Growth Mindset

The Internet is all about learning - all learning, all the time. Our students are constantly learning, and they don't even realize it: about memes, new websites, social media platforms, apps, and more. They are inherently motivated by these things, not perceiving it as "learning" but as "fun."

This is the mindset that we, as educators, should be striving for. Growth mindset is when students approach learning with the process in mind, not the end goal of a grade. It's "tried my hardest" instead of "got the best grade," and it cuts short student's ideas of having a fixed intelligence. Fixed mindset, the opposite of growth mindset, is damaging to both high-performing and low-perfoming students. Students may believe that they are "bad at math," and give up on difficult problems, but they may also be praised for having natural ability, and pick up bad habits that only crush them when their ability is tested.

We need to teach kids like the Internet teaches them.

Strange, but bear with me. Let's take Twitter for example. A person seeing Twitter for the first time would be overwhelmed by the complex network of replies and hashtags - but they create an account anyway. Their first post garners zero retweets, and they ask themselves "What went wrong?" Oh, look - they don't have any followers. So they get their friends to follow them, and make another Tweet...nothing. A fixed mindset person would simply give up at this point, throw up their hands, exclaim "Well, I guess I'm just bad at Twitter."

But our students don't do that. They delve into the platform, learn hashtags and tweets and how to interact with celebrities. To them, the fun is in the learning of the material, not just that one high-favorited post. This is what we should be striving for.

So let's be like the Internet - our students already have the practice. A focus on process, interaction, and growth is not just good pedagogy, but also a great life skill.

For more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN34FNbOKXc#t=55

You know, my door is always open

ROADS!

The promised land

Stormy

Trash mammal says hey

This is a door. This is a sign.

Skate away, my brothers

The Life Do Grow Farm, located right off the Temple Campus, is an urban garden with the focus of keeping the community strong. School aged kids come here to hang out and learn about urban farming, building a safe space for the community to live in and grow with. It also supplements the area around with cheap fresh produce.

Uptown Downtown

A new kind of art

This guy

Run.

Dusk and day in North Philadelphia (taken near the Cecil B. Moore community)

Philadelphia presents

NAACP On Cecil B