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Building upon her “Growth Mindset” Workshop at Row New York, Young Executives Board Member and earth science teacher at the Kurt Hahn Expeditionary Learning School in Brooklyn, Bailey Griswold, expounds on her journey to a growth mindset through life, rowing, and education. 

Can you grow your intelligence? This was the question I posed to the staff at Row New York when I led an education roundtable at Row New York. It’s a question that I also asked of my students on the second day of school this year. Sure, is the answer I most often get. We have all had that experience of studying a subject and learning it, so that must mean we can gain knowledge and grow our intelligence. But really what the question is getting at is aptitude. Can you change your IQ? Can someone who struggles with multiplying numbers together ever become a math genius?

The answer to that question has a lot to do with our mindsets, and you might be surprised with how your attitudes and actions supply a different answer to that question. Do you embrace or avoid challenges? Does someone else’s success make you feel badly about what you have not accomplished?

Your answer to those questions tells you about your mindset, and, subsequently, your capacity to learn. Carol Dweck has spent her career studying growth and fixed mindsets and how they impact learning. A fixed mindset reflects a belief that abilities are fixed traits that someone has no control over. A growth mindset exhibits the opposite belief; skills and proficiencies are developed over time with practice. Someone with a fixed mindset would use a failure as evidence that supports the idea “I am bad at this”. It is no wonder, then, that someone with a fixed mindset would give up when something gets tough. Someone with a growth mindset would acknowledge a failure as a natural part of the learning process. “I am not good at this yet,” she might say to herself, “but with continued practice, I can get better.”

In high school, I exhibited a classic fixed mindset. I quickly would have told you that I was good at math and science, but bad at English. In English class every week, we would have one final draft, one rough draft, and one rewrite of a paper due. Despite having an entire week to write my papers, I always left it to the last minute. I was avoiding the challenge of writing a paper. I did everything from crying to faking stomach aches, to conning my mom into writing me late passes to school in order to get out of writing workshop. When I got papers back, every comment felt like a reminder that I was bad writer, and I was more interested in comparing my grade to my classmates. It is no wonder that writing papers remained a torturous exercise well into college. When I read about a study that found that bright girls are the quickest to give up when faced with a challenging task, I totally got it. That was me everytime I ever had to write an English paper.

At the same that I was slaying myself over English papers, I was also a hopelessly devoted volleyball player. The last and only time I have played volleyball since high school, a friend told me that I was our team’s best and worst player, which is a sentiment that comes close to describing my contributions to my high school volleyball team. I was a decent volleyball player, but I was incredibly inconsistent. I led my team in aces, as well as missed serves (the two numbers were equal). To claim to be the best would be a gross misstatement. One of my teammates was the top volleyball recruit in the country and ended her college career with an NCAA championship, having been crowned tournament MVP and nominated for the title of the NCAA’s 2014 Woman of the Year (ironically, she is also named Bailey). I would have held up my teammate as proof that great volleyball players are born and refined through practice, while others of us are just as a matter of fact not made out of the raw material that makes a great athletes. Just like the fact that some of us are naturally inclined to be better at writing English papers than others.

It probably does not come as a surprise that the volleyball teams at the colleges that I wanted to go to did not want me to play for them. It did not take long for me to appreciate that I was able to choose a college based on what I wanted, rather than their volleyball team. Standing on the sidewalk with all my stuff in front of Barnard Hall on move in day, a small man sauntered over to me and handed my a flier, disappearing as quickly as he had materialized. After that first information meeting for the rowing team, I kept showing up to practice, I kept trying, and I kept getting better. It was a refreshing relief that the output on the erg was equal to the effort I put into it. I had loved volleyball but it had not loved me back, but here was a sport that made me feel capable. From week to week I could feel myself getting stronger and getting better. That spring I was the only walk- on in a boat of recruited athletes, and a year later, I rowed in Columbia’s Varsity 8.

Bailey Growth Mindset Blog 2
“I kept showing up to practice, I kept trying, I kept getting better.”

Rowing taught me that I had the power within myself to change who I was an athlete. On our team, our best rowers were marked by their incredible work ethics, their persistent effort, and their dedication to hard work. The best rowers took that title for themselves. It was not a product of natural talent or an innate gift only a few possessed. Rowing was the first place where I had a growth mindset, and the first time in my life where I had allowed myself to be a beginner. Being a beginner was the only way that I could ever become the successful rower I was when I graduated.

This was a valuable lesson that I took with me when I graduated. I was no longer someone who was good at some things, but bad at others. I was a person who had developed skills, but could also learn new ones. This belief about myself turned out to be incredibly important when I first decided I wanted to become a teacher.

Twice I was told I would never become a good teacher. The first time was when I was rejected by Teach for America. TFA famously hires corps members based on an algorithm that identifies individuals who will make successful teachers. The algorithm found me wanting. I was reminded of my deficiencies again during my summer student teaching with the NYC Teaching Fellows, when my coach repeatedly told me that I was not improving, that I would be removed from the program, and that I just needed to get my 30 summer school students to stop talking. I managed to survive the summer and end summer school with a stellar observation report (how did you do it? my coach would later ask). Then I was hired at my dream school (we call our advisories “crew”, a coincidence I took as an auspicious sign when I interviewed). My first two years I spent working for a wonderfully kind and patient principal who always reminded me that I would become a great teacher. That first year teaching was so stressful and demanding that I did not have time to mull over all my mistakes and shortcomings. My principal helped me to understand that as a new teacher, making mistakes and failing was normal and expected. These failures meant nothing except that I was trying and taking risks, and becoming a teacher in the process.

When you consider the ubiquitous and stale messages that black students hear about themselves (that they are deficient, that they are innately lacking), and you consider the detrimental effects that a fixed mindset has on learning, then the existence of an achievement gap is not so puzzling. It is the result of a history-long, widely perceived ability gap. In my class, I try to empower my students to embrace the challenge of learning by revealing the fallacy that success and aptitude are predetermined. I teach my students that you can grow your intelligence, that failures are required for learning, and that it is okay to be a beginner. I learned those lessons while rowing, and a program like Row New York is incredibly valuable for passing those lessons along to students. Through rowing, students are actively engaging in a lived experience that makes them acknowledge the power of their own capacity. I wonder what our schools, our workplaces, our homes, and our cities would look like if we all trusted in our ability, and the ability of others, to learn and grow?

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