than everyone else put together. The one time Liza did not have her homework, Ms. Atcheson seemed stunned and told Liza she was disappointed. Liza has mixed feelings about the class. On the one hand, it’s good to know the teacher likes you and thinks you are smart. On the other hand, Liza feels a little dishonest. She sees the students around her working hard and nearly always getting lower grades than she does. It does not take much for her to make As. That doesn’t seem quite right.
What Are Mindsets?
Mindsets are the assumptions, expectations, and beliefs that guide our behavior and our interactions with others. These mindsets start forming at an early age. As we grow and interact with our parents, our friends, and elements of our culture, we store summaries of those interactions in our brain. Our brain’s frontal lobe (where cognitive processing is carried out) reviews these summaries regularly and coordinates with the emotional (limbic) areas to determine how we should respond to similar interactions in the future. Over time, these summaries get stored in cerebral networks. New experiences strengthen and expand these networks. Eventually, the networks become so ingrained that we react almost reflexively when similar situations arise. For example, when we spot a dear friend, neural circuits fire in the emotional and motor areas of the brain, causing us to spontaneously smile, extend our arms, and show warmth when we meet. On the other hand, different circuits might fire in the presence of a demanding boss, causing us to stiffen and display deference.
We develop mindsets about many things. To name a few, we have mindsets about religion, politics, our jobs, our futures, each of our family members, and anybody we interact with regularly. Because adult mindsets are so well established in neural networks, they are difficult to change. For example, media coverage of news events can lead to stereotyping of people of color or women. Constantly viewing these stereotypes makes them difficult to overcome. Moreover, neuroscience research finds the neural networking of mindsets is very complex (Mitchell, Banaji, & Macrae, 2005). It may take much more neural effort to change one part of a mindset network (such as about a particular content area) than to change the entire network (Diamond, 2009; Lou & Noels, 2016). These findings would imply that high motivation and considerable persistence are needed to change an adult mindset, but it can be done.
Teachers have mindsets about their jobs, colleagues, and students. They may not even be aware of some of the assumptions and beliefs they hold in their mindsets, yet these attitudes can still affect their behavior and be communicated to others. Have you ever discussed a student’s work and behavior with another teacher who had the same student and felt like you were talking about two different people? Why did that happen? Most likely, you and the other teacher were looking at this student with very different mindsets. Picture a student who is constantly raising questions during a lesson. One teacher may get angry at this student without realizing the anger stems from the assumption that the student’s persistence is an attempt to derail the lesson. In contrast, another teacher may interpret the student’s questions as an honest effort to thoroughly understand the content. The teachers’ mindsets result in different interpretations of the student’s behavior and, consequently, in different teacher responses.
Mindsets are the assumptions, expectations, and beliefs that guide our behavior and our interactions with others.
The Effective Teacher’s Mindset
Robert Brooks and Sam Goldstein (2008) suggest effective teachers have a characteristic mindset that guides their behavior throughout the teaching-learning processes. The following discussion shows how many of the assumptions and beliefs of an effective teacher’s mindset are particularly pertinent to the learning environment in differentiated classrooms.
Teachers Have a Lifelong Impact
Those of us who have taught realize we can influence our students’ lives for years to come. The research literature on child resilience highlights the extent of our impact. It shows several factors enable children of misfortune to beat the heavy odds against them. One factor is the presence in their lives of a charismatic adult—a person they can identify with and gather strength from. In a surprising number of cases, that person turns out to be a teacher (Sanders, Munford, & Liebenberg, 2016). Thus, effective teachers recognize they are in a unique position to be charismatic adults in students’ lives.
David remembers working years ago with a high school sophomore who wanted to go to college but had little confidence in his academic abilities. Continuing encouragement and extra help during the student’s junior and senior years helped. Having gained self-confidence, the student went on to graduate from the U.S. Air Force Academy. While flying combat missions over Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm, the student—now an air force major—sent David a note expressing thanks for encouraging him during his difficult days in high school.
Even small gestures—such as giving a warm greeting, sending a note of encouragement, taking a few minutes to meet alone with a student, and showing an appreciation of and respect for different learning needs in a differentiated classroom—can have a lifelong impact.
The Classroom Must Feel Safe and Secure
The foundation for successful learning and a safe, secure classroom is the relationship teachers develop with their students. Why is this so significant? To answer this question, we need to briefly explain how the brain handles incoming information. Figure 2.1 illustrates the hierarchy of response to sensory input. It is important to understand that any input of higher priority diminishes the processing of lower-priority data.
Figure 2.1: The hierarchy of response to sensory input.
The brain’s main job is to help its owner survive. Thus, data interpreted as posing a threat to the survival of the individual, such as a burning odor, a snarling dog, or someone threatening bodily injury, are processed immediately. When the stimulus is received, a rush of adrenaline is sent throughout the brain. This reflexive response shuts down all unnecessary activity and directs the brain’s attention to the source of the stimulus.
Emotional data also take high priority. When an individual responds emotionally to a situation, the limbic system takes command and suspends complex cognitive processes. We have all had experiences when anger, fear of the unknown, or joy quickly overcame our rational thoughts. Under certain conditions, emotions can enhance memory by causing the release of hormones that signal brain regions to strengthen memory. In other words, strong emotions can simultaneously shut down conscious processing during an event and enhance our memory of it. Emotion is a powerful and misunderstood force in learning and memory.
The brain’s reaction to both survival stimuli and powerful emotions is reflexive; that is, it occurs instinctively and without prior planning. If neither threats to survival nor strong emotions are present, the brain can turn its attention to processing factual information and concepts. This reflective process allows learning to take place by making connections to previous experiences and building cognitive networks.
Another way of stating the hierarchy illustrated in figure 2.1 is before students will turn their attention to cognitive learning (the curriculum), they must feel physically safe and emotionally secure.
Students must feel physically safe and emotionally secure before they can focus on the curriculum
All Students Want to Succeed
The belief that students want to succeed relates to the growth mindset we discuss later in this chapter. The human brain does not deal well with failure. If a student is not learning, the
