The Power of Yet

As a child, I truly believed I was incapable of doing well in math class. It was confusing, tedious, and made my head hurt. So it's no surprise my grades often struggled in math and that I even needed remedial math just to get into college. And as I slogged my way through math classes throughout my childhood, I repeated a line over and over:

I'm not good at math.

It became an excuse I'd use any time I hit a wall and struggled with a problem. Usually that line was followed by an internal dialogue that went like this:

My friends are smarter than me.

I'm never going to figure this out.

What's even the point of learning this anyway?

I'm a dumb kid.

As I was sitting with my 5th grade son at the dining room table the other night helping him with long division, in frustration he put his forehead on the table and exclaimed those same words: "Dad, I'm just not good at math."

As a parent, I felt this panic that my boy is running that same dialogue in his head that I used to run in mine. I worried that he would start ignoring the affirmation and truths we've shared with him his whole life and develop a mindset about himself similar to the one I held for most of my academic life.

This is a mindset I've witnessed in so many students throughout the years. That because they struggle with a certain concept or subject, they are thereby stupid and hold less value than everyone else. Of course this isn't true, but it's a commonality shared by millions of students (and adults). And aside from living with low self esteem, this mindset causes growth to stagnate. How can you possibly grow and become better at something when you don't believe you are capable of it?

It is called a fixed mindset, and it is the bane of deeper learning and continued growth.

As educators, one of our top priorities should be helping our students develop a growth mindset. Instead of saying I'm not good at something, teaching students to say "I'm not good at something yet."

I'm not good at math yet.

I'm not good at writing yet.

I'm not good at public speaking yet.

This starts with teaching students the importance of having this type of mindset, but more importantly, modeling it ourselves.

This is what I dive deep into in this week's podcast episode. It was one of my favorite episodes to record to date, as this is a subject I am deeply passionate about. If you listen to podcasts on the way to work, while you cook, or exercise, I'd love for you to check out mine, and this episode would be a great one to get started with.You can check it out here on my website, here on Apple Podcasts, or here on Spotify. 

Get these classroom poster for FREE here: https://www.trevormuir.com/yet-posters