Growing a Growth Mindset, Part II

I’ve been pondering this question a lot over the last week – why do I get so mired in the fixed mindset?  How did I end up here and how do I get out?

One thing I’ve realized is I can definitely detect growth in some areas and fixed in other areas. Just this morning, in reading the chapter from Dweck’s book on relationships, I realized that I’ve had a fixed mindset about my relationship with my hubster.  My parents relationship seemed so effortless and perfect.  When the inevitable conflicts between my honey bear and self began to occur, I freaked out inside.  I began to doubt my choice. I thought conflict meant it was over. I would get anxious and do anything to avoid conflict with my love.  I know some of this stems from being a military kid.  I’ve read and seen this playing out in my life and other mks’ lives – we move before we get to the point of conflict so we never learn how to get through conflict with non-family.

I’m well versed in conflict – I’m not an only child, but that’s to be expected.  What about with friends – those outside the inner sanctum?!

I’ve also been awakened to the fact that  I had examples of growth and fixed mindsets in my home.  My dad has an insatiable curiosity.  His view of heaven is one of constant learning.  He reads I think ten books a week.  I could be wrong about this, but he always has a shifting pile of books by his bedside.  Now some if not most of those books are in his Kindle, but you get the picture.  When he was a major in the Army, it was books about war and leadership.  Then it was Seminary and it was Theology books and commentaries on the Bible and teaching books.  Then when he was teaching at a Seminary in Puebla, Mexico, it was books on whatever course he was teaching.  A huge vocabulary, continual growth – I saw a growth mindset though I didn’t realize it.  I know now that I kind of just thought my dad was always that way.

He tells a different story though.  When he was maybe 8, a third grader, he was very imaginative and often lost in his dream world.  The phrase earth to Roger was well-known in his vocabulary.  One day the story goes, his teacher implied to forget about Roger, he was kind of a dud or a dolt.  In today’s world, that teacher would have quickly been fired, right?!  And while her words were not the most constructive, it jump started my father.  He woke up and thought “I’m no dud, I’m not a dolt, I’ll show her.”   From then on, he was the best and most dedicated student.  As my aunt, his older sister, tells it, he was one who never had to study much.  I don’t know that that was necessarily the case.  I think there is definitely a natural bent toward intellectualism in my family, but it’s also about that growth mindset.  He didn’t just take in information for a test – he took and takes in information and it becomes part of him.

I find a lot of that in myself.  I failed out of math, but I went to Bible school and did study hard and work hard on researching and writing term papers.  In the end, I know I am more satisfied then I would have been being a computer engineer.  In other words, I don’t want to go back and become a computer engineer and I don’t really regret that I left that world. I’m pretty positive I would not be where I am now attempting to be a champion for educational transformation if I had succeeded early on or had a growth mindset then. All in the right time.

So what about the fixed?  I heard how smart I was a lot.  What I heard was, “You are a lot like your father.  You are so smart.  You and Bud (brother) are just naturally so smart.  You understand and get things.”  Not so my mother in her own estimation.  She was too old to master Spanish.  She was not smart enough to understand technology or the philosophy and intellectualism like we did.  So what message did I receive?!  My smartness was inherent and she did not have that.  I think she’s come a long way since then, but you get the idea of the conflicting messages I received.

But I don’t think my parents are the only reasons I’ve had this mostly fixed mindset.  School and Religion have also played their part.  I’m going to stop for today.  It’s time to get out of the virtual world and have lunch with colleagues.  But I wonder if anyone else can relate to or start to see the growth/fixed mindsets in their childhood and in their parents’ statements – maybe not directed at them, but as Dweck writes “When children hear their parents level fixed judgments at others, it communicates a fixed mindset.  And they have to wonder,  Am I next? (p179).”