Principal's Message

Dear Canyon View Families,

As outlined in our School Improvement Plan, teaching students that intelligence can grow and blossom with effort – rather than being a fixed trait they’re just born with – is one of our school-wide priorities this year.  Over the past two months, we have been busy teaching our students about the advantages of having a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset.  As time goes on, we’re starting to collect more and more evidence that this important concept is gaining traction with our students, and the research from Stanford University is helping to build our case that nurturing a “growth mindset” can help many kids understand their true potential.

“In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that’s that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don’t necessarily think everyone’s the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it.”
—Carol Dweck, Stanford University

In order to have a positive academic mindset:

·  Students communicate that they see themselves as academic achievers and expect to succeed in their learning pursuits.

·  Students are observed as enthusiastic, hard-working, persistent learners. Student emphasis is on optimum performance, not just on getting it right.

·  Students believe they are capable and competent, and feel a strong sense of efficacy at a variety of academic tasks.

·  Students believe that hard work will pay off in increased knowledge and skills.

·  Students are motivated to put in the time and effort needed to build a solid knowledge base and to accomplish important goals.

·  Students find the tasks that they are assigned sufficiently challenging and believe they will accomplish something of worth by doing them.

Below are a few growth mindset artifacts from our classrooms: