Take a moment to enjoy the mimosa pudica also known as the shame plant. I’ve been feeling empathetic to this plant since our introduction at a recent lecture from the outdoor series Science Under the Stars.
I have a glorious track record of becoming overwhelmed in the subject of music theory. Despite many genuine efforts, I often fallen short of my hopes and expectations. This included shortcomings during grad school diagnostics, resulting in my enrollment in graduate music theory review.
In hindsight, I probably could have talked my way out of it. But to me, part of returning to school is an opportunity to address and surmount ails musical or otherwise academic. So with that in mind I happily accepted the challenge.
At the beginning, I was feeling pretty great! I had all A’s in my homework, asked questions in class, did the reading and reviewed heavily for the first exam. When the exam came back it read D+.
Talk about cognitive dissonance. I was devastated. I sulked my way through the remainder of class and afterwards collected myself and emailed the professor to meet during her office hours (thus completing the trifecta of professors visited).
If you watched the video, it would be the equivalent to hovering lighters all around the plant. But you may also notice that over time, the plant recovers.
This event coincided with other midterms-namely my Psychology of Learning exam, partially concerning Carol Dweck’s growth/fixed mindset theories. To quote my professor, “A growth mindset is a view that your ability is not fixed because you actually become more able by having it that you've learned new things, that your mind has responded to new challenges.” Since sensitization to the theory I’ve seen it everywhere, including in how programmers approach their work.
Homework is usually intended to be helpful in the long-term. I recognized I’d already assigned theory as something I am “bad at” and therefore would be doomed to struggle perpetually. So I embarked on a path to morph my mind!
This is not in itself a solution, but part of one. I’ve also requested to have three times the homework my classmates are assigned to ensure I practice the concepts from class everyday.
What do you tell yourself you are bad at? Do you think this must be true forever?
Works Cited
The Cat’s Travels, Nik. (2008, January 7) “Mimosa Pudica-The Sensitive Plant.” [YouTube]. Project: Report. Retrieved from:
Schallert, D. (September 22, 2015). “Sept 21 Group 2” [Right. So this new label of growth mindset is a new label for what Dweck used to call (or still calls in her research pubs) a mastery orientation, in contrast to a fixed mindset which is the popular label for performance orientation. I would say it like this: A growth mindset is a view that your ability is not fixed because you actually become more able by having it that you've learned new things, that your mind has responded to new challenges. what do you think of my re-wording?]. Retrieved from: https://utexas.instructure.com/courses/1145877/discussion_topics/2495474
Kaptur, A. (2015, October). Effective Learning Strategies for Programmers. Allison Kaptur. Retrieved from: http://akaptur.com/blog/2015/10/10/effective-learning-strategies-for-programmers/
Popova, M. (2015, October). Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Mindsets That Shape Our Lives. Maria Popova. Retrieved from:
Science Under the Stars. (2015, October). Plant Defenses: Attack from all sides. Retrieved from
