I recently read an article written by David Didau entitled 'Is growth mindset pseudoscience?' He doesn't exactly dismiss the theory but I think that it's safe to assume that he is sceptical about its value in education. His article raises some very important points about this popular education theory and he paints a dramatic picture of how we could go wrong. He seems to suggest that schools might be in danger of indoctrinating its pupils with unrealistic messages of encouragement and self belief. He chose to use a growth vs fixed mindset Star Wars themed poster to illustrate his point that fixed mindset traits in people are possibly being labelled as evil by some institutions. There is apparently a further risk that growth mindset theory is being touted as a miracle cure-all by the 'hordes of wildly enthusiastic adherents' in schools. This is where the article is a little sensationalised. How are we to know exactly how many of these growth mindset evangelists work in our schools? Are these teachers really running the risk of dangerously brainwashing pupils with their desktop reminder cards, corridor displays and YouTube clips of sporting heroes?
Does a growth mindset school actually exist and if so what does it do and how does it do it? How are we able to effectively measure its impact on improvement, resilience and aspiration? Would it ever be possible or useful to convince a whole school community that the messages of growth mindset are credible? Does any of this even matter? The problem is none of us (including David Didau) has sufficient data to prove or disprove the benefits of the theory. As with all popular educational fads, there are likely to be people out there right now collating evidence which will be considered to confirm or deny the benefits and the wheel will begin to turn again.
Growth mindset theory has been a recent area of study for me. I am pretty sure that I, therefore, fall into the enthusiast category. I am not aware of any growth mindset in the classroom handbooks so I have taken some time to read, listen, discuss, debate and translate the messages into classroom resources, activities and classroom vocabulary that I have trialled with my students. I won't bore you by showing you the resources that I have created in this blog post but if you are interested in finding out more, please get in touch.
As David Didau suggests in his article, it's not just about the posters, the mantras and the saccharine motivational quotes, although these do help pupils to understand and some of us are inspired by them! Obviously, I am no expert and some might say that this is just standard teaching but after some research and experimentation, I think that there are some important improvement messages that should not be dismissed:
1. You can always do better - Pupils in my classes know that they will be expected to redraft their work.
2. It's OK to make mistakes if you don't repeat them. Common mistakes should be shared and worked on until they are mastered.
3. Extended deliberate practice of key concepts during lessons is essential.
4. Knowledge/intelligence can be improved and learning behaviour is not fixed.
5. You can choose to be more successful and you should try not to give up at the first hurdle
6. Praise outcomes and behaviour for learning that you would like to see repeated and model this yourself.
If this sounds obvious then I apologise, but that is probably because the growth mindset message is fundamentally a simple one; if you want to improve, you can:
As teachers we are always looking for ways to support and encourage our students to be the best that they can be and if it turns out that this is not the right way to do this and the sceptics are proved right then we will simply continue the search having lost nothing.
Pokemon Go anyone?
Thanks for reading @BexK06
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