"Take a few minutes and think about a time when you made a really bad mistake. Write down what happened: what was the mistake, why did you make it, how did you feel, what could you have done differently? Reflect a bit more and write down what you learned from making the mistake--maybe about what you were trying to accomplish or about yourself."She found this prompt online.
My Grade 9 Applied English students did similar thinking in our Growth Mindset Unit. A few wrote about not studying for a test, telling someone a secret, and doing something and getting hurt. But most couldn't think of anything.
Is it really that hard? I can think of lots of mistakes I have made: big and small.
Small: I didn't exercise today. I didn't make time to walk the dogs. I yelled at one of my kids. I had a typo on the cover page of a test. I snagged my sweater. I wore uncomfortable shoes to work. I forgot to call my mom back last night. I misplaced my keys (still looking for these).
Big: I loaned money to someone who betrayed me. I lost contact with good friends. I drove through a snow storm instead of staying where I was and got into an accident. I stayed with a guy I should have left. That house warming party. I didn't go to Ottawa when my best friend's baby was sick.
I learned from each of these mistakes: big and small.
According to the explanation of Growth Mindset by Dr. Maggie Wray.
Fixed mindset students... Dislike making mistakes
Growth mindset students... See mistakes as learning opportunities
I am clearly in the Growth Mindset camp. This is our goal for students. That they have the courage to make mistakes, and then learn from them.
But maybe we need to back up. My colleague shared with me one student's response:
"I don't think I have ever made a bad mistake because everything I did that people said was a mistake was pretty awesome and I felt pretty good after it and I would do nothing to change it."
We may need a common reference point to define "mistake"? What does the student think it means "to make a mistake," and, in comparison, how does society define it.
When I think of a mistake, I am thinking "bad decision." I do not equate a mistake with "regret" or "feeling bad." According to one dictionary, a mistake is "An error or fault resulting from defective judgment, deficient knowledge, or carelessness." That's my understanding.
But my sense is that many students have an entirely different notion of a mistake. I have not yet talked to my students about this, but imagine if they believe a mistake to mean "something that makes me feel bad." By extension, they might believe that a success is "something that makes me feel good." How did they acquire this paradigm? It becomes very difficult to grow from mistakes with that mindset.
If these students judge their lives by acquisition of thrills and pleasures and avoidance of pain or suffering, they will not "dislike mistakes" nor will they see mistakes as learning opportunities. They possess neither a Growth Mindset nor a Fixed Mindset. They possess an entirely different mindset altogether. My colleague and I will need to back up and initiate a conversation to address this disconnect so that growth will eventually become possible.
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