howtogrowaminddotcom

My new book is out! I hope you will check it out. For those looking to learn more about Creating PEACE of MIND, I am writing this blog post to share just a little bit about my approach and philosophy. I have made many mental shifts over the past few years for many reasons. Firstly, I am a parent. Secondly, I am a parent of a child with special needs. Thirdly, I am an educator in gifted education trying very hard to adapt in a rapidly changing world. For these main reasons I began asking myself why everything is the way that it is. One result was the book “Creating PEACE of MIND: Focusing on What Matters in a Changing World.” I also became a believer in the new purpose of education. It holds a place for all the important movements upsetting everyone’s apple cart. I think we all need a little shake up but I also needed a plan for putting my apple cart back in order and hopefully it will be even better than it was before.

I will use the acronym from the book below to briefly describe some revelations from my “research” and practice that might seem common sense but are sadly not always common practice in homes and classrooms. I have research in quotes because the psychological research is already well established by others and I have attempted to integrate it into practice both at home and at school to see how it can change larger perceptions and improve communication. Dr. Carol Dweck, Dylan Wiliam, Angela Duckworth, Albert Bandura and many other respected researchers have done the hard work. I hope to show the importance of their work in a purposeful and integrated framework.

P.E.A.C.E. of MIND stands for Purpose, Engage, Adapt, Contribute, Evolve, and M.I.N.D. stands for a Mindset of Integrating New Developments. The book goes more in-depth to explain how alternative perspectives can cause confusion and frustration. Recognizing some of the “problematic” expressions of dealing with transition, challenge, and change might stand out to parents or teachers even more clearly if they are dealing with a particular situation.

Here are some of the shifts in perception:

Purpose: Mindset is a very important factor in how we approach the world. The word mindset can have many meanings and is not always clear. It has to do with beliefs about ability or how someone defines the word smart. The misconception is that abilities are fixed and can’t change much with effort. The truth is that strategies and effort have a huge impact on real success and growth. The word purpose sets the tone for how we approach the world. Is the purpose of what we do to prove perfection or to make progress? The personal answer changes actions, interactions, and the emotional experience of daily life for everyone. Adults can shape beliefs about ability through their praise, feedback, and the things they value. Unfortunately, society plays a big role in adding to the misconception that abilities are fixed and that causes big problems. This one concept supports all the other concepts that follow.

Engage: The choice to take on a challenge and put forth effort has a lot to do with personal motivation, attention, and expectations. The big shift that is happening in education is helping children discover their own ability to engage. What motivates them and what is the purpose for what they are doing? Teachers and parents can support engagement by offering clear expectations and examples. By building awareness of this concept we can understand students better and more importantly, we can help them understand themselves better which will have a lasting positive impact. Motivation is a complicated concept that is deeply intertwined with engagement and it is different for everyone. This stage is like providing a seed with the necessary conditions to germinate.

Adapt: The ability to adapt is a skill built through multiple experiences and we never stop honing or needing this skill. Our willingness to understand and accept feedback and then make necessary adjustments is arguably one of the most important experiences we can build for our children. Adults can shape the ability to adapt by understanding their role in offering different types of feedback and assisting children in valuing and applying feedback. Adapting is necessary in more than just academic areas. Improved communication and tools in this area are needed in the coming years. This encourages not “sugar-coating” things to an extent that awareness is undermined.

Contribution: This is the most profound shift that I was able to make. The purpose of education has become contribution which combines all the 21st century buzz words and initiatives that are so important. Adults are helping students find their voices and methods of adding something meaningful to the community. Someone could have the best idea in the world but if they do not have the skills and confidence to share with and convince others, it will not matter much. The difference between contribution and mere completion are profound and this idea is interrelated with terms already described above. In addition, contribution at young ages, adds to a positive sense of identity both personal and within the community.

Evolve: Evolution signifies an awareness of change that includes evaluation and personal reflection. Evolve combines the above elements with an expectation of continued growth. The better we become at self-evaluation, the better we get at integrating change, overcoming setbacks, and making progress. This also applies to evaluating our own mental process as we prepare to take on further challenges. Adults can help children by empowering evaluation.

Together these elements help to create P.E.A.C.E. of M.I.N.D (a mindset of integrating new developments.) This means that we can develop people that have a purpose of growth, they have “grit” or persistence, and a sense of identity that contributes to the changing world as part of a community. A diploma is just a piece of paper. PEACE of MIND is invaluable. Students need both to survive and thrive in this changing world.

In my years as an educator and student I have recognized some simple truths about learning.  In my previous post, I outlined reasons why change is needed in both education and society in general.  This post will focus on my ideas about the learning process which is currently not addressed directly with many students.  It is something that is just expected to happen.  With psychological and brain research available, I believe it is time to demystify this process by breaking it down into understandable parts that can help all stakeholders move forward when there is a problem.

I use a universal gardening metaphor because parents and teachers are basically tasked with helping children grow their minds.  Each part of the process is important for the overall goal of growth.  This is a brief summary of the ideas.  I go into further detail in my upcoming book How to Grow a Mind: A Better Way to Grow and Innovate in the 21st Century.  This is part of the edu-social movement designed to evolve the educational system.

Your Mind Is a Garden Overview:

It begins by incorporating mindset research as a foundation (fertile ground) and the belief that we can always improve.  Secondly, it focuses on expectations, goals, and dreams (the intended seeds).  Then, attention and interaction are needed to create engagement (the planting process).  We can guide our choices about what is actually planted.  Thirdly, to “keep it growing” three components are needed for navigating life.  The right balance of effort, creativity, and motivation, also known as the doing, perspective, and desire within a given situation.  These facets can help us to understand and solve problems within the learning process. By using these categories, we can better understand where to focus our mental energies to move forward.  We can also turn setbacks or “failures” into learning opportunities to be valued and emphasized as helpful for growth and change (failures into fertilizer and new seeds of success). Lastly, I discuss the need for “weeding out” fear, doubt, excuses and judgments that can be detrimental to progress.  Each step will be discussed below.

Step 1: Fertile Ground: A Mindset for Growth

The importance of being mentally ready to learn is like the importance of fertile soil when growing a plant.  This is why a growth mindset is necessary for real learning.  Carol Dweck’s research confirms the benefits of a growth mindset.  Simply, we need to believe that abilities can grow and that possibilities for improvement exist.  Teachers, parents, coaches and mentors have an important role in making the mind fertile ground for learning.  Some educational settings are directly addressing the idea of mindsets with students but many are not!  This is something that all teachers, parents, and students need to understand and have a language to address problems in this area.  It is very difficult to grow a healthy garden if you are planting seeds on a parking lot. It is not ability that determines learning.  It is the perception of ability that really matters!  The ideas of labels, special programs, and social stigmas go along with this section.  I argue we don’t need to get rid of labels and terms like “smart” but we do need to purposefully redefine these within the context of a grwoth mindset for students. Here is a quick visual to understand the difference between fixed and growth mindsets by @ViSalus. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8JycfeoVzg

Step 2: Planting Seeds:  Attention + Interaction= Engagement

In this section we learn about what seeds we are really planting and how it is tied to what we are paying attention to and interacting with.  Are you or your students paying more attention to what you don’t want than what you do want?  Usually what we don’t want is loud and in our face.  This section offers simple strategies that use attention and interaction to focus on what you do want rather than remaining angry and frustrated with what you don’t want.

In terms of goal setting and progress, planting the right seeds has everything to do with having a healthy garden.  It also incorporates motivation when it asks who is really doing the planting.  Remember when we are talking about a mind, as teachers, parents, colleagues or friends, we can only suggest what seeds to plant in another’s mind.  What they are actually choosing to plant is up to them.  I argue that attention and interaction are necessary for learning to occur.  Teachers and students should be aware of attention and its importance in the learning process.  This is especially important for students that struggle with attention.  I believe teachers and students can adjust learning opportunities to include more interaction when attention is a challenge.  This would also be the case for very young learners.

Step 3: Keep it Growing: Turning failures into fertilizer and new seeds for success

Some of the most successful people in history have used failure as fuel to achieve their dreams.  This section asks you to redefine failure and success into usable forms.  Just as every seed planted in our mind doesn’t turn out the way we expect, the ones that don’t go as planned have as much, if not more, to teach us as the ones that bloom beautifully.  If we value failure, setbacks, and challenges rather than hiding or excusing them away, we can refocus and remain on course.  Eventual success should be understood as the result of hard work and constructive feedback.  Successes are also vitamins for the mind because it helps you see what worked well and where you are headed next.    Our gardening metaphor helps us illustrate this concept.  What doesn’t survive becomes fertilizer for what is still growing, what does bloom, creates new seeds for success.

Also in this section, plants need things to keep growing and so does the mind.  It needs the right balance of effort (doing), creativity (perception), and motivation (desire).  Understanding that these three things are very different but interrelated and interdependent is important for addressing challenges in the learning process.  This is especially helpful for lesson design.  One facet can be adjusted and a domino effect can occur toward increased learning.  As children become older, understanding this will help them to become better problem solvers as they navigate more complex situations.

Part 4: Regular Weeding:  Fear, excuses, judgment, doubt…weed them out!

The mind only has so much attention.  If we spend a majority of it on fear, excuses, judgment and doubt, there isn’t much left for learning and actual problem solving.  This is easier said than done, but in this section we focus on our ability to make choices and catch ourselves when we get sucked into one of these useless mind grabbers.  As parents, coaches, mentors, and friends, we can be the gentle reminder to refocus and “weed out” thoughts that aren’t helping our mind do its job.  The goal of course, is to help those we are helping do this on their own but they need to learn that this is a choice and then to become experts at weeding.

This has been a very brief overview of the 4 essential steps to using the mind effectively.  Future blog posts will dig more deeply into each component.  The need to integrate an understanding of the learning process into every classroom is largely based on need for awareness and language to discuss and address challenges.

My next blog post will highlight the 5 ways to maintain a balanced “mental diet” in the 21st century.  It is delivered through a nutritional metaphor and the acronym “M.A.I.N -E” dish which corresponds almost directly with the four steps above but targets the daily individual process of using the mind.

If you are interested in my work or the Edu-Social movement How to Grow a Mind, please follow me on twitter  @JillReid123.  I am interested to hear your thoughts on these ideas.