Growth Mindset: Expanding Its Influence

While I'd never heard of the term "Growth Mindset", the concept is one that I've heard a surprising amount for how little it's ever implemented into learning. The idea that we should embrace learning, embrace discovering that we don't know something, is an idea that has become more and more prevalent in recent years as people notice the effects that standardized education is having on our population. In fact, incredibly recently, I came across a video by Will Smith (put together by Twitter user @Javoris comprised of Instagram story clips by Will) about failure and how we should not avoid failure, but embrace it and learn from it.

(Will Smith on Failure, Compilation of Instagram Stories by @Javoris)

This is something that I need to improve on, at least in areas where I do not have a solid existing interest in the subject. When I am doing activities for my own entertainment - working on Google Sheets projects, or researching for some idea I'm coming up with - I tend to seek out the issues, to work at finding a solution for whatever problem is at hand regardless of the difficulty of doing so or the effort required. However, school is an area where I am far more fixed. Early on, I was able to succeed in school with little effort, and combined with the system that rewarded me for being able to succeed without effort, I became accustomed to not trying for academic success. This has become a challenge in college, where there is no such thing as effortless success.

To end, here is the quote that Will began his video with:

(Image generated using AddText.com)

(Pencil N' Paper, Brendan DeBrincat on flickr)