中文
HOME
HOME / LATEST NEWS / Content

Grade 7: Fixed and Growth Mindsets

October 8, 2022

The teachers of grade 7 gave students an interesting speech related to fixed and growth mindsets in last week’s Youth Development class.

The talk began with a story about Felix and Grace, two students who encountered the same problem in Math. They both suffered an unexpected blow in their scores, but they each solved their problems differently. Felix felt depressed because his scores once excelled, and this was noted as a “Fixed Mindset”. Grace, on the other hand, had a “Growth Mindset”. This benefited her a lot because then she could rethink what she did wrong. In the end, (with the help of her friend), Grace understood how to learn from her failures in Math, while stubborn Felix did not get a relatively good ending.

So what are fixed and growth mindsets? Students may align with one or the other of these labels, or most likely have a mixture of both. A fixed mindset is used to describe someone who is unlikely or unwilling to improve their situation, they are fixed in what they want to achieve and are unable to see the need for bettering themselves. Growth mindset however is the cognition that there is always room to grow, that whatever stage of development someone is at they can improve on their situation.

Following the story of the two students, the homeroom teacher gave an interactive presentation with the students listening below as we delved into examples of fixed mindsets and growth mindsets. All students participated in differentiating whether the examples on the board were a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. A handout was filled by the students to test if they had a fixed mindset, a growth mindset, or a mixture. The results were quite interesting: every student thought differently on each topic. In the end, students all had a mixed variety of answers that the teachers told them that they would be questioned again next time. This could let students compare whether or not they got the hang of nurturing into responsible citizens with a growth mindset.

A video that encouraged students to study soon grabbed the audience’s attention as they learned how learning could be accessible by anyone, anywhere, anytime. This wrapped up the lecture, and the students started thinking about how to take these lessons into their study.

Written by Arden 7 (10)

Supervised by Fergal Lochhead

Pictures by Grade 7 teachers

Edited by Serene Yang, Niall Keenan