Some years ago, I decided to go back to university to get a Master of Arts in English Literature. I knew the work was going to be difficult – especially since I was teaching full time even as I was going to school full time at night. But this was something I really wanted to do – not just because of how it might help my teaching but also because I missed university. I missed the challenge of learning something new, of having to stretch my brain in new ways. It’s not like I never learned anything new as a teacher, but it was in a restricted set of topics – math education or literacy, assessment or communication. I missed English.
So I went back to school. I wrote my first paper, and I got an A-. I was ecstatic. I wrote my second – A- again.
And then I wrote my third, and I got a B-.
Not exactly a horrible grade, you might say. It’s above average; in fact, the way such things are calculated, it is above above average. A C is average. A B is a good grade, even with that little minus attached to it.
I cried for an entire afternoon.
See, I’d formed this view of myself as an A- student. I was “good” at literature, I was “strong” when it came to analysis, and I was definitely “excellent” at writing papers. My cohort (the other teachers who were in the program with me; we took classes together) would often come to me for questions about structure or grammar, and I would answer them, secure in my identity as an A- student.
And now that identity had been shattered. By a single letter (and punctuation mark) on a single paper.
It was about five years after this when I read Carol Dweck’s Mindset for the first time, the book about the research that forms the bulk of the video above. It was fascinating not only because I could fully understand what she was suggesting about the damage a fixed mindset could cause but also because if you asked me, I would have said that of course intelligence isn’t a fixed trait. This seemed incredibly self-evident. You aren’t born with a certain amount, like genes – you don’t get just this much and no more. You develop your intelligence by working, by learning, by studying. By putting in the effort to get smarter.
And yet.
When I talk about the danger of labelling yourself an A student or a C student, I speak from experience. We are not our grades. Even more, we are not our grade in a single class. Schooling is wonderful, valuable and important, but in this, I believe quite strongly that we do more harm than good. I agree that it is important to be able to measure ourselves against a standard: this gives us a goal to which to aspire. I don’t believe that the strengths and areas of growth we have as learners in any subject, skill or knowledge base can be distilled down to a single letter (and possibly piece of punctuation).
We are more than our marks.
We are more than what we are good at.
And if we want to become better … all we need to do is work harder, learn more, and ask for help.
During elementary school I feel I definitely had a fixed mindset. An example that comes to mind is in grade 6, we had just gotten our report cards back and I ripped it open. When I saw that I got a C in math I didn’t feel bad, I wasn’t ever particularly strong in math so why should THAT grade matter? But once I saw my English grade I immediately felt my heart drop. I got a B and I was very shocked, I considered English to be one of my strongest subjects. I walked home feeling heart broken and mad, I felt it was my teacher being mean. I told my mom I thought I deserved an A and complained about it for hours. My mom ended up talking to the teacher later without my knowledge. My teacher explained that I was good in English but I didn’t bother listening to her or learning in class because I didn’t think I needed to. I thought about that a little bit and pushed it aside but when I started grade 7 I made a mental note to listen and learn from the teacher and my grades have gone up in most subjects since then. Personally I know I’m a better student now and am more concerned of what I’m learning than what grade I get.
I think a lot of people have a fixed mindset. And it takes something (like a lower grade) to snap them out of it.
Often I feel that students don’t really realize it until their marks start to decline. And that’s a slippery slope, because at that point, I think they start to blame their teachers. These fixed minded students stop believing that the lowering of their grade could possibly be their fault.
In my opinion, everyone slips into these moments where they think everything is someone else’s fault. Barely anyone likes to accept blame. But I think it should be enforced more in school that making mistakes is okay.
For the most part, I think I have a growth mindset. I remember when I was in the 3rd grade, I moved to a new school. It was the beginning of the year, and we were taking a quiz on some of the math to see where we were based on what everyone at that school learned last year. I didn’t understand the symbol on the paper and asked the student teacher. Everyone had started division last year! Some of the advanced students even knew long division. I got practically every question wrong, and at one point in the year I had to go to math help. I worked so hard at the subject, and for the past two years I have gotten some of the highest marks because of the effort I put into it. I know a lot of people hate math because they find it so difficult, and I wish people knew that putting some effort into something, goes a long way.
I think it’s very hard to have just one of these mindsets. It seems that we are always in between the two. Sometimes we’re really focused on just doing our best and trying to be better and other times we have a fixed mindset. I think it’s really difficult for somebody to have just one of these mindsets because everybody is very different and saying there’s only two mindsets is unrealistic.
I can really relate to this because in elementary school, my grade 6 teacher praised me for being able to do things with little effort. I’m not saying I was an expert at all subjects, but what my teacher would say made me feel like I was. It really affected my learing because after hearing all the “good jobs” and “amazing works”, I got lazy. I stopped paying attention in class and didn’t do well on my homework. All because I thought I didn’t need to. Soon enough, my teacher called me over to his desk and showed me my marks. I was crushed. My grades had gone down so much that I felt like crying. After that day, I stopped listening to his praises and “words of encouragement” (though I was still thankful) and started trying my best on all my assignments. At the end of the year I got the grades I wanted and to be honest, I’m proud of myself because it really was a learning experience. Now I know not to let people’s words, good or bad, get to my head.
I also know from experience because through 6 and 7th grade I was one of the top in my class for English, especially the writing part, even last year in humanities the biggest reason I got an A was because of my writing, I hated socials (I still do). Through elementary the only classes I paid attention to was English and science but as the year went on my teacher made me feel like I was really good at it so I stopped paying attention in those as well, and just read through the whole day. I was supposed to go to summer school for both those years even though I never did. in high school I had no choice but to step it up. It wasn’t to bad till everything at home started to blow up, everybody was dying or breaking up/divorcing and I was always thrown in the middle plus staying on top of school. 3/4 of the year I did good, for me anyways, but the last 1/4 especially I went down hill. this year all the at home problems has been replaced with hockey. I always have a game out somewhere like Vancouver at like 6:00 giving me like an hour for homework on the one day of the week I have a crap ton of homework, like tonight. I’ve learned over the years how to go a day without many hours of sleep, and how to keep myself focused on my work while in the car or in the dressing room and for the most part I get it all done, there’s still some things here and there that’s a day or so late. I’ve also learned that having a “me” day once in awhile where you get to just relax Is really helpful.
I think that this generation labels everything. In high school there are “popular” kids and “nerds”. I think some people are also caught up in making their parents proud or to do better than their older sibling. Every once in a while you need to stop, give yourself a little bit of time where you can do something just for you. When you are by yourself you don’t have a label. Just be you. A family friend told me once, that her parents wouldn’t let her see her IQ. None of her siblings did. They didn’t want their children to have labels, to be called smart or dumb. This makes me think, that we live in such a messed up world.
I think that most of us would like to believe that we have growth mindsets, even though most of us have a fixed one. I personally think that it also depends on the way we grow up thinking about the specific subject. Like I have a fixed mindset for maths, but a growth mindset for English. It all depends on your relationship with that particular thing.
I think people can have growth mindsets and fixed mindsets for different things. Math is usually students least favourite subject, and I don’t think it is a coincedence it is also the subject most students fail on average. However, just because a student believes they can’t succeed by trying doesnt mean they feel that way for other things. For example, last year in the first term, my math and humanities grades were the same, but as I soon realized I enjoyed humanities way more than math, my math marks plummeted while my humanities marks rose. They were equally hard when it came to the cirriculum, but because I had a growth mindset for humanities and a fixed mindset for math, the grades were completly different. I think that happens to alot of students. Next semester when I have math, I’m going to aim to have growth mindset this time