Code 