Process Praise: Growth Mindset

I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Carol Dweck's Growth Mindset. I am a huge believer in stretching comfort zones and that any difficulty that is faced will bring growth. I always picture a snake molting, constantly shaking out of its new skin. If kids (or people of all ages) do not participate in this, they remain the "same size." The entire initial idea of the Not Yet makes perfect sense to me. The system of Pass/Fail would be much less likely to encourage kids to continue trying at something, because it is harder to wrap our minds around the idea that once you "fail," it is possible to "pass" by continuing the same process. Using a "not yet" approach allows people to understand that a lot of the growth is in the process itself and that there is no finite end-all goal. I always like to say that "any experience is a good experience," because there are elements of learning and growth in every experience, even if it has "unsatisfactory" results. When faced with difficult challenges, those with this sort of attitude can see value in the actual struggle, as opposed to being discouraged by them.
I personally am pretty engaged in this for other reasons that I will be excited to get into as the semester moves forward.

Tree-climbing does not always look the same