[Music]
maila
can be a real bitch she’s disengaged
she’s boring she’s lazy and worst of all
she’s mean obviously she’s not a
particularly likeable individual but I
do want to share her story with you
Mela has always been a shadowy presence
in my life
lurking in the background she was an
occasional irritant who would disrupt my
usual groove when she showed up but I
never gave her much thought then
something happened I was at a conference
listening to Carol Dweck speak about
growth and fixed mindset and she issued
this challenge get to know your fixed
mindset name it legitimize it learn its
triggers in its reactions this is how
you will overcome it she said and that’s
when I noticed Mela
you see Mela the disengaged boring lazy
mean girl is me while some of the time
she’s my fixed mindset when I first met
my ella i was already a full fledged
growth mindset groupie and like many
educators thinking about mindset I was
more concerned with promoting growth
mindedness than I was with understanding
it’s darker counterpart the dreaded
fixed mindset it had all started in 2013
with Quinn our oldest son he was
two-and-a-half and my husband and I had
noticed that he was already risk and
failure averse he often refused to try
new things so I’d been learning about
Dweck’s work around praise and like good
teachers we decided to try this stuff
out on him rich started talking to Quinn
about problem-solving and risk-taking
and I started celebrating when Quinn
fell at the playground I would cheer
good try we learned from falling and
soon things started to change our little
boy was striving to try new things
joyfully high-fiving us even when he
didn’t succeed and refusing to give up
until he conquered his task fast-forward
four years and Quinn’s grade one teacher
described him as a highly motivated
learner who is confident
in taking risks and asking questions
Quinn has played three seasons of
lacrosse and he has yet to score goal
and I have never not once heard Quinn
talk about this failing as a lack of
innate ability Quinn talks about what he
needs to do to get better he’s not
delusional he recognizes that he’s not
as skilled as some of the other players
the astounding thing is he believes that
he can be through practice that is the
power of a growth mindset this is not to
say that Quinn has mastered his fixed
mindset this spring I watched as he
erupted into a tearful screaming snotty
mess in our driveway he screeched that
he would never ever ever be able to make
the basketball shot he was trying to
make he gave up he was consumed by his
fixed mindset and it was a good reminder
that when it comes to mindset our work
has never done which brings me back to
mail this story it all started out as a
joke really after hearing 2x speak
everyone was coming up with funny names
for their fixed mindsets but for me it
turned into something profound I started
writing about Mela and talking about her
with trusted colleagues and pretty soon
I had imagined my fixed mindset into
someone tangible MELAS name for the
character in To Kill a Mockingbird who
falsely accuses Tom Robinson of rape
she’s sad she’s pathetic
she’s maltreated and she does this
terrible horrific thing and even though
you despised her for it
you also pity her which is exactly how I
feel about my mela mela shows up when i
feel insecure or fearful that I’m not
having an impact she loves it when I am
overwhelmed and when she shows up I
disappear literally into my bed and
under the covers i disengage from my
work and my responsibilities I do the
bare minimum I know that I should get up
and participate in
world but I can’t I’m paralyzed
this Mayola is easy to pity those who
love me and know me best know if they
just keep pushing in eventually I will
emerge they understand this Mela and
they recognizer as part of my struggle
with anxiety and depression but a
different Mela comes calling when I feel
taken advantage of or mistreated this
Mela is a mean girl her currency is
social capital and attention and she is
an expert at withholding both in order
to punish those people she feels wronged
by she is a thirteen year old girl
excluding a friend and she makes me feel
powerful but that’s an illusion in
reality she makes me petty and she makes
me vindictive when I first started
talking about this Mela my friends were
shocked no they would say Tashi you’re
not like that
but I can be I can be like that when I
feel imperiled or threatened mean-girl
mela shows up and she can be cruel this
mela is easy to despise and so even
though she can be a real bitch I need
her it’s through my exploration of her
that I can learn about the parts of
myself I would rather overlook in fact
imagining Mela has been so revealing I
decided to talk to Quinn about how he
imagines his fixed mindset meet gunner
so named because he shoots all of Quinns
good feelings and he puts them in the
trash and then he takes all of the stuff
that would feed Quinn’s good feelings
and he gives it to the bad feelings
isn’t that insightful don’t we all have
a gunner inside of us but it’s not
enough to simply acknowledge our may
Ella’s and our Gunners we must really
get to know them so that we can as Durex
suggests overcome them that’s what Quinn
and I are doing when we talk about our
fixed mindsets and this is the secret
even though these things are hard to
talk about even though it is scary to
stand up here and tell all of you about
the parts of myself I most want to hide
it is in doing this that I’m overcoming
my fixed mindset when I first met Mela
I just wanted to tell her to get lost I
thought that’s what Carol Dweck meant by
overcoming your fixed mindset then I
called Mela bitch and I exposed her to
the world and that was really liberating
and now I’ve discovered this new side of
Mela one that is particularly difficult
for me to embrace but the more fully I
appreciate the complexity of Mela the
more I see that overcoming a fixed
mindset doesn’t mean banishing it
overcoming a fixed mindset is in
understanding it and the more I
understand Mayella the more I see what a
powerful learning partner she is so even
though she can be difficult and she gets
in my way and I’m definitely not proud
of her I would like to express my
gratitude to her
thank you Mela I’m better for knowing
you and though I worry about what our
next encounter might bring I know I will
leave it stronger and wiser and was a
better understanding of both of us thank
you
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
maila
can be a real bitch she’s disengaged
she’s boring she’s lazy and worst of all
she’s mean obviously she’s not a
particularly likeable individual but I
do want to share her story with you
Mela has always been a shadowy presence
in my life
lurking in the background she was an
occasional irritant who would disrupt my
usual groove when she showed up but I
never gave her much thought then
something happened I was at a conference
listening to Carol Dweck speak about
growth and fixed mindset and she issued
this challenge get to know your fixed
mindset name it legitimize it learn its
triggers in its reactions this is how
you will overcome it she said and that’s
when I noticed Mela
you see Mela the disengaged boring lazy
mean girl is me while some of the time
she’s my fixed mindset when I first met
my ella i was already a full fledged
growth mindset groupie and like many
educators thinking about mindset I was
more concerned with promoting growth
mindedness than I was with understanding
it’s darker counterpart the dreaded
fixed mindset it had all started in 2013
with Quinn our oldest son he was
two-and-a-half and my husband and I had
noticed that he was already risk and
failure averse he often refused to try
new things so I’d been learning about
Dweck’s work around praise and like good
teachers we decided to try this stuff
out on him rich started talking to Quinn
about problem-solving and risk-taking
and I started celebrating when Quinn
fell at the playground I would cheer
good try we learned from falling and
soon things started to change our little
boy was striving to try new things
joyfully high-fiving us even when he
didn’t succeed and refusing to give up
until he conquered his task fast-forward
four years and Quinn’s grade one teacher
described him as a highly motivated
learner who is confident
in taking risks and asking questions
Quinn has played three seasons of
lacrosse and he has yet to score goal
and I have never not once heard Quinn
talk about this failing as a lack of
innate ability Quinn talks about what he
needs to do to get better he’s not
delusional he recognizes that he’s not
as skilled as some of the other players
the astounding thing is he believes that
he can be through practice that is the
power of a growth mindset this is not to
say that Quinn has mastered his fixed
mindset this spring I watched as he
erupted into a tearful screaming snotty
mess in our driveway he screeched that
he would never ever ever be able to make
the basketball shot he was trying to
make he gave up he was consumed by his
fixed mindset and it was a good reminder
that when it comes to mindset our work
has never done which brings me back to
mail this story it all started out as a
joke really after hearing 2x speak
everyone was coming up with funny names
for their fixed mindsets but for me it
turned into something profound I started
writing about Mela and talking about her
with trusted colleagues and pretty soon
I had imagined my fixed mindset into
someone tangible MELAS name for the
character in To Kill a Mockingbird who
falsely accuses Tom Robinson of rape
she’s sad she’s pathetic
she’s maltreated and she does this
terrible horrific thing and even though
you despised her for it
you also pity her which is exactly how I
feel about my mela mela shows up when i
feel insecure or fearful that I’m not
having an impact she loves it when I am
overwhelmed and when she shows up I
disappear literally into my bed and
under the covers i disengage from my
work and my responsibilities I do the
bare minimum I know that I should get up
and participate in
world but I can’t I’m paralyzed
this Mayola is easy to pity those who
love me and know me best know if they
just keep pushing in eventually I will
emerge they understand this Mela and
they recognizer as part of my struggle
with anxiety and depression but a
different Mela comes calling when I feel
taken advantage of or mistreated this
Mela is a mean girl her currency is
social capital and attention and she is
an expert at withholding both in order
to punish those people she feels wronged
by she is a thirteen year old girl
excluding a friend and she makes me feel
powerful but that’s an illusion in
reality she makes me petty and she makes
me vindictive when I first started
talking about this Mela my friends were
shocked no they would say Tashi you’re
not like that
but I can be I can be like that when I
feel imperiled or threatened mean-girl
mela shows up and she can be cruel this
mela is easy to despise and so even
though she can be a real bitch I need
her it’s through my exploration of her
that I can learn about the parts of
myself I would rather overlook in fact
imagining Mela has been so revealing I
decided to talk to Quinn about how he
imagines his fixed mindset meet gunner
so named because he shoots all of Quinns
good feelings and he puts them in the
trash and then he takes all of the stuff
that would feed Quinn’s good feelings
and he gives it to the bad feelings
isn’t that insightful don’t we all have
a gunner inside of us but it’s not
enough to simply acknowledge our may
Ella’s and our Gunners we must really
get to know them so that we can as Durex
suggests overcome them that’s what Quinn
and I are doing when we talk about our
fixed mindsets and this is the secret
even though these things are hard to
talk about even though it is scary to
stand up here and tell all of you about
the parts of myself I most want to hide
it is in doing this that I’m overcoming
my fixed mindset when I first met Mela
I just wanted to tell her to get lost I
thought that’s what Carol Dweck meant by
overcoming your fixed mindset then I
called Mela bitch and I exposed her to
the world and that was really liberating
and now I’ve discovered this new side of
Mela one that is particularly difficult
for me to embrace but the more fully I
appreciate the complexity of Mela the
more I see that overcoming a fixed
mindset doesn’t mean banishing it
overcoming a fixed mindset is in
understanding it and the more I
understand Mayella the more I see what a
powerful learning partner she is so even
though she can be difficult and she gets
in my way and I’m definitely not proud
of her I would like to express my
gratitude to her
thank you Mela I’m better for knowing
you and though I worry about what our
next encounter might bring I know I will
leave it stronger and wiser and was a
better understanding of both of us thank
you
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
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