Nurturing a Growth Mindset

Nurturing a Growth Mindset 

Welcome to a new school year!  We’re excited to introduce the “Trailblazer Tribune”, a blog that we hope will be informative, inspiring, and helpful for you as a Sioux Center Christian School supporter.  We’ll include entries from our administrative team, our teachers, and other contributors from time to time.  We encourage you to follow us.  Here’s to a great school year!

We’re going to start the year with a message that I shared with teachers during this year’s opening professional development meetings.

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As you start to read this post, what’s your mindset?  What thoughts have gone through your head today?  What thoughts are going through your head right now?

Let’s think a little more about mindsets and what goes through our minds.  Start by taking the mindset quiz by clicking here.

What did you find out?  What you figured?  Surprised?  About right?

You may have heard about something called a “growth mindset”, which is largely based on the research by Carol Dweck. 

Dweck asserts that “It’s not about where you are now. It’s about where you’re committed to going.”

She shares that there are two mindsets that have a MAJOR impact on our ability to learn, grow, and achieve our goals.

• Having a growth mindset means you believe that your skills and intelligence are things that can be developed and improved.
• Having a fixed mindset means you believe that your skills and intelligence are set and can’t be changed.

Research shows that the growth mindset is what fosters grit, determination, and work ethic within students, athletes, and people of all ages.

Carol Dweck’s extensive research of the topic also shows that people with a growth mindset learn, grow, and achieve more than people that have fixed mindsets.  We all know people who have more of a growth mindset or a fixed mindset.  We have a pretty good idea of where we are ourselves. 

So, where do you fall?  How thirsty are you?  

Our kids can also have fixed and growth mindsets, and our teachers work every day to push toward the growth mindset.  How do we do that?  Click here to check out a short video focused on how we focus more on effort than praise.  

As a faculty, we focused on the parable of the sower and what it means to us related to growth.

⁴ While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: ⁵ “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. ⁶ Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture.⁷ Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. ⁸ Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”

When he said this, he called out, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

¹¹ “This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. ¹² Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. ¹³ Those on the rocky ground are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. ¹⁴ The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. ¹⁵ But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.

We also meditated on verses related to growth from Colossians and Philippians.

Colossians 1:9-13

⁹ For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,^[e] 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹ being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, ¹² and giving joyful thanks to the Father.

Philippians 1:3-6

³ I thank my God every time I remember you. ⁴ In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy ⁵ because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, ⁶ being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

We don’t expect anyone at SCCS to be fully formed.  What we do expect is that you’ve arrived here ready to learn and grow.  We expect you to stretch beyond your comfort zone and take reasonable risks.  Not to play it safe, do the same thing you’re good at over and over, and stay in your comfort zone.  Mix that with high expectations and a positive attitude, a love of Christ and growing in Him, and I think we’ve got a great 2015-2016 school year ahead of us.

Partnering with you,

Mr. Bowar


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Josh Bowar is the assistant principal at Sioux Center Christian School. He has experience teaching students in elementary, middle, and high school settings, as well as college and adult courses. This is his third year as the assistant principal, striving to meet his personal mission statement of “Faithfully using his gifts to help others use theirs, leading by serving, learning by listening.”