'Growth mindset' takes root with Manatee County teachers

EAST MANATEE -- For the most part, Florida Teacher of the Year Diane McKee thinks students are being lied to, sometimes with teachers perpetuating and adding to that lie without meaning to do so.

So often, in fact, students are in a "fixed mindset" that they have been dealt a certain hand and are powerless to change it. It's that idea that some people are born smart and others are not, and the idea that some people are athletically gifted and others are not. But teachers must be able to help students take on a "growth mindset" -- the idea that if you work hard enough, you can do anything.

"A lot of our kids don't believe they can do it," McKee said. "The mindset matters. Our mindset matters and the student's mindset matters."

McKee brought the "growth mindset" and ways to embrace it to the Manatee County School District's in-service training session Monday, an annual training day held for teachers and other employees before students return to school after the winter break.

McKee, 58, is an English language arts teacher at a magnet school in Hillsborough County and was named

the 2015 Teacher of the Year in July. Since then, she's been touring the state, speaking and collaborating with other educators on topics like the growth mindset.

A fixed mindset example would be "I'm not good at singing." The growth mindset version? "I will take voice lessons so I can improve."

It's a phenomenon that Sugg Middle School teacher Summer Say said she and other teachers see often at the Title I school. Say, who teaches intensive math, said students often enter the classroom feeling defeated -- and that makes their learning obstacles all that much more difficult to overcome.

"We work on that on a daily basis," Say said.

With McKee's help, teachers in the session at Braden River High worked Monday on identifying the differences between fixed mindset statements and growth mindset statements.

The district hosted sessions aimed at hitting all groups of employees with one or more training sessions. A hot training topic this year: the ins and outs of Microsoft Office. Other sessions included introducing teachers to different computer or tablet-based programs or apps to incorporate in classrooms. The University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee was involved in leading and providing help for a few sessions.

The training came a day before students return to class.

Meghin Delaney, education reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7081. Follow her on Twitter @MeghinDelaney.

This story was originally published January 4, 2016 at 9:20 PM with the headline "'Growth mindset' takes root with Manatee County teachers ."