Growing Together

It's happening.  It's time to wave good-bye to my maternity leave and say hello to a new year.  Over the past 12 months I have had time to filter out my goals and expectations, learn more about the topics that interest me, have wonderful discussions with my teacher-husband, and read!  One of the books that I have been able to read over the course of my maternity leave is called "The Growth Mindset Coach".

There isn't a teacher who I have spoken to who doesn't share my desire to find a way to reach students.  We want them to succeed, to reach their highest potential and feel good about themselves.  One of the hardest things for ANYONE to do (teacher or student) is move beyond those things that make us comfortable and try something new.  Why is that?  Simply put, it comes down to a fear of failure.  

There are some areas in life where I am extremely motivated to try new things.  I think immediately of food.  I LOVE trying new food-things!  I find it completely satisfying to learn about cultures through food!  Hit or miss, I'm always happy that I gave something new a try (except that time I tried durian in university).  My mom, on the other hand, is comfortably situated on the other end of the trying-new-food-fence.  Take her to any restaurant in the world for lunch and she will ask for a Denver sandwich and the soup of the day.  She would happily say that she doesn't want to ruin the experience of the atmosphere by trying something different and potentially hating it.  These are two wonderful examples of two types of mindsets: a growth mindset and a fixed mindset.

A fixed mindset is "The belief that we're born with a fixed amount of intelligence and ability.  People operating in the fixed mindset are prone to avoiding challenges and failures, thereby robbing themselves of a life rich in experience and learning." Brock, A and Hundley, H (2016) The Growth Mindset Coach. Berkeley, CA: Ulysses Press.

A growth mindset is "The belief that with practice, perseverance, and effort, people have limitless potential to learn and grow.  People operating in the growth mindset tackle challenges with aplomb, unconcerned with making mistakes or being embarrassed, focusing instead on the process of growth." Brock and Hundley, (2016). 

I've had many experiences with students where they exhibit a growth mindset, and equally as many where I've seen very clearly a fixed mindset.  Until I read this book, I simply referred to my students actions as "trying".  To me, students were either excited or timid to "try" and, depending on the situation, subject or group of students, their desire to "try" was very different.  After reading this book, it became very clear to me that what I was observing went beyond behaviors or what I thought were observations in terms of "effort".  In fact, I was observing their mindset in regard to the circumstances the students were in.  

One of my goals, every year, every day, is to try and find ways to encourage students to "try", but now I have shifted my focus and my goal is now to help students develop a growth mindset.  The "Growth Mindset Coach" is the book I have been looking for.  Inside are month-by-month guides for promoting a classroom environment that supports a growth mindset, lesson ideas, activities and more.  Chalk full of research and resources, the book also functions as a workbook for teachers and encourages educators to look at our own growth and fixed mindsets.  

If you've found yourself in the same boat that I was in-trying desperately to figure out how to help students build confidence and not worry about failure while finding value in the process of learning-then this book might be a great place to start.  If you decide to read it, I'd love to hear your thoughts and learn how you are promoting a growth mindset in your classroom.

(Oh!  It's good to be back!)

A Book-A-Day...

During the summer holiday I was roaming through Twitter when I came across an image of one of the coolest bulletin boards I had ever seen. A teacher, (Jillian Heise-@heisereads) had made a giant grid on the school wall and filled the grid with book cover images of picture books she read to her class over the year.  One book for every day of school. Below her very amazing image was the hashtag, #bookaday. I knew immediately this was something I wanted to do, so I committed right then and there to creating a similar board. 

You'd think reading one book a day to students would be easy, but in actuality, a fair bit of thought has to go into it. Where do I start?  What do I focus on for those very crazy first few weeks?  What are the messages I hope to share?  What are "good books" I could use. 

I was lucky in the sense that I started the year by introducing Daily 5. I knew it was possible for our class to take up to nearly a whole month to become comfortable with the processes and follow expectations, so we spent a significant chunk of September learning the CAFE Menu, and practicing a small handful of reading strategies. Luckily, there are many suggested books on the Daily Cafe website for teaching reading strategies, so that was a great place to start. I also had a good look through our school and public libraries, I read "Writing Power" by Adrienne Gear which had great suggestions for anchor books for writing, and, as is often the case, the Internet was a great source. I used Twitter and simply followed the hashtags. I mentioned #bookaday, but I also stumbled across #classroombookaday and #nerdybookclub, which are all really good sources for finding books. I also simply went on Amazon and let my mouse take me away!  

So far, our Book-A-Day board has been a success. My students are looking forward to seeing the board fill up over the year, and are quick to remind me when I haven't put up the image of "yesterday's book". 

On the book cover images I have added the strategy or lesson the book is related to. 

We began the year with letter writing and I used several books to anchor the format for writing letters, and to provide students with lots of examples. The books we used for this were "Dear Mrs. LaRue: Letters From Obedience School", 

"I Wanna Iguana", and "Dear Mr. Blueberry". 

I'm also looking forward to having our Book-A-Day Board fill up as the year progresses.  If you have any suggestions for anchor books that can be used for reading or writing, I'd be happy to have them!!

Summer Reading

As a teacher, I generally like to spend the first part of my summer doing some light reading, and I'll be recommending a few good reads to my students as well.  

I recently came across a reading list on Twitter titled "50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12". It's a pretty good list, and it even got me thinking about revisiting some of the books on the list myself.  I've decided this is a good idea because: 

1.  I would like something fun and simple to read as a start to my summer. 

2.  I never read a book the same way twice.  

You can find a link to the the list below.  It could be a good list to recommend to your students, or to look over with your own kids and read a book on the list together. 

Happy summer reading!

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/lists/50-books-all-kids-should-read-before-theyre-12