10 inspiring images to promote a #GrowthMindset

We know the importance of developing a growth mindset for ourselves and for our students. It's really the essence of learning. Carol Dweck's book Mindset is a fantastic contribution for parents, educators, and just about everyone.

We need to constantly remind ourselves and our students that mistakes are part of the learning process. No one is perfect and perfection is not even the goal. The goal is to learn and grow be the best version of 'you' possible. The only way to journey toward reaching potential is to persevere through mistakes and embrace failures as opportunities. It's important to model this mindset for students. When we make a mistake, we should own it and not view it as a failure.

What if we had Genius Hour for teachers?

Photo credit: https://flic.kr/p/e77s5P

We currently have time built into our weekly schedule for teacher collaboration, and that's a good thing. But all good things need to be reinvented, or at least reinvigorated to make them better. We need to be creative to make the use of time and resources as valuable as possible. Our weekly collaboration time grew out of the Professional Learning Communities movement, and our school has benefited from the PLC structure. But I see a new vision for collaboration and growth emerging.

What if we had Genius Hour for teachers, a time for professionals to work on projects they have passion for. I've seen this idea tossed around on various Twitter chats, and it's reportedly been done in forward-thinking schools. The idea is to empower people to use part of their productive work time to pursue projects they believe are most meaningful for them and for their students.

Maybe I've flipped out...a few thoughts on learning

There are all sorts of mindsets that work against a healthy approach to learning. These are well-documented because we've heard our colleagues complain about them before. "Students nowadays don't know how to...." or "These kids are so..." But this post isn't a rant against students. That is completely unproductive. Learning is a natural part of being human, and the problems students have with learning has a lot less to do with them, and a lot more to do with us.