Mistakes Are Worth Making

I had the opportunity to hear Carol Dweck, author of Mindset and developer of the power of YET speak a few years back. Most educators are familiar with her as mindset has become a popular term in the teaching community. Through her research, she revealed that there are two types of mindsets: fixed and growth. A person with a fixed mindset believes that you are born with natural talents that make you better at certain things than others. A person with a growth mindset believes that it is through hard work and practice that these talents can be developed.

This has challenged many educators to focus on students’ attitudes when encountering challenges. Do they have the grit to push through when it is challenging or do they give up thinking that hard work and tenacity will do little to help the situation? Instead of empty praise that is non-specific, we give specific praise. So, instead of saying, “Great job on your narrative,” we should say things like, “Your writing was well developed. I really liked the level of dialogue you included because it helped me better understand your character’s feelings and thoughts.”

Today in my fifth grade classroom we were reviewing for our up and coming Unit 3 math assessment. We were using our math discussion cards in the process, and a student had used division instead of multiplication. His answer was unreasonable he felt, but another student asked, “How did you know what operation to use?” The student teacher, examining the board and looking at the problem he had annotated using CUBES, found his mistake and resolved the problem.

Another student asked, “How did you feel when you got stuck?”

The student teacher responded, “Embarrassed.”

Students don’t like to make mistakes, but it is our job to point out that mistakes are where learning happens. We have to challenge the idea that we all have to be perfect all the time. We are allowed to make mistakes and it is in those mistakes that we can learn more than if we never made any mistakes.

I am ecstatic that we still have half a year to work on building a growth mindset. If there is one thing I would love to see my students take with them when they leave my classroom it is a sense of determination when faced with challenges and the ability to push forward when things are difficult.