Page 10 - I have a dream

THE ENGLISH SCHOOL MA GA ZINE 2022 THE ENGLISH SCHOOL MA GA ZINE 2022
REFLECTIONS

ON THE

GROWTH Popi Grouta

Assistant Head

MINDSET This year, despite the disruptions
caused by Covid, we were determined
to reach out to every ES student to offer
support regarding studying strategies
and habits that can lead to success.
The message the TLC teachers, form tutors, and I shared across
the school was that learning could be difficult and complex,
particularly under isolation, prolonged absence and uncertainty.
With hard work, students were reassured that they could achieve
progress, encapsulated in developing a growth mindset.
I first shared my thoughts on the growth mindset in an article in
the school magazine in 2020, urged by an eagerness to encourage
students to keep to the task despite the challenges posed by the
pandemic. Since then, I have reflected on and developed my
understanding of mindsets and the research into implementing
mindset theory in practice. Key factors to developing a growth
mindset in school are students' motivation and interventions to
shift beliefs about intelligence and ability. Over time, I have also
become aware that there is much ambiguity surrounding the
concept of growth mindset with a tendency in some advocates to
see it as a panacea that can magically fix all problems that students
face with learning.
So in this article, I want to put right a significant misconception
about the concept. Simply telling young people to "work harder,
teaching & learning beliefs about themselves leads to more successful academic
and you will get smarter", "be resilient", "don't be afraid to make
mistakes", or "get out of the learning pit" is often a waste of time.
The problem is that the growth mindset has been misunderstood.
The way it is often presented suggests that changing students'
progress and achievement. I have learned from experience that the
opposite is usually true; good academic progress and achievement,
when the outcome of sustained effort and effective learning
strategies and techniques, can change students' beliefs about
themselves. If you work hard and make progress, again and again,
you come to associate hard work with progress. This is the growth
mindset. If you work hard and don't make progress, you believe that
you can't do it; this is the fixed mindset. If you make progress
without working too hard, this can also lead to a fixed mindset.
Carol Dweck, the American psychologist who researched mindsets,
calls this "the worst belief anybody can have about themselves", if you
are talented, you shouldn't need effort.
Therefore, a growth mindset school needs to be a place where
08 students engage with learning experiences, try hard and then
achieve success as a result.
Prominent educational researchers David Didau and Nick Rose
aptly say that "The overriding component in all of this is that
students must believe they can improve through their own efforts.
Probably the best way of achieving this is for students to experience
some success due to applying greater effort”.
So the way to achieve progress is to put in the effort and then
experience the satisfaction of seeing it pay off. Success and progress
will then fuel motivation and have a long-lasting impact on how we
see ourselves regarding intelligence and ability; because our beliefs
are forged far stronger by our experiences than by what we are told
– no matter how good the workshops on study skills and the growth
Anna Pasha 4B mindset have been.