I feel that the evidence about brain growth and growth mindset is a very powerful message since it allows children the freedom of making mistakes and encourages them to learn from it. I discussed this in class and they loved the idea of ‘ Maths neutrons’. We always talked about ‘stretch mistakes’ in our class room but I feel that the growth mindset is a more positive idea on learning as it gives all children a level playing field since they can shift their focus from a perfect final product to process-oriented learning. Luckily, we are at a school where this is part of the learning culture. It was encouraging to get confirmation that when Maths methods are discussed in the context of a problem, it leads to students developing persistance and confidence in later life. They loved hearing the story about how Laurent Schwartz, felt stupid because he was one of the slowest thinkers!
I did the activity that was mentioned in this session where children took a piece of paper and crumple it up with the feelings that they have when they make a mistake, and then throw it at the board, expressing those feelings. Then we took the paper back, unfolded it,and colored in all the lines that have formed to represent the brain growth they had when they made errors. Children loved this activity!!
I also showed the 2 videos from youcube in class and the discussions that followed were great!
I agree that often children are the “victims of excellence” and the pressure is not just from the teaching community but parents who have inflexible notions of excellence and push their children to achieve it.
I love workshops where you can take the ideas straight back to the classroom!
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