Three important growth mindset lessons for teachers ...from skateboarding

I imagine you would be hard-pressed to find a teacher in New Zealand who has not heard about growth versus fixed mindsets (see the video below if you haven't yet). Most of us have a poster or two about in our schools or classrooms. we have used it to encourage struggling or frustrated students. Some of us have even used the posters to remind ourselves from time to time to keep at a task when it seemed impossible, challenging or daunting.

I was reminded this weekend of a few important growth mindset lessons. I went along to my first all-girls skateboarding class today. The class is aimed at women eighteen years and over. After getting my elbow and knee pads, helmet and wrist guards on, I picked up my new skateboard and prepared for some new learning. Now you would be forgiven for thinking that I am sporty and co-ordinated. I'm not. In fact, I am all uncoordinated limbs that constantly suffer the impact of my limited spatial awareness. And this skating thing? I tried it for the first time about two years ago. So we are talking real beginner here. And on top of this, my lack of participation in a sport before this means I have few muscle memories to help ease the transition.

As I practiced my tic-tacs (turning by lifting the front of the board as shown in the gif below), it occurred to me that I had forgotten some of the important lessons about growth mindsets in the way that I was planning my lessons.

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Lesson 1: Play
How often do we give students a chance just to play? How often do we structure, scaffold and constrain students? Particularly at secondary schools? How much science is done with instructions, rather than as explorations? Yet, we know that much learning happens through play whether you are an adult or a child. In my skateboarding class this morning, I was reminded of just how different my attitude is to play than it is to work. I tried different strategies, I practiced things so that I could feel confident about moving on to try something else. I tried stuff and failed, and tried again because there was no real risk involved. How often have we wished that our students would keep trying, or would search out new strategies? Yet how often do we give them the chance to play? Perhaps if I gave my students more time to play, they might seize the reduced risk environment to fail safely and try again.

Lesson 2: Choose your level
I watched in admiration at the other women who attended the skate session with me. One of them was teaching herself to drop in from increasing heights on the ramps available. Another one was practicing getting over the lowest ramps for the first time. I was practicing turning (I am not an ambiturner yet). If I had tried the drop in on day one, things would have ended badly. I would most likely have felt terrified and not very successful. At the same time, if the more advanced skaters had to practice how to do a basic turn like I was, they would most likely have felt frustrated and bored. Chances are, all of us would have gotten distracted and off task if the learning wasn't pitched at the right level for us. This was an important reminder that often in schools we make assumptions about someone's fixed mindset when in reality it is the learning that is not pitched at the right level for the students. The emotional roller coaster of learning a brand new skill reminded me that it is time to break out my professional readings about the zone of proximal development again.

Lesson 3: If you are not falling, you are not trying hard enough
Between tangles of limbs, high speed, and attempting to lift the front of the board off the ground while turning, and staying balanced, falling is pretty much inevitable. In fact, it almost feels like you are not trying hard enough if you turn up with knee pads that are not scuffed. Also, I have yet to meet a skater who is content and isn't working on a new trick. This too had me wondering about school. Just how much is failing encouraged in your school or classroom? It seemed to me that the contrast between learning to skate and learning at school was massive. You arrive at skating expecting to fail, accepting that you won't make progress if you don't take risks. All skateboarders can regale you with tales of their injuries and epic falls. Watch any skating contest and you can see how people fall, get up, and try again. Yet, even in the most growth mindset orientated classroom or school, there are so many systems, traditions and behaviours that actively discourage the kind of risk-taking in learning that skate culture seem to be made of. I have yet to sit around with a student and compare notes about how we both failed something at school or university.

So this week as I plan my classes, I intend to include a whole lot more focus on these three lessons. To start with, we are going to play with virtual reality. No scaffolding, no tasks, just time to play. I will plan time to share and celebrate the mistakes we make and get the chocolate fish ready as rewards! I think the stop-motion films we are making about plate tectonics is a perfect context for this. And finally, I'm going to adjust my exit slips for the week to give me feedback about whether I pitched the various parts of my lesson in that sweet spot between can and can't. I think a renewed focus on differentiation is just what the doctor students ordered.

PS: If you are in Auckland, 18+ years old, and a female, feel free to join me on Sunday mornings at 11am for OnBoard Skate's all girl skate session. 

Failing outside the car park

Failure is just a first attempt in learning. If you've never failed, you've never lived. “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” - Robert F. Kennedy “Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to change might be” – John Wooden “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” - Ken Robinson “Giving up is the only sure way to fail.” - Gena Showalter.

There is not shortage of inspirational quotes about failure. There is also no shortage of videos, books, blog posts or magazine articles about it either. Yet, failure still has a punch in the stomach feel to it. We still avoid failure. We minimise failure. We use failsafes so that we are less likely to fail. We help, guide, rescue others so that they do not have to deal with failure. Even as we spout inspirational quotes about failure, we try our best to avoid it.

Recently, I had to venture out of my comfort zone to experience some rather public failure. As a 28 year old, I had to learn to drive a manual car from scratch. Being a fairly competent learner of new things in many other areas, I started with my growth mindset switch engaged, as usual. I even got myself a new set of learner plates for the car, proudly sporting the fact that I was learning something new. My attitude paid off relatively well whilst driving around in my local shopping mall car park. But then, the real world. Stalling whilst trying to pull away at the traffic lights that resulted in many loud honks. Or, not stalling, taking my time to pull away calmly, and still being honked at for taking too long. Having to ask for help from others because I can't take myself for a driving lesson or learn how to drive from Khan Academy (yet). Scratching my new car on my own mailbox in the first week of driving it by myself. All of these events make you feel a bit embarrassed (because I still can't get it right), defensive (because I thought I did the whole sequence of handbrake-clutch-petrol right), argumentative (it's not my fault), angry (I'm just learning here, stop honking at me you stupid people, at least I'm trying) and just a general sense of frustration.

Something as simple (and yes, despite the above I am calling this simple) as learning to drive can be so uncomfortable that we sometimes avoid it (I don't feel like a driving lesson now...). We feel angry and upset about it (especially when I scratched the car). If this is how one might feel about driving, how earth can we take risks in schools when learning to drive is this emotional?! How can we innovate if the second we step out of the car park, we let the cars honking from behind put us off? We often feel safe test driving new ideas and innovations in the safety of a car park, but we get flustered, defensive, aggressive and a range of other feelings when we are honked at outside the car park.

But... Would you have told me to quit learning to drive manual because people were honking at me whilst I was learning? Yet we often seem to quit when cars honk in education.

So what do we do about those honking cars?

I am about mid way through a great book called Simple Habits for Complex Times by Jennifer Garvey Berger and Keith Johnston (PS: I am considering buying this book for every leader I know for Christmas, i.e. I think you should read it). One of the ideas from this book that has really struck a chord with me is the idea of safe-to-fail experiments, (as opposed to a failsafe). Where adding in failsafes to a process, we make back up plans and safety nets so that the experiment can not fail us, safe-to-fails do not. Failsafes stop the failure from happening, and in the process, limits the learning. In contrast, a safe-to-fail experiment has no failsafe. In other words, if the experiment fails, we don't 'fix' it, we don't have a back up plan, we literally try something that might fail, and let it fail. It means we learn what happens when it fails. Is that a terrifying idea or what?! Not as terrifying as you might think...

A safe-to-fail experiment is instead, an experiment where if it fails, it is OK, because the purpose of the experiment is to learn. The purpose is not for the experiment to succeed, the purpose is to learn. Again, a scary thought... Shouldn't we be aiming to succeed? Yes! But sometimes, learning is more important. For example, lets say that I would like there to be more diverse perspectives in a particular meeting. A failsafe experiment might see me invite outsiders who I know represent diverse perspectives. Of course, the experiment has a failsafe, I don't want it to go wrong, so I am going to remind them of the events, drop hints, maybe even coach the 'diverse perspectives' a little. I need buy in from some senior managers, it's about being accountable after all. I have also organised some 'back up' people incase my diverse opinions can't make the date. In contrast, safe-to-fail might have me ask questions in the meeting such as 'what other perspectives have we not yet considered?' and 'who has a contrasting opinion about this?'. Then, I would simply sit back and listen to what happens. My little experiment might have worked, it might not have. It doesn't matter, because either way, I will learn more about how the group responds to different perspectives.

It is small, it is safe, and it is just as likely to go wrong as it is likely to go right. But, I will definitely learn from the results. And from there, I might upscale my experiment, because I learnt that the group were very receptive to alternate perspectives. Or, I might learn that the group struggled to generate alternate perspectives so my next experiment might be targeted there. Either way, I know more and so, can make a better decision about where to next, what to try next, what experiment next.

Some people talk about failing forward, I like to think about this as experimenting forward. But more importantly, it might be a means by which in education, a system in which we desperately need and want to see change but we are honked at by parents, politicians, communities who fear failure, we might experiment safely. Maybe, by using safe-to-fail experiments, we might learn to drive outside the car park without being honked at too loudly. And maybe this way, we might learn about the ideas and people that underpin our faculties, our schools and their communities, the relationships that shape and guide them, the tails that wag the dogs. We all know that you can't really solve a problem until you understand it. So, until we really learn about and understand our systems, our initiatives, our ideas, our failsafes will keep resulting in us finding mediocre solutions because we have not really learnt about the problems enough. Our innovations and experiments will be limited in reach, they will be bandaids, not arcs.

PS: I can drive a manual now... outside the car park. Join me?

Dancing all over the fixed mindset

 

"There's something curious about professors in my experience -- not all of them, but typically, they live in their heads. They live up there, and slightly to one side. They're disembodied, you know, in a kind of literal way. They look upon their body as a form of transport for their heads. Don't they? It's a way of getting their head to meetings. If you want real evidence of out-of-body experiences, get yourself along to a residential conference of senior academics, and pop into the discotheque on the final night. And there, you will see it. Grown men and women writhing uncontrollably, off the beat. Waiting until it ends so they can go home and write a paper about it." - from TED.com

The thing about a true growth mindset, is that we do not just apply it when it suits us. Sometimes we revert to a fixed mindset in different circumstances. Where academic learning is concerned, my growth mindset it is safe to say, is fairly embedded. However, in the case of physical activity, I often find myself in the neighbourhood of the fixed mindset. Excuses like "I don't have sporty clothes",  "I don't have time" and "I am too uncoordinated". Or blaming "work is just keeping me too busy" or "I was just too tired." Whether true or not, the only person that suffers from the blaming and excuses is me.

A friend gave me a book for Christmas. The book is called Giraffes Can't Dance. If you know me, you would know exactly how appropriate this is, tall and spatially challenged (there may or may not be a number of head butting incidents in the past). In fact, very much reminiscent of the passage above from Ken Robinson's famous (must watch) TED talk. However, having the ideas of Carol Dweck's book about growth mindsets firmly on my mind, I thought it was about time I confronted this can't dance thing head on. After all, I love to dance, albeit terribly and at the risk of all those around me. So, Thursday morning I joined in one of the spin (special interest) modules at school. These occur once a week for 90 minutes. Last year I joined in on some Maori classes  at school (post about it here). Despite it being a bit of a challenge, it was well within my normal comfort zone of academic learning. I had strategies in place that I know I could rely on to improve. I knew I would get better with practice and time. Of course, I have very few strategies in place for dance. It is well outside my comfort zone. However, as I walked out of the class at the end of the session, I felt great. Not only had I learnt a few new things about teaching (fabulous dance teacher Sophie and how she utilises the space she teaches in), but I also felt great knowing that I had faced a challenge that makes me feel deeply uncomfortable head on, and publicly.

Of course, through the entire 90 minutes I couldn't get the thought out of my head about what the students might think. But again, that is just a fixed mindset talking, because maybe, just maybe the students might see their teacher actively confront the things she is bad at, and then do something about them, despite the challenge. Or maybe, they might think I'm a total dork. Either way, I'm learning to dance. See you all on the ULearn dance floor in October?! Knowing full well the constant state of flux that the waistline on a pair of jeans can acquire as we get older, it also feels extra good (mentally, definitely mentally) knowing that my super sore muscles since then is further evidence of dancing all over that fixed mindset.

PS: The irony here about academics going home to "write a paper about it" and me writing a blog post about it is not lost on me...

Am I teaching in a multiverse?

Today I took a risk. It was the first day of my new My Time slot called The Science of Sheldon Cooper and Stephen Hawking. This is the stuff of multiverses, space time continuums, singularities and string theory, dark matter and quarks. If these words make no sense to you, it is ok, they make little sense to me too! So if as the teacher, I have almost no knowledge of the topic that I am teaching, what exactly is my job?! And if you were in my situation, how comfortable are you with the idea of actually being just as clueless as your students?

Well, turns out that I am very comfortable in the role of clueless. I had the enormous good fortune of spending the weekend at kiwi foo, surrounded by truly brilliant people. Rather than feel the impostor syndrome I had somewhat anticipated, I felt a desperate need to spend every waking minute engaging with these incredible individuals. Every moment I slept would have been a moment I missed out on learning. There was just not time for feeling like an impostor. And today, in the classroom, introducing the idea of multiverses, I was too busy learning alongside the students to have time to deal with the fact that I was only about a millimetre ahead of the students in understanding at times. Sometimes mores so, but most of the time, I too am still trying to get my head around the idea that there might not be one universe. And where exactly are all these multiple universes?

I asked before, what is my job then if I am learning alongside my students about the same material? Learning about other things, or about your students is one thing, but learning with them, about the same thing, searching for complexity and depth, evaluating your own understanding against the rubrics? Is that a step too far?

Well, I happen to think it is a step in the right direction. I have absolutely no interest in teaching my students a whole bunch of facts that they could have googled anyways. What I am far more interested in is teaching my students how to learn. How to wonder about the world, the universe (or the multiverses in this case), and then, how to make sense of it, understand it, find patterns, use the information. I want to show students that nothing is out of their reach, I want them to believe that they can learn anything and everything. And I want them to know how to do this. My expertise comes in around teaching students how to make sense of new ideas, concepts, information and more. And role modelling, obviously.

So what does a lesson look like where you introduce students to multiverses? Well...

1. You go to the experts! Brian Greene has great TED talk that introduces the ideas. (Keeping in mind that in a world of internet, flipped classes, YouTube and MOOCs, students have a choice anyways about who they learn their content from, it doesn't have to be from me).  
2. Pause the video, ask students to generate questions, as many as possible, model posing questions for the students. Ask questions that you genuinely do not know the answer to.
3. Rewind the video when you need more time to make sense of an idea.
4. Ask students to share their best questions. 
5. Record your favourite questions on a post it with your name. 

All of a sudden you now have key questions that students can start researching by looking for key words, key people, diagrams and more related to their personalised questions. And what great questions! Here are just a few...

• How did they find out about string theory and dark energy?
• Does the idea of wormholes which is travelling through space from one galaxy to the next, also apply for multiverses and universes? 
• Is the concepts of multiverses in the realm of science, science fiction or philosophy?
• Did the big bang have any effect on the multiverses?
• If galaxies are being pushed away from each other and if the multiverse and idea of infinite universes weren't real, what would happen when a galaxy reaches the end of the universe?
• And my personal favourite,  If our universe is expanding (faster and faster) then does that mean the multiverse expands at the same rate? (if so, would it have to be expanding squared to the speed of the amount of universes inside it?)

This last question was written by a FOURTEEN YEAR OLD!! On the first day of being exposed to the idea of a multiverses. Mind blown. Boom.

So it got me wondering, what possibilities might I hold back from my students, by not being willing to risk truly learning alongside them? And even more so, what terrible crimes against the potential of our students are we committing if we do not strive to live out the growth mindset every minute we spend with out students?

Now if you are curious about multiverses, here is the video I showed the students...

I messed up

You know that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you have made a mistake? And then, it sinks a few more inches when you realise that it is not the kind of mistake that you can cover up without anyone noticing? And then it sinks even further when you realise how many people will be affected. And then you have to tell the boss that you messed up. It reminds me a bit of those "you had one job memes"

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Today happened to be one of those days where I messed up. I am still not sure about the how it happened part. I just did. Of course today's mistake had the potential of affecting more than 200 students and all their teachers. So on the scale of mistakes, not small, but fortunately not enormous either. 

However, there are some very crucial lessons that I was reminded of today thanks to this mistake. Here is the list:

1. Stay calm. Getting wound up and over emotional clouds your judgement and your ability to problem solve.
2. Prototype rapidly. The faster you start testing out mini solutions, the faster the problem is solved.
3. Admit your mistake. Publicly. People will not know how or where to help, unless they know that something has gone wrong.
4. Be the one to step up and help someone who has made a mistake. Your help makes all the difference. (A particular shoutout to the fabulous Taheretikitiki community for this one today, thank you).
5. Show your gratitude for those who stepped up. 
6. Be open to feedback, critique and sometimes, even criticism. Without it, you will take much longer to realise your mistake. Listening might mean you avoid the mistake all together.  
7. Learn from your mistake. Take notes to make sure that you do not make the same mistake again.
8. Before your new learning slips out of mind and your notes out of sight, have another go to implement or practice your new learning.

These are my 'rapid prototypes' from today - a spreadsheet for every new idea to try and solve the problem.

No question about it, making mistakes are not necessarily fun, and sometimes rather painful. However, there is much to learn from our mistakes, so maybe, they aren't so bad after all. 

Think like a super villain, not a minion.

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At ULearn last year I sat next to a lady who cited the government as an excuse for schools not being future focussed. The year before at a different conference, someone cited a similar reason for why they could not achieve their peresonal goals. One often hears senior leaders blamed too. Sometimes boards of trustees or communities, sometimes parents, often, colleagues. I too have played the blame game, especially where in my opinion, the needs of the students are not being put first. 

However, with Carol Dweck's Minset and Dan Pink's Drive ticked off my summer reading list, I am deliberately trying to think, act  and even communicate in a more growth mindset orientated way. After all, blame, and making excuses are signs of a fixed mindset. And as my summer reading pointed out, just because I show a growth mindset in some contexts in my life, does not mean that I necessarily show it in others. For example, I know that I am far more growth orientated when it comes to academic learning than when I'm doing a physical activity. 

So, to combat those moments where I might slip into the fixed mindset, where I might play the blame game or make excuses, I am testing a new motto. Think like a super villain, not like a minion. When a super villain does not like what the government is doing, they plot to take over the world, or they hack the system. Rather than moping around, they plan takeovers, grow their following, and find loopholes in the system that allow them to pursue their goals. 

Now don't get me wrong here, I am by no means telling you to be a super villain, but rather to start thinking more like one. Where are the loopholes you can exploit? Where are there old, unnecessary or stifling systems, processes and rules put in place by people, that can also be broken down and improved by people? What rules are there that need to be broken, or better, replaced with new rules. Rather than trying to think outside the box, think about how you can assist in the demolition of the box. Super villains often also have a knack for being creative in their problem solving, for thinking big. They ask 'how might we' questions. How might we take over the world or build a flying octopus suit? Super villains have done anything and everything from building enormous robots to stealing the moon. 

Personally, I would much rather stop making excuses or stop blaming others, that is how a minion thinks. I would much rather think like a super villain. 

PS: 7 seconds left for my 28 minutes challenge today! 

It's hard being bad

When did you last feel completely incompetent? I’m not talking about momentary incompetence, like when you had to ask someone to open Fort Knox packaging. I’m talking about learning something completely new and not even knowing where to start, or tripping up over and over whilst everyone else seems to be getting the hang of it.

As a bit of a nerd who loves learning, I can devour educational readings faster than Homer Simpson does doughnuts. Put me in in a discussion or debate related to education and I’ll run circles around a lot of people. I can whizz my way around a computer too, a bit of troubleshooting here, some photoshop there and some e-learning too. I feel confident in my understanding of the nature of science, evolution, genetics and a few other science things. I build my understanding of new ideas quickly and easily without breaking a sweat. I make new connections fast. I am reflective, and I am good at identifying where and when I need to improve. Yet, despite having all these characteristics of what one might consider a good learner, I was reminded on Wednesday of the intense emotions associated with being a beginner learner. What's more, I was the kid in the class who knew the least.

My family moved to New Zealand in 2000. I attended a decile 10 school on Auckland's North Shore. My first experience of learning Māori was at teachers college for about four weeks, a total of 5% of my grade. And so, since I just don’t know enough about Māori language or culture to effectively teach my students how to honour the bi-cultural partnership in New Zealand, I decided to do something about it. 

Leoni, our exceptionally warm and skilled Māori teacher included me in her class as a student on Wednesday. I had to ask questions, and clarify my understanding. I had to ask the students for help because I could't remember how to begin my sentences. Or mid way through, I would suddenly forget what the next word in the sentence is, and then again, I would have to ask the student with whom I was partnered for help. I had to ask Leoni for help multiple times too, and ask her for clarification and guidance. Even though I theoretically know how difficult it is for students who struggle, students who have low literacy, students with learning difficulties, as an adult, it has been a long time since I could so completely emphasise with that feeling of complete and utter incompetence. There is an intensity to knowing that you are worse than everyone else in the class at something. It is uncomfortable, embarrassing and for many people, debilitating.

As I was reminded of just how intense learning can be, I was also fortunate in knowing that this was an invaluable experience that stressed to myself the empathy that I need to show those students in my class who are struggling. I could very easily not return next week to this class. Just as so many students wag class because they too have felt uncomfortable and embarrassed. I am fortunate in that for a long time, I have been working towards a growth mindset as described by Carol Dweck. Many of our students do not, and we need to help them develop this.

So, the week one hackyrclass challenge goal is beginning to develop a growth mindset. So I challenge you to go along to learn something that you know that you will be terrible at, simply because it will challenge your growth mindset and give you empathy for those who are still in the throws of developing it. And while you are doing that, I will go back for round two of Māori, so that at least I can be the top of the class student when it comes to persistence!