UM, WHAT? WHAT’S THAT? OH, just MY GROWTH MINDSET.

How is it that one can manage their job, their home, their kids' schedules, etc. but cannot seem to get the order of things down for just one class?

On Thursday of last week, my FPF asked if I had sent her my LOFT reflection. To which I replied, I completed the reflection within my lesson plan. To which she elaborated, no, your LOFT reflection. 

My what now? 

I had not YET heard of the separate document that is required so I started digging around the TERP page (not as intuitive or user friendly as it could be perhaps). Guess what? We have to complete a LOFT reflection and submit it to our FPF and observing faculty member prior to our second observation for our intermediate and advanced courses (don't stress, it just requires taking the goals from FPF's feedback and writing how you plan to address them in your unit; the challenging part was finding the form, not completing it). What does this have to do with a growth mindset you ask…. Well, let’s just say being hard on yourself might just be a well-established, learned behavior that I am unlikely to shake any time soon.

 

Did I momentarily panic? You bet. Did I momentarily think, oh mylanta, how do I not know these things are due? Yep, sure did. But then I took a deep breath and remembered that this is my first intermediate course and there is a lot I don’t understand or know YET. 

 

And then I reached out to a couple of GSC mates and asked if they knew about this YET? And they, too, hadn’t heard about it. Did this make me feel good? You bet. Did it make me okay with not knowing? Yep, sure did. 

 

Perhaps not the growth mindset as Carol Dweck intended but sure feels like one. Sometimes, as adults, it is as if we think we have outgrown a need for patience for ourselves, so habituated to the mechanics of our lives are we. And sometimes when things are hard, we may even see it as a sign that the thing, the path, or the whatever it is may not be for us, which may encourage retreat or withdrawal altogether. Whereas, if we just extend to ourselves the wee bit of patience that the YET requires, we can practice that new learning dependent on our old knowledge thing Piaget and the constructivists were rightfully so jazzed about. 

 

P.S. Perhaps you will find this as helpful as I did. At the halfway, friends, at the halfway. Week 12 chuckles lie ahead.