One of our central High School tenets is the importance of effort and commitment; and we often focus on this rather than raw academic levels. In one way that’s just common sense – even those already at a very high academic level can always do better – but it’s surprisingly rare in schools. We stress it to students all the time and are always encouraging them to stretch themselves.
This emphasis on the now-popular concept of the Growth Mindset is one of the elements behind our extremely positive learning culture – but while growth is always possible, it’s vital that we do not simply make empty exhortations that absolutely anything is within our reach. When I was a child, it was Kermit from the muppets who sang if you believe in yourself, you can do most anything. It’s a nice idea, but the trouble with that approach is that it does not suggest how we can do anything, what the next steps might be, or what we might need to give up to pursue one particular thing to the end.
So the growth mindset must be accompanied by precise support, and not simply stop at the easy words in the graphic on the left -which actually enable low performance, because in effect, they tell student that it’s OK to stop. That’s the very opposite of what we want but is surprisingly common – researcher Susan Mackie has gone so far to name this phenomenon the false growth mindset! In fact, as the graphic on the right shows, what we need to be doing is stressing that more effort will help. So the growth mindset is not about justifying failure as OK because we did our best; it’s about pushing on when we feel like quitting. Far from a syrupy feel-good message, this is a tough and unrelenting one that is fully aligned with our Profile attributes of resilience and self-management.
As teachers, indicating next steps is vital. For parents, when you see your children stuck, you can appreciate their work so far, but then address the process of learning; you may not be able to help with the actual content (not everyone knows Drama or History) but you can certainly nudge in the right direction. A simple so what have you tried so far? What might be some different approaches that you can try next? can work wonders; far more so than you might think.
