"Mommy, I have grit and a growth mindset!," said my seven year old son Daniel as we drove home yesterday.
"Really?!! Tell me more about that! Can you give me some examples?"
And there started an in-depth conversation (that continued today) about what it meant to have grit. It meant that he didn't give up on a math problem even when it was "challenging," that he would believe that he could rather than couldn't get a bigger kid than him "out" in that frustrating game of summer fun dodgeball, that he knew that he had to "stick with it" no matter what.
Daniel told me that "grit" was the word of the month in his classroom, and that everyone not only talked about what it was, but practiced it too. I had chicken skin and was overcome with gratitude. I could talk about grit and having a growth mindset for days on end, but it was at school where he would need it most. It's there that he'll be stretched and challenged in sometimes-uncomfortable ways, and it's there that he'll need to push through the darkness to get to the light. It's at school where he'll need to know that mistakes are to be learned from and that there is no such thing as a perfect anything, because there is always room to grow. It's at school where his classmates and teacher need to know that, too, and support and cheer one another on through the "hard stuff."
Teachers, let's let grit be our word of the month, too. Let's teach it and practice it and live it. Teaching is complex, and certainly challenging as we make hundreds of decisions every day, stress over how to get done everything that needs to get done, and how to make right every wrong that sneaks up on our students. When all of that overwhelms you, try thinking... (and this comes directly from Mr. K's 2nd grade chart above):
*What am I missing?
*I'll use some of the strategies that I learned...
*This may take some time and effort
*I can always improve so I'll keep trying
*Mistakes help me learn better
*I'm going to figure out how (my colleague) does it so I can try it out, too
Need even more inspiration? Here is a previous post that I wrote on growth mindset, and check out these 75 quotes to encourage growth mindset and Angela Lee Duckworth's amazing Ted Talk, "Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance."
"Really?!! Tell me more about that! Can you give me some examples?"
And there started an in-depth conversation (that continued today) about what it meant to have grit. It meant that he didn't give up on a math problem even when it was "challenging," that he would believe that he could rather than couldn't get a bigger kid than him "out" in that frustrating game of summer fun dodgeball, that he knew that he had to "stick with it" no matter what.
Daniel told me that "grit" was the word of the month in his classroom, and that everyone not only talked about what it was, but practiced it too. I had chicken skin and was overcome with gratitude. I could talk about grit and having a growth mindset for days on end, but it was at school where he would need it most. It's there that he'll be stretched and challenged in sometimes-uncomfortable ways, and it's there that he'll need to push through the darkness to get to the light. It's at school where he'll need to know that mistakes are to be learned from and that there is no such thing as a perfect anything, because there is always room to grow. It's at school where his classmates and teacher need to know that, too, and support and cheer one another on through the "hard stuff."
Teachers, let's let grit be our word of the month, too. Let's teach it and practice it and live it. Teaching is complex, and certainly challenging as we make hundreds of decisions every day, stress over how to get done everything that needs to get done, and how to make right every wrong that sneaks up on our students. When all of that overwhelms you, try thinking... (and this comes directly from Mr. K's 2nd grade chart above):
*What am I missing?
*I'll use some of the strategies that I learned...
*This may take some time and effort
*I can always improve so I'll keep trying
*Mistakes help me learn better
*I'm going to figure out how (my colleague) does it so I can try it out, too
Need even more inspiration? Here is a previous post that I wrote on growth mindset, and check out these 75 quotes to encourage growth mindset and Angela Lee Duckworth's amazing Ted Talk, "Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance."