Kat's ninth post

My experience at the BTU has been much better than I expected it to be.  I thought it would just be helping kids stay on task while they wrote and fixing some grammar issues. What we have been asked to do with the students is much more meaningful than that, and on top of being able to help the kids with their writing projects, the leaders of the Writer’s Room have asked us to do additional training intermittently. 

The training that has meant the most to me so far this semester was the growth mindset portion.  Every kid at the BTU has unique needs and they’re all at different parts of their projects. The leaders in the Writer Room recognize that some of the kids can be harder to work with than others, and they have shared this training to help us tutor all of the kids effectively.  For the growth mindset training in particular, we learned the difference between a growth and fixed mindset, and why it’s important to emphasize the growth mindset with the kids. A fixed mindset assigns one behavior that a child displays as a trait of theirs. For example, if a student is not the best at spelling, it is important not to label them as a poor speller because this can hinder their progress as a writer.  Instead, we acknowledge that they are struggling with something, and highlight something that they have made progress in. We would say something such as: “He struggled with spelling today, but he got lots of good ideas on the page and was open to fixing his errors.” By thinking about the kids this way, I have had a shift in my attitude about working with the more difficult kids. I feel as if I’m more patient with them, and we get more work done in the alloted time, as I meet the kids halfway with more ease now.

The growth mindset has bled into other parts of my life.  For a long time I have had a somewhat pessimistic viewpoint on some things in my life. I have a hard time seeing the good aspects in things when an event overall poorly.  After discussing this attitude towards things, I’ve found myself having a much more positive attitude about things. One place that this has helped me and my friend was at the gym.  My friend has ridiculously high standards for himself when it comes to working out; if he doesn’t continue to do more time or lift heavier weights, he gets upset. That gets kind of old after a while, so after every workout I point out that we made it to the gym, which is a win within itself. I also berate him with his past goals and how he has already exceeded them.

I think that learning about how to change our mindsets to more positive ones is really important, and being able to learn that while volunteering at the BTU has been a really great experience.