Personal Statement: Being Open To Growth

In Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen, the character Juli has a growth mindset. Juli has gone through a lot, one of those challenges she had to go through was a sycamore tree that she climbed every day to see the view. That obstacle she has to go through creates her to have a growth mindset because of how much she loves that tree.

As a teacher-leader, I have been assigned a number of wide-ranging and important informal roles in my career thus far that have enabled me to support and contribute towards the success of not only my students, but also my department and my school as a whole. By assuming these diverse leadership roles, I have been able to develop professionally, improve student attainment, positively influence the teaching and learning practice of my peers and contribute towards the culture and ethos of the schools I have worked in.

Mindset is a concept discovered by Dr Carol Dweck through years of research on achievement and success.There are two types of mindsets fixed mindset and the growth mindset.People with a fixed mindset thinks their traits are fixed.In contrast,People with a growth mindset think they can improve their traits through practice and hard working.Dr Dweck explains the existence of the growth mindset through abundant real life stories.He compared growth mindset along with a fixed mindset.People with a fixed mindset anticipate it is something people should be born with.While people with growth mindset anticipate that success is not something that someone have to be born with.It is something that can be acquired through practice and hard work.

In 2006, Carol Dweck published her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. In her book, Dweck (2016) introduced the terms fixed and growth mindset and renewed an educational mindset. A growth mindset is a thought process that can be learned and essentially means that individuals never stop learning and growing. Furthermore, individuals are in charge of their learning. Although this mindset is not limited to the education field, it is highly regarded in education, as this is a field where growth is the key element to learning.

In order to go from a fixed to a growth mindset and stay there requires effort. One cannot go on a diet and lose weight to just turn around and gain it back and then start all over again. Change can be difficult for anyone and Dweck says the following about maintaining the growth mindset. “Mindset change is not about picking up a few pointers here and there. It’s about seeing things in a new way. When anyone changes to a growth mindset, they change from a judge-and-be-judge framework to a learn-and-help-learn framework” (2016, p. 254). Change is not easy. Change takes time. Change takes effort. Are those not all of the things Dweck says is a growth mindset?

I know that it may seem that you could never be successful but it’s not true. It may feel like there is no point in learning about new things if you won’t need those skills to be a maid. I can see how you may think how are you going to pay for college if your mom can’t pay but that’s not your only option. Also owning a house may seem hard to accomplish but they’re are ways to help with that too.

Moreover, a growth mindset encourages directly and indirectly successful outcomes. High school engaged many instances of growth mindsets for me. At the end of my middle school career, I had managed to become a part of an amazing friend group, I had fantastic grades, and I was doing well in all aspects of my teenage life. Yet, a constant dilemma phased through my mind: I would lose all my friends consequent to the high school split. This had the power of striking panic in me, but instead I found myself thrilled for the next year to come so I could make all new friends. From the beginning, I was optimistic and ecstatic about starting off with a clean slate and that guided me into making a whole new friend group. These friends have given me unique

Reading the article and watching the video was very interesting, definitely an eye opener on the world of making mistakes and how we, as a society, view it. In my opinion, the growth mindset is simply a way of thinking that allows one to be open to learning from mistakes and taking a risk instead of “playing it safe”. It’s all about growth as a person, if you stick to the sidelines and do everything exactly how you know how to do it you can never experience and learn from life. I feel like this can be incorporated into my learning process by simply being open to failure. Just because I don’t necessarily do good on something doesn’t mean I have to be hard on myself, I need to analyze what I did wrong and educate myself on how to not make

Teachers who put encouragement on students may assume they have adopted a growth mindset. But, Dweck said, “growth mindset is about closing the achievement gap, not about making low-achieving kids feel good in the moment but not learn in the long run.” If schools were encouraged to adopt a growth mindset, then they would need to acknowledge that teachers will make mistakes in their teaching. They might try teaching methods that are not as successful as they hoped. Also schools would need to provide teachers with the opportunity to reflect on their teaching in a much more structured way than currently occurs. Often teachers are time-poor, rushing from assessment to planning to extra-curricular event, but part of developing a growth mindset requires

After taking the mindset quiz I discovered I have a growth mindset. I was not initially surprised by the result, knew where I stood on terms of being open or closed minded when it comes to people's intelligence and abilities; however I've never had a name for it and I was surprised to learn the benefits of having a growth mindset. Furthermore, I've never thought of about how it would apply to teaching (rather than teaching my own children) prior to taking the quiz. Now that I've considered the options I believe that it could potentially be detrimental for students if their teacher has a closed mindset. I believe this because, if a teacher thinks a struggling child has no chance for improvement due to born intelligence or skill, then they will

Carol Dweck’s theory is about fixed mindset and growth mindset. Firstly, in a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. On the other hand, growth-mindset is about achieving mastery and competence; the person believes that superb personal qualities can be learned, developed or cultivated. Therefore, those with a "fixed mindset" believe that abilities are mostly innate and interpret failure as the lack of necessary basic abilities, while those with a "growth mindset" believe that they can acquire any given ability provided they invest effort or study.

There are different types of mindsets, a growth mindset, and a fixed mindset. Everyone has either a growth mindset or a fixed mindset. It is the way the people think and react to different things. People with a growth mindset they embrace challenges. They take and learn from the criticism that they receive. People with a fixed mindset, they give up. They avoid taking challenges. They avoid any kind of criticism even the useful kind. A growth mindset helps and develops your intelligence. Failing helps you grow. Looking at challenges and going through with them help you grow.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. How much effort you put in is how much you get back. You can’t study and get a grade you don’t won’t. Grit and growth mindset, are the key to life. You can master both of these things with the right amount of effort.

Growth mindset is extremely important to have because the outcomes will be worth it. It is not too late to change your mindset to a growth mindset because you will gain the ability to avoid mistakes from the past, attain courage, welcome difficult tasks, and earn more knowledge. If you have a fixed mindset, say goodbye to it and change it to growth mindset if you wish to have these abilities. Growth mindset will push you to your limit and you will receive what you thought you couldn't. As long as you believe that the brain can be malleable and use correct strategies to strengthen the brain, you can begin to achieve anything and everything.

Openness is described as being open to new experiences and having an “appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience” (Wikipedia, 2015). It is not surprising to me that this is my strongest trait and even explains why I have chosen to pursue my EHCM. I am at a point in my career where I am ready to take it the next level and I believe learning new skills and challenging myself will help me achieve my goal.