Have you ever just felt brain-stuck?

I have had a really hard time in the past having a "growth mindset." The problem was, I always thought I had a growth mindset. I thought that I was as open-minded as I could possibly be and that I had learned everything I needed to know to be able to teach students well. The thing about a growth mindset is that not only should I be looking to grow the minds around me, I need to also leave room for my mind to grow.

Going to Rio for a few months was incredibly helpful for me to switch back into this mindset of knowing that there is still more even for me to learn. With that in mind, I am able to plunge forward and create new and exciting opportunities for my students. For instance, we as teachers are always taught that we have to reach the students in order to teach them, and that if we aren't reaching all of them and engaging them then we are not teaching them anything. On the other hand, there are some so-called realists in the field who will tell you that there are some students who are absolutely impossible to reach and you shouldn't expend your energy because if they don't care and their parents don't care then you shouldn't either. This is where a growth mindset often devolves into a fixed mindset; we think that things are the way they are and there is nothing that we can do to change them. But the world is dynamic and so is the human brain... it could be that one teacher is the difference between the student engaging and learning more than ever or sitting back in class and becoming a bump on a log for the rest of their life. I don't think that a teacher should completely turn his or her life inside out trying to get to a student who doesn't want to be reached, but if they don't even try then how will they ever know?

I've been examining my own lesson plans and my own ideas with this new perspective gained from watching a school system in another country. Since I returned to the states, I have found myself often looking at ways children are taught in a variety of other places and wondering how I can implement something similar into my lessons. There's definitely going to be some lesson edits going on here as the year goes on.

<3 Jackie