 Okay, so today we're going to kind of circle back around and think about our mindset. Remember our goal golden theme for this nine weeks is my mindset. So raise your hand and tell me how would you describe growth mindset to someone who's not familiar with that terminology, Alex. I would describe it as a way to say like how I can do this better and how I can do this and like have a positive attitude while doing it too. Okay, Alex, thank you for that. That's awesome honey. Mallory. It is incredibly important to support students' concerns. Their little anxieties because as a human being you want to be acknowledged. It's a basic need to be heard. And even if sometimes you think, wow, in the whole scheme of things, that's kind of silly not to a fourth grader. It could be their whole world at that moment. So you're saying Mallory that if I don't get it right now, do I need to freak out? No. But do I persevere? Do I keep trying? Do I tell myself I can do it? Teacher knowledge of students, it's critically important. It's just not about academics. It's about knowing your students emotionally, socially. What are their interests? So I'll pull them aside if I see that someone's heads hung a little low. Maybe they're not as focused in the lesson as you're used to. Maybe they're a little more off task today or being a little silly. A lot of times those are indicators that the child has a heightened sense of anxiety. So we talk a lot. Positive self-talk gives me the power to control the focus of my mind. What does that mean, Harlan? If you give yourself positive self-talk, like say, I can do this, you can control how you're thinking. Like you can control in a good way. You can control it to be thinking good things. Creating a positive classroom culture starts at the very beginning of the year. It is something that has to be intentionally and purposefully planned, modeled and expected. The expectation has to be set clearly. So at the beginning of the year, I spend a great deal of time getting to know my students and letting them get to know me. So I have to tell you how much I love to tell you guys stories about when I was a kid. So I'm in fifth grade and I had a lot of anxiety about math. You guys know that. I've shared that with you. It was a little challenging because when I was in school, the teacher said you do it this way. This is how you do it. Do it now. I had one way, okay, and I was supposed to fit that one way. And I was really freaked out about it. It might look like a gallery stroll at the beginning of the year where they have different question stems and they're walking around and they're reflecting on the question stems and then writing to me. And one thing that we implemented different in our gallery stroll this year was a question send that says, I wish my teacher knew. And I gained so much valuable information about my students and what kind of learners they are through that one question stem. And I had paid attention in class. I had done my homework. I had a quiz, okay, next day. I wake up. Mystery illness befalls me, okay. I suddenly feel ill because I have a quiz. And my parents saw right through it. And so I was an honest kid. I'm always very honest. And I told them I said I'm really freaked out about this math test, this math quiz. And I just don't know if I'm good enough. I don't know if what I have done is good enough. I had this negative self-talk totally freaked out about the whole situation. Once they felt comfortable sharing with me, I went to them individually and said, I saw that you wrote this. Let's talk about it. And so building that trust and letting them know that I don't expect you to come into fourth grade knowing everything right off the bat. You're here to learn. You're here to take risks. There are going to be times when maybe you miss the mark a little bit and you know what, that's okay because my privilege, my job is to help you be successful and get through that. So my mom sent me down and she said, have you gone to school every day? Yes, ma'am. Have you paid attention in class? Yes, ma'am. Most of the time. Have you done your homework? Yes, I have. Have you asked questions? I have. Well, then why is that not good enough? And I sat there and I thought about it and I was like, I don't know. Why isn't it good enough? I've done everything I'm supposed to do. I think it's going to be okay. And so I went through these emojis. Did I study enough? Yes? No! Epic failure! It's going to be horrible! And then I was like, okay, wait a minute. Talking to mom. Mom helps me to redirect myself, talk. Mom just gave me some good old-fashioned parenting and said, you know what? It's going to be okay. You've done these things that you're supposed to do. And I got to school and I realized I had been listening. I had been looking and I had been learning. I was going to be okay. I passed the quiz. I know. It's a true story.