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We need to remember and focus on the fact that ALL students can learn and succeed.  Each student comes from a different background or has had different experiences. What can we all (parents, teachers, administrators, student, etc.) do to help the student grow. Our students will be trying new things and will be put in new situations, but failure is okay. Failure is necessary to keep moving ahead. How will we help the parents and students to understand this model? What will it take to get to that point?

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It would seem that as we continue to learn more about growing young minds in general, that we would need to come back to the idea that we are a community of learners, without the "buy in" of parents and the students themselves, this idea remains a strong theory of action, not an action itself . As teachers, what will we need to do going forward to begin the systemic shift in our educational community in order to see results and ultimately, how long does that take?

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I had two main takeaways from this article. First when everyone needs to have a role in students mindset and their growth. Also, students can close the gender and racial gaps with an open mindset. I know there are many things we cannot change about our backgrounds, but if we can close those gaps all students will learn at high levels. I believe having not only teachers

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I read the whole book a couple of summers ago as a part of my work to be an AIW coach, and I think that though these thoughts and ideas often seem obvious (obviously helpful, especially), like many things, they are a little more difficult to put into action. How can we help people (teachers, students, parents) move away from solely focusing on grades or excuses or using the past to predict (and create) the future--assuming that this is a goal that we have? How do we change the thinking so that intelligence and brainpower are seen as muscle groups that can grow with exercise, or like savings accounts, where stashing away a little bit at a time has an eventual, impressive compound effect? I like the ideas of focusing on what we communicate (especially via numbers and A-F letters) and focusing on the NOW, because I think those are two big pieces upon which our students fixate.

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The best example I can think of that I see on almost a daily basis is the, "Mr. Palmer, I've just always sucked at math". Or the ever increasingly popular, "I see that my son or daughter is struggling at math, I was never very good at it either" (as if making an excuse). I think it is important to always focus on the NOW. What can you do right NOW to improve. I don't really care what happened in the past, and I'm only slightly looking to the future. I usually always answer the statement of "I suck at math" with the statement, "don't tell me that, tell me what you suck at right now, and let's fix it!"

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As I read this article, I couldn't help but think "duh" a little bit. A growth mindset is certainly important in moving a student's achievement forward, but as we all know, it takes a major shift in thinking. Without any data, I think a lot of kids and parents have a growth mindset for activities, like sports. Yet, that style of thinking doesn't always transfer over into academics. I think part of this isn't merely about the kids being told they're smart, either. I think this also relates to learned helplessness and students who have perpetually been told they're not smart. It is hard to seen an incentive to work hard with that failure constantly haunting the student. Similar to some of the questions Michelle stated, I was left wondering where we go next and how we get everyone on-track with this mindset.

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Questions that I have regarding growth mindset are: 1) Are we all on board with this model? Just like PLC, I think we need to agree to be all in and ready to improve in these areas.  If we are not all ready to do this work, then 2) What new learning do we need to do to determine if this is the direction we want to take?  3) I agree with some of the other comments about getting all stakeholders, especially parents, up to speed on this type of learning model. It will be a shift in thinking for everyone and may need some significant PR to make the change.

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One of the main things I pulled from the article is that this change in mindset needs to happen within the entire support system for our students. Like Alex, I know some of my assignments place too much of an emphasis on grades and I need to do a better job getting away from that. However, I think it is necessary to get parents involved in creating this change. Too often students are rewarded, by both teachers and parents, for getting good grades rather than the amount of growth they have experienced.

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I think students need to realize that failure is an essential step in growing, and also that growth isn't just about a letter grade. As a teacher, I know some of my practices in the past have reaffirmed students' obsession of grades; one of my goals as I move ahead is to distance myself from this practice. I think an important step in this process will be to set up my Power School in such a way that growth is what is emphasized, not individual scores on individual assignments.

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I agree with Amanda about most of our staff seeing growth as an important part of achievement. I like at the PLC conference how they said we are here to create winners and not pick winners. Therefore, what things do we need to do to change this thinking in all stakeholders.

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Given our conversations in BLT and PD, I think most of the staff would agree that growth is an important element of achievement. In general, I think we want everyone to focus on moving forward through learning. A couple of questions come to mind: 1) What have we unintentionally done to promote one mindset over another? I just read an essay about smart girls (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-science-success/201101/the-trouble-bright-girls) that caused me to pause and consider myself as a learner. 2) Why is it that even studies that ultimately privilege a focus on learning over a focus on test scores and GPA support their conclusions with findings of higher test scores and GPAs? This, likely unintentionally, suggests that test scores and GPAs are still a primary focus/end-game, that we'll just do more to raise them (or, I would argue, serve them) if we stop talking about them so much. I wonder what this says about our society and our profession.