My Opinion on "Growth Mindset"

I totally agree with the idea behind “Growth Mindset”. A lot of you may not know this (probably none of you unless you have been stalking me), but I used to major in Physics. All throughout school, I absolutely loved math, science, and anything that went along with the two. I took physics classes during my whole high school career. I won an award for having the highest physics grade in the whole school. I actually was offered a career in nuclear engineering with the marines before I even graduated. Saying all of this, however, is ignoring my teacher, Kristi Adams (she works at OU now, so give her a shout out if you know her!).

The way Mrs. Adams taught went along with the idea behind mindset. She applauded students even when they got the problem wrong. She gave credit for ideas that students had, rather than juxtaposing their work to what may have been in the book. She made the classroom feel more like a family because we learned to also work in this way. She had some of the highest AP passing rates because of the way she allowed us to construct our ideas. When I got to the University of Oklahoma, however, I noticed a change. I noticed that the teachers did not put as much effort into building up the students in the same way. I felt that everything had to go by the books, even if you showed enough work to support your idea. I actually took the same math class my first semester that I had taken in my last year of high school. In the high school class, my math teacher was young and he taught in a very “growth mindset” way too and I was able to pass the AP test. In the college math class, however, the teacher wanted the math shown in the way she was used to, the way the book taught it, and I ended up with a "C".

I definitely think that my high school teachers were a little bit ahead of the game for their teaching styles. I’m not sure whether the OU teachers were less inviting for creativity because they were PHD’s and maybe were not used to anything besides the specific methods they were taught, or they just did not have enough time to allow students to learn in the manner, or what. I do know however, that although I loved Physics and everything about it, I had to move on to something else which allowed students to grow rather than being restricted to certain guidelines. 

(Image Information: A kitty that probably got in a lot of trouble. Source: Growth Mindset Memes)