David's Thoughts on Growth Mindset

Prior to this assignment I had never heard of growth mindset. HOWEVER, I partake in the practice of growth mindset almost everyday without ever even knowing I was doing it. As a flight instructor not only do I partake in this but my students do as well. And we don't notice it. Every flight we push ourselves to be better and evolve our flying skills. Because lets be honest no pilot has ever said "I am the worlds most mediocre pilot and that's okay with me", I know this for a fact because every pilot has a big ego and we are all "the best pilot".  Let's use my flight students for example, I encourage them on every flight to push themselves to achieve and perform to higher standards because if you perform poorly and accept it you only hurt yourself. Because a pilots license isn't a license to fly its a license to learn, because a good pilot is always learning. A student will have a bad landing and I encourage them to dissect what went wrong and how they can fix it and do better next time without me having to pad their ego. In addition I often ask my students "how do you think you performed, what grade would you give yourself?". Which is why I think this cat meme accurately reflects me to my students.


Meme created by Laura Gibbs. Image is at Cheeseburger

 Me personally I am a big fan of "you get out what you put in". And I wish college reflected that better, because from what I understand Growth Mindset is exactly that "you get out what you put in". Whether it is a classroom or an aircraft, if I put in the effort I will succeed and push myself to get better and grow. However, I feel that sometimes there are classes where I put in substantial effort and my fellow classmates who do not show up to class excel at the class and perform better than I do. This frustrates me to this very day because I don't know what the trick is. Which is why I like the idea of the grading structure for this course. I get out what I put in, and I like that.