Click here to listen to this week’s JAM – A Little Dance In My Chair.
2nd graders have been doing serious work around goal-setting these past few weeks. Head of Lower School Heather Stinnett and the 2nd grade teachers – Sara Lee, Sammi Hildebrandt, and Kimberly Zie – have been piloting a new way to help children set and then make progress against concrete goals in a way that is authentic and meaningful. And, just as importantly, they think, a “sticky” way to help children develop autonomy, ownership, a growth mindset, and resilience. It is part of our collective effort to focus on setting high expectations, as well as helping children find the “just right” challenge for both behavior and academics.
The goals are created by the children and reflect the real growth edges for 7 and 8 year olds. Goals include – “stay on topic,” “complete my homework,” “not wiggle in my seat,” “write more neatly,” “get to class on time,” “save conversations for recess,” “be positive with myself,” and “push in my chair.” As you would hope for goal-setting with young children – or, for that matter, people of any age – the goals are observable and measurable, and they function on a short feedback cycle. In other words, these are things children can track consistently and develop a real sense of whether or not they are having success in meeting them.
The key to the overall process is that children not only name a goal but the teachers then work with them to talk about the steps they might take to achieve those goals. The following edited exchange, as recounted by Heather Stinnett, offers insight into the experience.
Child: My goal is to “get started right away.”
Teacher: How are you going to do that?
Child: I have no idea.
Teacher: What would motivate you to do that?
Child: Hmmmmm. Maybe if I keep track of each time I get started right away and then after I have three tallies I get to do a little dance in my chair.
What I love about that example is what we often miss when thinking about ways to motivate people – the most powerful motivation comes from within. And it often doesn’t take much.
Students have already completed an initial check-in with their teachers, assessing how well they were meeting their goal and strategizing additional ways that they could take to achieve it. A handful of children were at a 5 (on a scale of 1 to 5), so they are looking for a new goal. In a world of high expectations, we can always be looking for ways to improve.
And, lest people think goals are only for children, Ms. Lee mentioned that she had shared her own goal with the children, which was, as she put it, “to be calm in my body when I am in the yellow zone.” A couple days ago, she realized she wasn’t achieving that goal and she stopped herself, named what was happening for herself to the children, and told them she would recommit herself to getting this right. The lesson in that? We are never too old to keep learning and, when we don’t get it right, to own up to a mistake and move forward.
Ultimately, what the 2nd graders are learning is about having a growth mindset and how to develop the resilience to do hard things. Those are lessons that you are never too young – or old – to practice and learn.