{"id":4362,"date":"2020-02-13T23:42:42","date_gmt":"2020-02-14T07:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bryanfriedman.com\/?p=4362"},"modified":"2020-02-13T23:42:42","modified_gmt":"2020-02-14T07:42:42","slug":"learning-the-importance-of-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.bryanfriedman.me\/cloudingup\/2020\/02\/13\/learning-the-importance-of-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning the Importance of Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

My daughter’s elementary school has this thing called the Growth Mindset Program. I didn’t really pay much attention to what that meant when I first heard it. But as she progressed through a year or two of school, it came up more and more. So I figured it was probably time to figure out what it means.<\/p>\n

I asked my wife, the teacher. She told me it can be explained simply as “the power of yet.” When children struggle with something, instead of thinking “I can’t do it” we help them frame things differently so they say “I can’t do it…yet<\/em>.” See how that works? Now they know it’s just a process and they’ll get there eventually.<\/p>\n

That was enough for me to feel like I understood it. It makes sense for developing young minds to think that way. I felt lucky that my kid was in a school that had such high order thinking.<\/p>\n

Then it came up again. My wife and I were helping our daughter navigate some challenges she was facing due to some perfectionist tendencies, and we came across a book called Bubble Gum Brain<\/em><\/a>. It’s a tale of two kids with different brains. Bubble Gum Brain likes to stretch his mind and learn new things without worrying about mistakes, but Brick Brain figures there’s no way to change things so it’s not worth trying.<\/p>\n

Riveting fiction. But it actually helped. And in case it’s not obvious, it’s about Growth Mindset. (I also discovered a good book called Giraffes Can’t Dance<\/em><\/a>\u00a0that has a similar message in a slightly more subtle fashion. It could more accurately be titled Giraffes Can’t Dance…Yet<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

So that was that. Now my daughter was better able to manage her bouts of perfectionism by thinking about bubble gum and giraffes. Parenting achievement unlocked.<\/p>\n

Then it came up\u00a0again.<\/em> Except this time, it wasn’t the eight year-old. It was Twitter. And it actually came up a lot. My Twitter feed is primarily filled with cloud computing and tech pundits and professionals (with a smattering of comedians and baseball reporters just to confuse and entertain). So I was surprised to see an elementary school education concept come up with some regularity from this crowd.<\/p>\n

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IMO the most important skill to have in the tech industry is a Growth Mindset. The list of technology you "should know" is constantly changing. The most valuable skill is learning how to learn.<\/p>\n

— Caitie McCaffrey (@caitie) February 7, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n