We CAN!

“This is too hard!”

“I’ll never get this!”

“I give up!”

“I can’t do this!”

These are phrases that teachers hear far too often. When school work becomes difficult, students have a tendency to want to give up. We’ve all felt frustration and we’ve all wanted to give up. This is why we’ve been focusing on changing our words to help change our mindset in fourth grade. The last few days we have been discussing having a growth mindset through a number of different activities. Having a growth mindset is believing that you can do anything and not give up when things become difficult.   

One of the activities we did this week was read and discuss the book Giraffes Can’t Dance. We talked about how it feels when you think you can’t do something. After this discussion, we decided to outlaw the phrase “I can’t!” and replace it with “I can!”. Students then personalized an “I can!” that will hang in our classroom for the rest of the year as a reminder that they can do anything they set their mind to!