 Welcome to this week's Wednesday webinar by Molly Ashoff. Growth mindset for teachers and leaders. What do our words say about us? Josh Miller, a popular author, talks about how if we change our words, we can change our mindset. I really like this picture that he has, that by just changing our words, it changes the whole perception of how we think. For example, if we embrace something or consider it a problem, that's a negative, it's a problem. Or we could change our word instead of saying, we have a problem, we say we have an opportunity, an opportunity to solve an issue. And it completely changes the flavor of that. You could also change criticism to feedback. If you have feedback, it's more positive, and then you think that there's probably growth after change from feedback. I want you to listen to this short video by Rebecca Fulomonino. She's a high school guidance counselor for a public charter school in Rhode Island that educates pregnant, parenting, and underserved adolescents. I think she has a great message for teachers and educational leaders like principals and superintendents. So let's take a listen to her. I like the term growth mindset over academic mindset because I think that in order to increase the students' academics, they really need to have that growth mindset. I think that can be often difficult depending on what his or her experiences have been throughout her life. And working with high school students, you've either developed a strong academic mindset or you haven't. You've either felt really encouraged or you've only felt that here and there from specific people throughout your academic life. Here I know something that I try to focus on and that our teachers try to focus on is rather than increasing or growing your academic mindset, to more of just having a growth mindset and knowing that throughout your challenges, whether they be the challenges at home or the challenges that you're facing at school, that you're able to have that growth mindset and look to where you can grow, how you can maybe mold yourself into someone who is seeking out the next best and better thing for yourself. I think that it's also important just going back to that growth mindset too that we as educators stay in that mindset because I think you can really get... I've seen people kind of get lost in that frustration of students not coming back to school or students not being able to be at school and I think that that can be like your worst enemy. I think you really need to kind of push aside that frustration and just really stick with this positive growth mindset that they're going to come back into what we're going to re-engage them and move towards that goal of graduation. I really liked Rebecca's message on when we're having frustration or there's a lot of things going on to try and remember to keep that positive growth mindset. There's a lot of frustrations that go on in a day or an academic school year and if we approach them with a growth mindset, our students will see that being modeled and that would be a great skill for them to have in their future. As I've talked about the power of our words and changing our words can really change the feel and the flavor of our attitude and one of the most powerful words in a growth mindset is the word yet. It's a really easy, simple word but it just can change how a student or a teacher or a leader is perceived or how they plan to approach something. For example, we say I can't do this. Well, if you add the word yet, it gives hope. There's time, more learning maybe that needs to take place but I can probably in the future get it. Same with, you know, it doesn't work yet. It doesn't make any sense yet. I've got time to grow. I really feel that as leaders or as teachers if we start modeling and using this word yet and making it a part of our vocabulary or our school's vocabulary, then our students are going to pick up and start using it and you're going to see a whole change, a change in your culture, a change in how we approach learning and failure because if I fail, I can't do it but I say yet, there's time to get there. Some tips I have here for a growth mindset and for maintaining that growth mindset. Number one, embrace the challenges. This is really hard. Every day, every week, every school year, it's full of challenges and if we can embrace those and think about those challenges making us better then it's really going to help us stay in that growth mindset. Another one, number two, persist despite obstacles. So we have these challenges and we say okay, we're going to embrace them, we're going to go forward and then you hit a bump or an obstacle but you need to be persistent, you need to keep going. We talk a lot about students having grit. Grit means that they can continue to work towards their goal even though there's these obstacles. Effort is the pathway to success. We need to start looking at our effort. Often we ask our students, is this your best work? But how often do we stop and ask ourselves, is this my best work? We need to look at the effort we put into things and when you start complimenting kids on their effort, not on the product, then they start looking at that and seeing that that's more important than the end product. So we need to think about that ourselves and we need to look at our effort and just think that if we work hard, that effort we put into our projects, it's going to make us better. Number four, learn from criticism. We are always hardest on ourselves but sometimes in education or often there is criticism that comes with it whether it's in an evaluation or it comes down from a state level because of something that we've done or we turn in our test scores and we have our constituents looking at us and criticizing us. We need to learn from that. If we think of that as constructive criticism and then it can help us grow, that's the best way to stay in that growth mindset. And the last one I have is celebrate the success of those around you. Keeping a growth mindset means that we can find inspiration in other's success. Instead of comparing ourselves to someone, just figure out how that person became successful and use those to inspire you to grow and become successful. There is a quote that I heard and I don't know who to give it credit to but it says, a flower does not think of competing with the next flower. It just blooms. And so I think that's really powerful. Some books that I've read recently that really have helped me form my growth mindset and to kind of see what that's like in a systematic way are the first one I would suggest is mindset by Carol Dweck. She's the guru and kind of lays the foundation of a growth mindset. Another one, the innovators mindset is by George Kuros and George spoke at our winter workshop a couple years ago. And this is more for leaders, for teachers. And he does a really cool virtual learning network that you can be a part of and you can collaborate with other leaders around the world as you read through the innovators mindset. Another great book I just read was grit by Angela Duckworth. We talk about our students nowadays need grit and that perseverance. So that's an excellent book. There's another one, mathematical mindsets by Joe Baylor. I haven't read that one but I've had it referenced a couple times here recently. So that would be a good one also. I want to just leave you trying to put you in a positive mindset with these words. If you want to change your words you can change your mindset. And so I think that that was something I really wanted you to think about as you go forward and how your words represent the mindset that you have and I hope that that's a growth mindset. If you have any questions, you want to borrow some of those books to read or anything else just please contact me. My information is here and I hope you have a great rest of the week.