The Unteachables Podcast

#87: Struggling to have some students even START their work? Here’s what to know (and do)

• Claire English • Season 5 • Episode 87

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In today’s episode, we’re diving into how building a growth mindset culture can be transformative in our classrooms. We’ll look at how fixed mindsets hold students back, especially when past experiences or fears of failure keep them from fully engaging in learning. 

Through this episode, Ill explore practical ways to build self-belief, helping students see challenges as chances to grow and celebrating their efforts along the way. These strategies are all about creating an environment where students feel safe, supported, and willing to try.

IN THIS EPISODE, I DISCUSS:

  • What might be going on for students who seem reluctant to engage
  • How past failures can lead to fixed mindsets and avoidance
  • Practical ways to create a growth mindset culture in the classroom
  • Ideas for embedding growth mindset language into daily discussions and activities
  • Why it’s important to celebrate effort rather than results

If you’re looking to go deeper, I’ve put together a Growth Mindset Bundle filled with resources to support you in building this culture daily. It’s all designed to help take the guesswork out of fostering a growth mindset in your classroom, with editable lesson plans, bulletin boards, and posters that reinforce these ideas. I’d love for you to have these tools on hand, ready to support your students’ growth (without spending 2 weeks putting it together like I did 😂😂

Have a question, comment, or just want to say hello? Drop us a text!

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Speaker 1:

Oh hi, teachers, Welcome to Unteachable's podcast Congratulations. You have just stumbled across the best free professional development and support you could ask for. I'm Claire English, a passionate secondary teacher, author, teacher mentor and generally just a big behavior nerd, and I created the Unteachable's podcast to demystify and simplify classroom management. I want this podcast to be the tangible support, community validation, mentorship, all those pretty important things that we need as teachers to be able to walk into our classrooms feeling empowered and, dare I say it, happy and thrive, especially in the face of these really tough behaviors. So ready for some no-nonsense, judgment-free and realistic classroom management support? I've got your teacher friend, let's do this. Judgment-free and realistic classroom management support. I've got your teacher friend, let's do this. Hello, wonderful teachers, welcome back to another episode of the Unteachables podcast. It is so nice to be back.

Speaker 1:

I did have a week off the podcast, which I very rarely do, and it's because, for the millionth time or what feels like the millionth time in this last six months millionth time or what feels like the millionth time in this last six months we were sick and I had a horrific throat infection and I'm like, if I record this podcast and I won't be able to actually do anything else, I won't be able to record training. I won't be able to then, like, get back on the horse and, you know, record podcast episodes next week. I have a tendency to lose my voice very easily, so I had a little bit of a break, but I also, at the same time, did something horrible to my back, and doing anything and moving in any which way is really painful. So I went to a physio and he diagnosed me with mum back. If you're a toddler mum, you might understand. I think it's because they get heavier. You wear them on the hip a lot. You might understand. I think it's because they get heavier. You wear them on the hip a lot. You wear them, carry them. But as a part of my recovery, I have exercises that I need to do twice daily, and then I finally had to bite the bullet and go back to the gym, which I did this morning, and it felt so good to go back.

Speaker 1:

The last 10 months I've been pretty much 100% sedentary here in New Zealand. You know, as a teacher, you're always on your feet and you're always this way, that way, running around, and you, you know you get to your 10,000 steps before you even hit lunchtime. But I've gone from that where I was, you know, walking for an hour each way every day going to work in London and you know, every weekend I'd be walking around every day. I was walking around the school building, going up and down stairs. I've gone from that to this year, having that year break in between moving to Sydney in New Zealand just working on the unteachables and being a hundred percent sedentary. So that is not helping anything with my back, but anyway I've gone back to the gym and it felt so good.

Speaker 1:

But and I promise this ties in with this week's episode but if you told me 20 years ago that there would be a time in my life that I would be doing anything physical at all when I was at school, I just would not have believed you, because I grew up as a very unathletic and awkward kid. I never felt confident doing sports. My parents poured all of their energy into my brother and my brother did it all. He did cricket, he did rugby, he did touch footy, he did anything he wanted to do. If he said he wanted to do a sport, they'd be pushing him into that sport and he was super confident, super sporty. But me, I remember in primary school I thought you know what? I'm going to join the touch football team with a cool sporty girls and I didn't make it on the team, but I'm pretty sure that there was space on the team. But maybe that's my own head, but anyway I was laughed at, I was mocked for that.

Speaker 1:

And then in primary school as well, around that same time I think I was in year three or four Uh, I went to the athletics carnival and my teacher told me that I would be excellent at the 100 meter sprint because I was tall and I mean the tallest in the entire school. I towered over everybody else. It's like I shut up and then I peaked, because I'm not that tall now, but I kind of reached my peak height when I was like 10 and then everybody else kind of grew up around me. But I was very lanky, very tall, very awkward, and I think I came in second in that 100 meter sprint but I got absolutely destroyed with bullying for it. Like you know, the way I ran was awkward, the way I ran was lanky, and it stayed with me for my entire childhood.

Speaker 1:

It was something that I carried with me into high school and I ended up being the kid who took sick days every single time there was a sports event. I was the kid who lied and said she had her periods and didn't want to play every single time there was sports. I was a kid who purposely wore her normal school uniform when it was a sports day so I wouldn't have to be forced onto the onto the pitch. I was the one who was happy to do like. At the time. I remember writing lines next to the basketball court because I didn't want to do it, because I felt so uncomfortable, I felt so disempowered. I just flat refused, I said no.

Speaker 1:

From those days in primary school, with like a few different kind of setbacks almost, but feel like those feelings stayed with me for so long. I just didn't try, I wouldn't try, I refused to try, and that became me. If I did try, I probably would have gotten better. I probably would have gotten more confident. Of course I would have. But in my head there was absolutely no universe where I could be successful and sporty. I wasn't sporty, it wasn't in my DNA. And I was the kid who then descended out, walking off and smoking in the bushes, like that was my identity. I had a fixed mindset around the ability that I had in any kind of physical way.

Speaker 1:

This, right here, is what our kids are dealing with in so many ways shapes and forms in the classroom and out of the classroom, on the pitch, wherever you are. So that's what today's episode is about, and really just brought it up for me today when I was sitting there and going oh my gosh like I'm in the car park right now of a gym, about to go in there and about to do something physical with my body, where there was a time where I was so self-conscious about anybody looking at me or commenting on me. And I know that I'm still like, yeah, I know I'm still a little bit awkward, but I do it because I'm like, oh stuff it, who cares? There is going to be a kid that you see that's sitting there and refusing to take part. There's going to be a kid, you see, that's sitting there refusing to even pick up a pen ever, or struggles to even begin the simplest of tasks that you've given them. So that's the kind of student that we're going to be talking about today. So first let's dive in and talk about what's actually going on for them. First, up their confidence and self-belief is probably just completely in the bin, just like mine was around sport.

Speaker 1:

A lot of the students who are going to struggle the most with actually trying, picking up a pen and getting the work done are students who have probably experienced a lot of past failure. They're probably students who have a lot of fear and anxiety around trying. They're probably students who have a lot of fear and anxiety around trying. They're probably students who have zero belief that anything can change. For them, this is a survival thing. It is far easier to switch off completely, whatever you're doing. It's so much easier to not write that paragraph, to not run that 100 meter sprint, to not do the thing, than to risk public failure and embarrassment.

Speaker 1:

Even if they aren't going to get mocked, but they think that there's a possibility that they're going to fail. I would have done anything to protect myself from being laughed at in that way again for being mocked for what I looked like. I just wanted to put a protective shield around myself and that's what I did by just not trying. So that is a huge barrier for us being able to teach them anything, because if they can't even overcome that barrier, if they can't even pick up a pen, how the hell, are we going to teach them anything?

Speaker 1:

Even when you know the work is beautifully differentiated, even if you know the work is modeled and scaffolded and pitched at the right place, like that doesn't matter. Even when you have spent time trying to make things super engaging, that won't matter. Some students won't, even under those circumstances, grace the work with a glance before poo-pooing it and putting their head down. You've probably heard them say it before this is boring, nah, not doing it, this is dead, this is crap. The boring thing. Or this is easy, this is too easy, this is baby work.

Speaker 1:

So there's so many things going on for students when they say those kinds of things, and the goal is to break down those barriers so they can actually start to engage with the work and start to make progress and start to see oh my gosh, I can actually do this, it's not that hard, it's not that bad, I can develop my skills, I can get better at this, but we need to know how to do that. We need to start to establish a culture where that can happen. So what can we do about it? What can we do to start breaking down this barrier? Here are a few ways, but my favorite is something that I do from the very start of every year and every single day, from bed on in, which is create a growth mindset culture in our classroom.

Speaker 1:

And I don't I'm not talking about just a one and done lesson, not a little. Quote this up on the wall and we talk about every now and again, or you know, like I'm talking a bonafide culture. I am talking about a culture that we established from day one and bring that into everything we do for the rest of the year. So what this looks like in action is explicitly teaching students about what a growth mindset is and a fixed mindset. This looks like establishing a really beautiful shared language that we can all understand and use in the day-to-day and really embedding that into the day-to-day in our discussions around behavior, in our reflections on our work in the day-to-day, and really embedding that into the day-to-day in our discussions around behavior, in our reflections on our work, in the instructions that we're giving, the whole shebang. So here are a few ideas around establishing a growth mindset culture in your classroom that you can take and run with immediately.

Speaker 1:

The first is to explicitly teach it. No matter what we do, we always have to teach it first, and I know I did say that it's not a one and done lesson, but that doesn't mean that a lesson isn't important. So we have to first teach students about growth mindset to then be able to carry that on into the rest of the year. So a lot of students who struggle believe that their intelligence is fixed or their you know abilities are fixed, just like I did. Just like I didn't believe that I was able to do anything sporty whatsoever. Guess what, I'm still crap at it, but at least I'm giving it a good crack. And you know, I can get in there and I can run, I can do things. But they do think that they're just not math people, or they're crap at English or they're not sporty Like. They have these fixed ideas about who they are and these things can't change.

Speaker 1:

I also had a really fixed mindset around math. So I remember going into my year so when I was at school in Australia. So I don't know if it's still the same, but in New South Wales, when you hit year 11, maths becomes like just something that you can choose or not choose. It's not mandatory. So I did choose maths in year 11 and 12. And then I got into my first ever maths class in year 11.

Speaker 1:

And I quickly realized that I was not going to be able to do it and I was super stressed and I was really anxious and I stood up and I was a bit of a rat bag and I picked up my math textbook. I think my teacher was like why haven't you done your homework? When I just didn't understand what the hell was going on. I couldn't do my homework because it was all gobbledygook to me. I just didn't understand it and everything. Like I felt like the pace of the teaching was so quick and I got left behind at step one and then I couldn't catch up. I remember I grabbed my maths textbook, I went F this, this is absolutely bullshit and I threw my book against the wall. I walked out and I've never done maths since because I internalized this idea that I was not a maths person. My mum used to tell me you're like me, claire, you just can't do maths. So what? Like it's some kind of you know, hereditary thing that you can't do maths because your parents can't do maths. But you know, that is the thing that I internalise and our students are internalising that all of the time. So we need to explicitly teach our students that their intelligence right now, their skills, their abilities right now, they are not fixed. They can change them. That's something that they can work at and shift.

Speaker 1:

At the start of each year, I teach a lesson explicitly introducing these concepts of growth mindset and fixed mindset. And to do this, I speak about things like famous failures, like people who tried the first time and they failed at that, and failure is obviously an inverted commas there. But you know all of these really famous people who have tried and tried and tried and had to overcome immense adversities and barriers in order to be successful. So one, for example, is Michael Jordan. You know he got kicked off the football team, the basketball team, in school and he missed thousands and thousands of shots and he wasn't seen as the greatest. And look at where he is now because he didn't believe that his abilities and skills were fixed and he didn't give up that first hurdle. So I speak about a bunch of these different, you know figures in society and you know sports stars and authors and all of these people who, if they gave up when there were a few hurdles, if they believed their mark, you know their abilities were fixed they would never be at the position they are.

Speaker 1:

I talk about flipping our thinking at the start of the year. So how can we take the thoughts that we have, that are fixed, and create thoughts that we can start to replicate, to be, you know, to kind of internalize these, this mindset where we can start moving forward? I talk about the learning pit a lot. I do a lot of plans with students around the things that they feel like they just can't do or things that they'd really love to do if there were no barriers in place, and then we start to make plans towards that. So explicitly teaching what fixed mindset is and growth mindset is, and then some strategies to actually get them to live this in the everyday and practice these things and also recognize that yeah, actually I do have a fixed mindset around a bunch of things, and this is how I can start to overcome them. The second thing is so, once I've taught them that lesson, the second thing is to use the language in the everyday. So I embed the language of growth mindset in everything we do, whether it be marking, in discussions, giving my teacher-led instruction, I just drop it in as naturally and as often as I can. So some examples of this are.

Speaker 1:

So you hear students saying all the time I can't do that. I might say you can't do it yet, mate, but you will. Like yet is the word that we need to be using. You can do this, you just can't do it yet. I say things like you can only be good at something if you're bad at it first. You know. If they're really struggling. I'll say do you think Olympians were born being the best in the world? Like, what did they need to do in order to become the best in the world? I can say you know, you're trying something new. That actually makes you super brave, because it is hard trying something new, because we're starting at zero, we're starting with no skills. When students make mistakes, we can talk about the fact that making mistakes are a really good thing, because that means that we're trying, that means that we're learning. If we weren't making mistakes, it means that we are not progressing at all. You know I can say every single time you try, you are one step closer to nailing this. So all of that language that we bring into every single day subtly more explicitly, however you do it, it is really important for us to start to foster that culture of growth mindset in our classroom.

Speaker 1:

And the third thing I want to talk about is the idea of celebrating effort rather than results, because what we know is that one thing that might be a walk in the park for one student is going to be an absolute Everest for another. Because of this, it's not really fair to celebrate results, or it's not really productive to celebrate results with certain students. Rather, let's celebrate individual effort, let's celebrate resilience, let's celebrate bravery, like all of those things that are actually markers of us having a growth mindset. When we say to students oh, you're freaking great at maths, aren't you? That is reinforcing the fact that they have that. That is fixed, that their ability is fixed. They are just people who are good at maths. But if we're saying, oh my gosh, your effort today, you are making progress in this, it just changes the narrative.

Speaker 1:

So what that might sound like is wow, look back at the start of the term, kerry. Could you imagine coming into the room and being able to write an entire paragraph? Can you see how far you've come? Imagine where you could be by the end of next year. If you keep showing this incredible effort. You should be so proud of yourself. Guess what the rest of the students in the room might have written a whole essay, but Kerry, she's written a whole paragraph. And for Kerry, writing a whole paragraph, that effort, that resilience, that is what's important and us celebrating that is so important.

Speaker 1:

So those are the three things I wanted to talk about when it came to establishing a growth mindset culture in our classroom and for us to start to overcome those barriers that we have with our students. So the first thing remember is to explicitly teach what growth mindset is and fixed mindset is, so you can start the conversation. Once you've started that conversation, they know what those things are, you can use that language in the everyday and really thinking about celebrating effort rather than results. Because once we do all of those things, we can then start to work with individual students around those behaviors, around those patterns, and really try to get them unstuck, because it's very hard to get unstuck once you're in that mindset. Trust me, from experience, it took me many, many years to overcome. If you want to go deeper with that and you want to really establish that growth mindset culture, but you don't have the time to do that all yourself. So my goal, by the way, is always to give you the strategies and knowledge to just take it away and do it yourself, but I also want to do it for you because it takes a guesswork out of it and you can pick it up and run with it.

Speaker 1:

Like these lessons and resources took me weeks to develop and create. That is a lot of work that I don't want to have to be replicated 30, 40, 50 times over if you have the capacity just to invest in it. So I have created a whole bundle of growth mindset goodies that you can just take into your classroom and use immediately. I've got a fully resourced, engaging, editable lesson. I've got two beautiful classroom bulletin boards and displays you're able to pop up there and they can be like features in the classroom you can draw attention to and use as discussion points, and it's got the language up there that you can keep referring back to. And also 15 growth mindset posters, both in A4 and A3, that you can use in all contexts that you'd like to. This is just culture shaping stuff, which is brilliant.

Speaker 1:

If you are in the behavior club with me, you've already got a copy of all of that. You can head into the vault and it's in the September. I want to say September, yes, it's in the September bundle so you can go and download that immediately. You've already got access to it. But if you aren't in the behavior club and you just want to grab this as a one-off, you can head to the dash on teachablescom forward slash growth. I'll also pop the link in the show notes for you. But that's all the growth mindset stuff that I've just spoken about. But of course, if you would rather create your own beautiful growth mindset resources, then honestly, I can't wait to see them. I would love for you to take a snapshot of what you're doing in your classroom with growth mindset and send it over to me how it's having an impact in your classroom. I would absolutely love to hear it. Okay, wonderful teachers, until next time. Have a fantastic week. Be sure to go and fill your cups in whatever way you can, as always. Bye for now.

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Claire English

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