Wise words with...

Growth Mind Set 

I received an unfortunate email from a student earlier this week. It was an invitation to join his push-up challenge team. It was unfortunate because in a moment of positivity I accepted without thinking through the implications. The concept is to do over 3100 push ups to raise awareness and funds for men’s mental health. This is a great initiative and one that I would like to support. 

I told a member of my family that I had signed up to which they responded, ‘You can’t do that’. We all respond to comments in different ways. My mental reaction was ‘You don’t think I can do that,well I’m going to show you.’ Another reaction and maybe equally valid is, ‘Yeah, you’re right, what was I thinking.’ Maybe I can’t do it, but I’m definitely going to give it a go.

You may have heard of a growth mindset. It is a mindset that says ‘I can’t do this … yet.’ That is, I can’t do this but with perseverance, I am capable of achieving it. When JFK was announcing NASA’s mission to land astronaut’s on the moon he said, ‘We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.’ Achieving things can be hard, whether it is doing push-ups, learning long-division, understanding how to write an essay or going to the moon. But I want to say, Nowra Christian School is a school that encourages perseverance. It is a school which fosters belief in students to achieve those things which do not come easily.

Yesterday, I met with two other principals. It turned out that we all had signed up to the push-up challenge. At one stage, we were doing push-ups in my office to try and knock some of them over. It was quite the picture. While waiting for photos, some Year 11 & 12 students were busting out some push-ups. Perseverance is easier when there is a group effort.

This morning I had to support my right arm with my left to brush my teeth. Today it does not seem to have been the wisest thing to sign up to the push-up challenge, but my dream is that at the end of the 23 days I will have affirmed the belief that perseverance pays dividends.