A Coaching Power Tool By Rob Street, Education Coach, HONG KONG
Grow vs. Status Quo Fixed Educational Mindset
I frequently talk with students about their learning, particularly in mathematics. It is common for a student to hold a fixed mindset about their learning, for example, “I’m bad at mathematics.”
This is a highly detrimental self-view, positioning a learner far from a success, and students with this view invariably do poorly in the subject. (It’s not limited to mathematics.) If a learner can shift from this fixed mindset to a more open view, something like: “I need more time and patience to succeed in mathematics”
then in many cases, the learner can begin to enjoy and progress in the subject. At the least, this move closer to a growth mindset usually means the subject is no longer the dreadful experience it was before.
What’s Behind the Fixed Mindset?
There could be any number of causes, but a very common one is learned helplessness. A concise explanation is:
When humans or other animals start to understand (or believe) that they have no control over what happens to them, they begin to think, feel, and act as if they are helpless. (Ackerman, 2020)
It’s very much a feeling that a learner has, often developed over years of minimal understanding and poor test scores. Learned helplessness embodies the fear or dislike of consistent perceived failure or at least poor performance. In those cases the learner often finds it safer to position themselves as ‘bad at it, allowing them to place responsibility for success outside of themself. Trying harder may well produce results no different, so why risk failure – better to embrace the ‘too hard’ attitude.
However, both research and personal experience have taught me that it is plastic, subject to the learner exerting control over the feeling. Adopting a growth mindset (Dweck, 2006) is a tremendous start, and a coaching situation can be a good place to allow this to happen.
What Can Be Done?
There is a problem of perception here. Many learners see that success = great marks on the test. This limiting belief must be exposed to move forward. If the learner can reposition his or her understanding of success, success may come within reach. Below could be an abridged example of the highlights of a conversation about this
Learner: I always do badly on tests.
Coach: How does that make you feel?
Learner: Like a failure.
Coach: How would you like to feel?
Learner: I’d like to feel successful.
Coach: What would that be like?
Pause
Learner: I guess it would mean doing better in the test.
Coach: Anything else?
Learner: I’d feel like I understand it.
Coach: What’s more important to you about this?
Learner: Understanding it.
And so on.
The idea is to allow the learner to recognize the source of the frustration, and thereby the limiting beliefs. Of course, the conversation may go differently, but I have noticed common themes to most students (and adults) experiencing this.
A specific example of this was with a student I worked with called Kayley. Kayley had a history of doing poorly in mathematics, so I asked her about it. She told me she was no good at it and explained that she tried to do the homework assigned but often cheated, or did the absolute minimum to avoid trouble. Of course, in tests, it became clear she had gained little knowledge. This had been going on for as long as she could remember. I asked Kayley to think about what she would like her experience of mathematics to be, and later, what was standing in her way. After some work, she decided that she’d like to feel successful and that this wasn’t necessarily linked to good test performance. From this point, we were able to negotiate new success criteria for her in her narrative. The hard part for Kayley had been making the flip from the status quo of learned helplessness to the more challenging and risky ‘grow’. The story wasn’t over, and more work was needed, but Kayley ended up quite liking the subject once she realized she could define success herself and wasn’t limited to the test score and her parents’ view. One note here is that Kayley did the work herself – I just acted as the coach, pushing her to recognize that there were different perspectives available.
Grow vs. Status Quo
The point of the power tool is to help the client flip their self-positioning. They are likely stuck in an unproductive status quo, i.e. the fixed mindset. If they can successfully move out of this status quo, to a position where growth may be possible, some form of success (and thereby, positive experience) may come to be. It’s likely to be a challenge for the learner since these particular limiting beliefs are often held very strongly. An example would be the swathes of adults desperate to explain to me how they are terrible at mathematics, despite not having studied it for decades.
Another Story
Many of us are parents. Most of us would like to be better at it, yet we consistently fall into the same mistakes again and again. For example, we might nag our children about that one thing that bothers us. We might lose our temper at certain triggers. We might find our communication with our children fails to meet both our and their expectations. The reality for most of us is that we don’t know how to change this, or even that it can be changed. However, with the aid of coaching, this understanding may be changed. Compared with the mathematics story above, the examples here may be more widely varied, but a common theme is often communication or unmet expectations, with the specifics varying wildly from family to family.
The application of the power tool here is two-step. First, the individuals can be challenged to consider their situation. What causes it, what feelings does it generate, and so on. The second step is to challenge the idea that this is the only way the situation can be: “what other approaches might you take?”
Chris has an 18-year-old daughter, Ellen. They mostly get on well, but there is a small problem in Chris’ mind. Ellen usually leaves her things lying about the place. Her coat, bag, and other items can be found here and there, not in whatever designated place they should be. In his own words, Chris “sees red” in these situations, and finds it difficult to control his immediately incandescent rage. He knows it’s a simple thing, but this also leads him to question why Ellen can’t just do it right. This has happened many times and is a source of great friction between Chris and Ellen. He does not know what to do about it.
In this case, we can consider Chris to be stuck in the status quo – a situation that doesn’t change. Unfortunately, this situation is unproductive, even unpleasant. The power tool may allow Chris (or Ellen) to open the possibilities to an alternative approach, one in which there is room for growth. The coach does not have to find this solution for Chris and Ellen. Indeed, this would probably not be useful, as the correct solution should come from those involved, However, the coach may be necessary to move the two from status quo to grow. In that case, they may be able to understand that alternative perspectives are available, and investigating these alternatives might be fruitful, to the point of allowing growth.
What Questions Can a Coach Ask?
Many of the coaching questions surrounding this power tool will be familiar to coaches. The idea of “grow” is simply that there may be alternatives to whatever current perspective the client holds. The idea of the “status quo” is that a client may be looking at a situation through a non-optimal lens. Combining these ideas can allow a client to open new possibilities. In the case of Chris and Ellen, one can envisage several possible solutions (though the clients may find themselves in an entirely different one) including simply discussing it, co-creating rules, Chris coming up with some calming mantra, Ellen apologizing, or whatever suits them. The point is of course not to find the solution, but to help the client open the door to the possibility of growth.
- In that moment, how else could you react?
- If you were in the best possible mood, what would you do?
- How does your daughter see this situation?
- Have you ever navigated this situation with success?
- How is your reaction serving you?
- What if there were a different way to act in this situation?
Similarities of Grow vs. Status Quo With Other Power Tools
Grow vs. Status Quo holds similarities with other power tools, including Reframing Perspectives and Responsibility vs Blame. Grow vs Status Quo also encompasses a strong element of Growth Mindset, particularly useful for learners. Children are obviously learners, spending so much of their time at school, but parents are as well – they have to look after ever-changing children despite having little or no experience of dealing with this constant change. Just as they have understood one phase, the youngsters move on to a new one. Escaping the Status Quo, and moving to Grow can be powerful in these situations.
Recently I found myself considering my own son’s academic performance. I found myself saying things like ‘he’s not good at listening’. I could see myself quickly falling into a status quo fixed mindset about this, so I self-coached. I tried to understand my son as a learner with strengths. This allowed me to see that he required help to develop and hopefully master his listening skill. This narrative is very different from the previous one and embraces ‘grow’ at its core. Since then, I have been able to be more patient and more creative in helping him learn. It not only feels as though the block I originally observed is lessening but also working together has been overall a more positive experience. The new perspective helped a lot.
Grow vs. Status Quo is a way for people to see a new perspective on a stuck situation. That perspective may involve overturning a limiting belief, like Kayley’s, or moving past a communication breakdown like Chris and Ellen’s. It may also turn a negative situation into a positive one, like my son’s.
References
Ackerman, C. E. ‘Learned helplessness. Seligman’s Theory of Depression (+ Cure)
Dweck, C. S. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Ballantine Books