A Learning Community Based on a Growth Mindset

I'm just going to dive right into this post...
We recently gave our students their benchmark assessments. The day before the assessment, I showed my kiddos a Stanford University video discussing how mistakes can grow your brain. After we watched the video, I asked the kiddos to share something about the video that made them feel excited, or inspired. Most of the students said they enjoyed learning that making mistakes, and challenging your brain, makes your brain grow. What I found most interesting was that my kiddos who struggle were empowered in knowing that there aren't math-minded people, and people who can't do math; there aren't smart people, and people who aren't smart. They were inspired to know that the mistakes they make daily cause their brains to grow. They were encouraged to take those mistakes, and work diligently to correct them, because in doing so their brains will grow tenfold. They left my room inspired, empowered, and motivated to take charge of their learning.

So the day came when it was time to tell them if they passed, or failed their assessment. Most of the news I delivered was good. There were, however, those kiddos who had been working just hard (if not harder) as their peers, but failed to master the tested objectives. I was worried giving them their results would make them feel defeated and discouraged. What happened that day was something I definitely didn't expect. I told the first kiddo. Her response, "Mrs. Ritter, that grade is 20 points higher than my STAAR score last year. I'm getting better at this!" Okay, so that went better than I thought! As I continued the process of telling the remaining kiddos, I waited, and waited to see tears, and was ready to console my sweet peeps. I didn't have to! They found something positive in their failures. They all said that they wanted to look at their test and figure out what they did wrong, because they wanted their "brains to grow!" They didn't feel defeated. They didn't feel like failures. In fact, they felt just the opposite. They felt empowered, and motivated, to correct their misconceptions. To talk about their mistakes with their classmates, and to master the standards they struggled with. Kids are resilient, and when you give them a little positive inspiration and show them that they need to believe in themselves as much as you believe in them, INCREDIBLE things can happen. Our learning community is one based on the Growth Mindset, encouragement, and unconditional (sometimes tough) love!

Below is the link to the Growth Mindset video
https://www.youcubed.org/students/