Keep Growing

Keep Growing examines the factors that encourage children to try new things and learn new skills. It explores how a “growth mindset” can enhance student success.


Joey Mandel, teacher and educational consultant specializing in peer-to-peer relationships, focuses on promoting growth in the classroom, “How do we, as teachers, provide opportunities for children to change their mindsets? How do we foster and nurture their ability and desire to start hard tasks and push through them when they are stuck, to try something new when they do not know the answer, to build a sense of value for the effort and the completion of an activity over the success of it, and finally, to work on or add to something that they have finished in order to make it better?” (p. 7)

The nine chapters in this resource rely heavily on research about growth mindsets. The first chapter, “Mindset for Growth,” explains that individuals with a growth mindset believe that they can learn new things with hard work, effort and positive self-talk. This belief affects attitudes, actions, and responses to challenges. In order to promote this kind of mindset, teachers need to explicitly teach learning skills and character traits such as empathy, organization and self-regulation. The second chapter outlines classroom organization to promote a growth mindset. Chapters 3-8 address specific characteristics of a growth mindset: responsibility, independence, self-regulation, perspective, initiative, and resilience. Each chapter explains the characteristic, applies it to the classroom environment and gives teachers strategies and activities in various subject areas such as language arts, media studies, mathematics, art and drama. The final chapter addresses the importance of family support to enhance student success through the home-school connection.

Throughout this resource, there are numerous useful ideas for classroom teachers. Joey Mandel explains the connections between home, school, extra-curricular activities and future accomplishments. Helping students to build a growth mindset will help them succeed in all aspects of their future lives. There are descriptions of specific activities in various\ subject areas as well as blackline masters. This book provides a useful resource for both new and experienced teachers who want to improve the learning environment and learning outcomes for their students. Joey Mandel urges co-operation to promote a growth mindset, “Parents and teachers need to use tools and a common approach to support these children. We need to let them know that they can do more than they think they can, that it is okay just to try, and that the attempt is where the learning happens.” (p. 12)
Thematic Links: Growth Mindsets; Classroom Environment; Responsibility; Independence; Initiative; Resilience; Home-School Connection
Myra Junyk