Last week, I had the opportunity to engage the first and second graders in a read aloud of the book M is for Melody: A Music Alphabet by Kathy-Jo Wargin. When we got to the letter I, the text read:
“And I is for instrument. Which one will you play? When you join the band, you’ll have fun every day! Practice makes perfect.”
Immediately, several students challenged the notion of “perfect.”
“There is no such thing as perfect!”
“It’s not about being perfect; it’s about practice.”
“Practice doesn’t make perfect; it just makes you better.”
Clearly, SK’s first and second graders were applying their critical reading skills; they were challenging the author’s assumptions; they spoke of perfection as if it were an extinct construct. Their insistence and critique was a reflection of what they had already learned—at the young ages of 6 and 7—about the importance of a growth mindset.
In her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2006), psychologist Carol Dweck distinguishes between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset:
A person (or organization) with a fixed mindset views intelligence, talent, and ability as innate and fairly static—you’ve either got it or you don’t; you can learn new things, but you can’t really change how intelligent/talented/able you are.
In contrast, a person (or organization) with a growth mindset views intelligence, talent, and ability as dynamic and malleable—if you can’t yet do something, you can work toward learning how to do it; regardless of how much intelligence/talent/ability you already have, there’s always room for development and expansion.
From a growth mindset perspective, even mindsets themselves are not fixed. We can turn a fixed mindset into a growth mindset!
If perfection was truly attainable, this would imply that there’s an end to growth. It would also imply that there’s one agreed upon idea of perfection. The first and second graders who voiced their strong opinions in opposition of the notion of “practice makes perfect” are wise young humans—they already know that perfection is not some fixed ideal to be attained, but rather, we should reach, stretch, and practice so that we grow.
If growth is goal, versus some notion of perfection, then the risk-taking necessary for learning becomes more tolerable. Mistakes and failure can be reframed as essential feedback for growth, and we can celebrate our failures because they are evidence that we are reaching for something beyond our current ability.
Granted, there are systemic and structural injustices that can’t simply be overcome with a growth mindset. Valuing a growth mindset—and even adopting one—doesn’t ensure achievement and success. It’s important to acknowledge that individual people with mindsets do not exist in isolation; people are situated within complex, chaotic, sociocultural, socioeconomic contexts, which must be navigated and negotiated. It’s important to not oversimplify or generalize about the potential benefits of a growth mindset.
But I was inspired by SK’s first and second graders who already know that “there’s no such thing as perfection.”
At Harrington Elementary in Denver, Colorado where I started my teaching career, we had a saying: Practice makes permanent. I like this twist on this old adage. It fits well with SK’s teachers’ approach to planning and enacting project-based learning: we’re focused on cultivating pedagogical, project-based habits. We practice to develop habits. When something becomes habitual, our mind is freed up to think about even more complex ideas; our creative, physical, and intellectual potential expands.
Here’s to reaching for the stars, imperfectly and playfully, just to see how much we can grow.
[Above art by Cooper Edens from his book Add One More Star to the Night (2003)]