Shea's Myth-Folk Blog

This semester, I have interned at a place called Loveworks. It is an after school leadership program for middle schoolers, and I help lead some of the lessons. One of our big units has been teaching students how to be the GOAT (Greatest of All Time). One part of being the GOAT is having a GOAT mindset. In our after school programming, the director led a lesson about having a growth mindset and then we broke up into small groups to discuss. I spoke with a few students about what it looks like for them to have a growth mindset. Some ideas they came up with are not giving up on difficult school subjects, but believing they are able to become better by working hard and not giving up. They also talked about how growth mindset can apply to hobbies. Some students did not care much about learning about growth mindset, but a few students really seemed to grasp the idea and how they can apply it in their lives. Goat from Max Pixel

One of the areas of my life where I can definitely apply growth mindset is learning Italian! Although I have taken Italian classes for the past couple years, I am not currently enrolled in a class focused on learning the language. I took Italian 1-4 over the past two years, but right now the only "Italian" class I am enrolled in is Italian Literature and Culture, which is taught in English and does not focus on the Italian language. I am studying abroad next semester and will be taking Italian Conversation and Italian Composition, so I am trying to keep with with learning Italian on my own so I will be prepared. I have bought some books to practice, but have found it difficult to keep a consistent study habit. The upside is that I actually enjoy practicing Italian, especially when it's on my own and not for a grade. Having a growth mindset helps me remember that even though I may not have the best study habits at the moment, this is no reason to just give up. I just have...

I had a hard time deciding what to use for my acronym, so I actually chose the graphic first. I saw the flower and through of the word grow. I think a big part of the Growth Mindset is not being afraid to try new things and make mistakes, and this is often by doing your own thing even when it's not the "norm". Graphic created by me in Canva

I had never heard of Carol Dweck or the growth mindset before this week, but I love learning more about personal growth and leadership development, so I really enjoyed hearing about the idea. I'd be interested to see how much of a different a growth mindset can make, especially in school or the work field. I feel as if I have a growth mindset at times, but a fixed mindset at others. Sometimes, when faced with a difficult task in school or extracurricular activities, I think of it as a growth opportunity, while I sometimes feel like I absolutely cannot do it and shut down because of my mindset. I would like to try to focus on having a growth mindset this semester, and know I will need to find specific ways to do this. I think this could potentially be very beneficial to me as I try to practice my Italian language skills even though I am not currently taking a language class. I know keeping up with the language and continuing to practice on my own will be difficult, but I can use t...