The Growth Mindset

Well, parents of AP Human Geography students, this is the only blog post that you will have to read. While I hope you will read the entire book, I think I can explain how I apply the ideas from Mindset to my students in one shot.
The idea of a growth mindset verses a fixed mindset is not a difficult one to grasp. A growth mindset is one that values growth in all of its forms: mental, spiritual, social and physical. A willingness to learn is essential to grow in any of these areas. This willingness is what I call humility. By humility, I don't mean the self-depricating modesty in which you claim to be less than you really are. Actually, I believe a humble person is one who recognizes and accepts truth. This is a person who, if she is a very good skier, will tell you so. However, she does not do it in a way that elvates herself above others. It is not about being better than others or representing herself as somethinng that she is not. It is being the best she can be. She knows what makes her good but she also know wherein she is weak. She accepts those weaknesses and is committed to improve.
I love the example used in the book of infants learning to walk and talk. Maybe because I am watching it happen right now in my own home. These are some of the most diffficult tasks to master that any of us will undertake in our entire lifetime. In fact, the acquisition of language never ends. My wife recently shared a quote with me that said something like "All I know is what I have words for." Think about it. Can you know a thing without the vocabulary to explain it? I digress. The point is that children learn the most before they become aware that there is such a thing as failure and that it is thought to be bad. To the degree that we allow ourselves to fall victim to the judgements of our parents, bosses and peers is the same degree that we develop a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset influences us to think that excellence or success is not something that we attain because of the joy we get from learning something new and adding to our current abilities. Excellence becomes being better than the next guy. While this can be motivating, it is also frustrating and unsatisfying. There will always be someone better and I will never be happy in the struggle because, with the fixed mindset, happiness only comes when you win. If I perceive I won't win then I won't play at all. Then what have I gained? I lose sight of what could otherwise be a satisfying learning experience.
While I am Christian, I am drawn to Eastern religions because of their focus on mastery. Daoism and Zen Buddhism teach practitioners to focus on the present. A focus on the present precludes a passing judgement on the future. That means that if I am about to set out on a four mile run, I won't focus on anything be the current step and the sensations of breathing and seeing and feeling. Running (or any other hard thing) becomes loathsome because I judge it to be hard. What if I didn't judge it as anything other than a different set of sensations than I feel when I am sitting or walking.Usually, I lose the pleasure that I could have while I am doing it because I am so focused on the pleasure of having it over with. I like Hinduism because it teaches that my current circumstances were created by past thoughts and actions and future circumstances are being created by my current thoughts and actions.
Having established these ideas as a foundation, I can explain how I approach teaching and learning. The first thing that I want to do and that I would like your help with is to try and help students love to learn. I used to think that the way to do this was through making learning fun and entertaining. While I will always seek to find a more fun and interesting way to get an idea across, I do myself a disservice if I communicate the idea that learning is fun all by itself without some gimmick. I want students to understand that while doing research for a project might not be their favorite thing to do, it can be interesting, rewarding and yes even fun. It just depends on their mindset. When a person lets go of the idea that work is hard and hard is bad, then they free themselves to pursue many more things. I like to say that one sign of maturity is when you commit to do what is best even if it is hard.

When I was young, I was no different from most kids. I was not immune to the natural tendency to avoid pain. If I had to endure pain (like doing homework) then the way to do it was to get it over with as soon a possible, even if I had to cut corners. That meant that when it came to doing the bi-weekly vocabulary packet, I would wait until the night before it was due and then copy my friends. Instead of reading the entire novel, I would just read the Cliff's Notes. When it came time to take AP English, I balked. I heard it was hard and the teacher was mean. Did I do well in school? Sure, I got pretty good grades. However, when the stakes were high and I had to get a high score on the Graduate Records Examination in order to get into the schools of my choice, I was in trouble. I remember, taking a Kaplan course to prepare. The first practice test presented words that, for the most part, I had never seen before. I asked the instructor when I was supposed to have learned these words. She told me that these words were taken from American and European classical literature. If I had done my vocabulary packets and read those books in high school and college, I would have acquired those words as part of my own vocabulary. That was when I determined, that though it would take years, I would read those books and gain what I had lost. (Les Miserables is my favorite work of fiction) Still, I was still doing this with a bit of a fixed mindset. I was not a culturally literate adult. I was deficient and I would not be on par with other educated people until I had read what they had read. In the process, however, I found the majority of the books were very enjoyable and even if I didn't care for a particular novel, I understood why it was valuable in the canon of Western literature. This experience helped me to find the value of learning for learning's sake.

While I put great emphasis on passing the AP Human Geography test, I do so because I believe goals are important measures of where we are. Even more important than achieving a goal is the strain, struggle and striving to achieve it. It comes as no surprise that the students who pass the test are usually (but not always) the ones who consistenly do their homework and don't complain about it. While they may not be thrilled about a particular assignment or chapter, they frequently get excited after doing it because their world becomes broader when they see the relevance of the concept in the world around them. They begin to enjoy learning about why things are the way they are in the world around them. While they may not ask you to change the radio station to NPR or begin consistenly read the New York Times or the Economist or go to the library to check out Food Inc., to the extent that they do these kinds of things, they will begin to see the intrinsic value of learning not merely jumping through hoops to get a certain letter on a piece of paper.
Speaking of grades. The idealist in me wishes we didn't have them. They are never a real indicator of what a student learned (sometimes more, sometimes less). The pragmatist in me understands that they are a fact of life. Since they are not going away anytime soon, I should use them to accomplish my goals; namely, student acehievment. In the spirit of the growth mindset, I allow students to redo assignments, do test corrections and even retake different versions of chapter tests until they are satisfied with their score. It is usually a shock when they get their first test back. Percentages range from 30 to 70 percent. This is because while students may study the material (these are the ones who get 70 percent) the questions are meant to test their understanding of the concept. This often means that the students need to recognize the concept as it applies to some part of the world. In other words, the questions are not surface level recall questions that ask who, what when, where. They measure understanding of how and why. Since most questions on tests up to this point measure the former, it takes a while for students to learn how to think through a question; recognize the concept that it is testing and eliminate the answers that don't fit.
Half of their score on the AP exam comes from their writing Free Response Questions. There are usually three. The more of these questions they practice writing, the better they will get. The more they read, the more material they will have to write about. It is that simple. I will teach them the material and the skills. The more they review and practice, the better they will get. The more, they adopt a growth mindset, the easier and more enjoyable learning will become. If maturity is measured by a persons willingness to do hard things without complaint, then that is yet another hopefull outcome of this whole process.
Regardless of whether you buy into this whole line of thinking, the fact is that students who do the assigned work, redo work when it is sub-par and do test corrections are the ones who learn the most. The students who learn the most perform well on tests. Students who perform well on tests create opportunities for themselves by way of college acceptance and scholarships. The irony is that the students who learn to love to learn are the ones who get the best scores and the most scholarships.
I look forward to teaching your son or daughter this year. As difficult as it might seem at times, with very few exceptions students finish the year saying that while it was a challenge it was worth it.

Cheerleader

Back in 1986 cheer squads with males were unheard of in Utah County, if not Utah. Kaye Woodward, the cheer advisor at Orem High School thought that some big strapping boys could add dimensions previously unknown to her squad. The thing is, unless she got the right boys, she might end up with some dimensions that she didn't really wish for. Think about it. If she held a tryout, who do you think would show up? There were actually three or four guys in our school that I think might have tried out. I'm pretty sure that they couldn't lift, let alone toss a girl in the air. As things turned out my girl tossing didn't turn out so well either. But that is the subject of the next story. Needless to say, Kaye did not hold a tryout. She went recruiting.

I don't know if she had this inspiration at the end of the football season, or if she calculated it that way. At any rate, she went after football players that weren't playing a winter sport. That made me a candidate. I, however, was not having any of it. I had some pretty rigid gender roles set in my mind so when she asked me if I would be a male yell leader on her squad, I responded curtly "No way, I'm not a fag." Given this comment, I think it is ironic that of all the guys that ended up as yell leaders at Orem High for the basketball season during the winter of 1985-86, I was the onlly one that did not end up playing college football. Mike Lewis played at Utah, John Nichols played at Dixie, Joe Herrick played at BYU, all state quarterback and outside linebacker Ryan Beckstead could have played just about anywhere but got a Benson scholarship at BYU and and I can't recall where, but I think Gabe Roux played somewhere too. All of these guys readily accepted Kay's offer. Maybe that tells you something about their level of comfort with their masculine identity. It surely tells you that I was really pretty insecure. Kaye petitioned me a few times but when I dismissed her out of hand every time she settled on the above list of guys and proceeded to put her plan into action.

Unfortunately, there was a bump in the road leading to her goal. Ryan Beckstead was also the President of the LDS Seminary. They had a rule that the officers in the seminary could not also be school officers or cheerleaders. So, while he was willing, he was not able. That put Kaye one yell leader short. So, she came back to me again, only this time more desperate. When I continued to say no she must have decided to take another approach and use the back door. She called me one Saturday morning and said that they had a practice and would I please just come and stand in so they could practice their routine. I told her that I would help her this one time if she would just stop pestering me. I went, helped and then started to leave.

"Wait!" she shouted urgently. "You can't abandon us now, we don't have anyone else and you know the routine."

"A deal is a deal." I said in a cavalier manner, and turned to go.

"What can I do to get you to do this?" she pleaded.

I sensed an opportunity for gain here and responded in kind. "Let me take your sportscar to junior prom." I said.

Now it was Kaye's turn to go in for the kill. "Deal!" She exclaimed.

In retrospect, I could probably have gotten a lot more out of her but I was not a polished negotiator and if you saw what I had to drive to the junior prom in, you probably would have done the same thing.

The real lesson here is that, for the most part, cheerleading was a great experience. It also provides the next couple of stories for my blog. Mostly, I learned-too little,too late for high school-that rejecting something because it doesn't fit inside of some warped paradigm, only limits me and keeps me from the kind of learning that opens up future opportunities. In retrospect I wish I had been involved in debate, fbla, choir and even drama. While I still have my limits, I am much more open to new ideas and opportunities.

The Great Mall of China

"The Great Wall of China" is a misnomer. "If there is any question whether China is a communist country, just go to the Great Wall and the Chinese people will inform you otherwise. They will not tell you. They will show you. You cannot walk two feet without an aggressive Chinaman holding some product in your face saying "Haro, you buy, cheap!" That is why I think "The Great Mall of China" is a more appropriate name. The great irony is that some of the most frequently purveyed items are Mao's Little Red Books, Communist caps or t-shirts emblazened with Mao's face. The road leading up to the Wall is lined on both sides with booths and shops selling all things Chinese.

It's not so bad once you get onto the wall. Based on an observation of would-be sellers of goods scattering when the police/security came near, I don't think they are supposed to sell stuff on the actual wall. One of the girl's in our group would much rather have been accosted by an aggressive Chinese peddler than how she actually was accosted.

First, a little background. The Great Wall of China is to the Chinese what Mt. Rushmore or the Grand Canyon is to Americans. China has almost exactly as much land as the United States. People come from all over China to visit this monument to China's past. Many of them live in very rural villages where they have seen foreigners on TV but never in person. Throughout our trip, it was not uncommon for people to come up and say "We take picture together, Ok?" They would snap a shot and then be gone. Another factor that helps you understand what happened to the poor girl on the Great Wall of China is that the Chinese have little, if any, candor. They say just what they think. It is like that filter in our brains that keeps thoughts in our heads from going to our mouths is missing in them. More than once, living in Taiwan, I went to the beach to get a nice golden tan, only to come back to have both friends and strangers say "Ewww, you're so black." (On an unrelated sidenote; The Chinese people think that white skin is beautiful. That is why when you see Chinese tourists at Zion's or the Grand Canyon, they will have big floppy hats, sunglasses and umbrellas when there is not a cloud in the sky.) One of the girl's on our trip who did happen to be on the heavier side was told in a very matter of fact way, "You are kind of fat aren't you?" Last, the Chinese concept of personal space is not the same as ours. With about five times as many people living in the same space as the U.S., you can imagine how people are going to bump, nudge, jam and cram into each other.

So, with this background information, I can now continue my story. A girl and her friend were walking along the Great Wall of China minding their own business when, out of the blue, a woman comes up and grabs her boobs. This was not just a little pat or touch. The Chinese woman got two full handfulls. Now, as you might already have guessed, this girl was well endowed in that area. As the Chinese woman grabbed her, she said "Wow, that very big!" Most Chinese women are not so blessed and so, being from a rural part of China and not having the opportunity to see American's, let alone big chested one's, thought she would take full advantage of the opportunity to get an up close look (and feel). The American girl, was completely taken off guard. She said later that she didn't really realize what was happening to her. So, she just stood there in shock with a dumbstruck expression on her face. The Chinese woman's next comment revealed what she thought was the reason for such largess. She patted the American girl's stomach, looked up at her and said "you have baby?" The girl's friend finally came to her rescue. She pulled her away and wisked her away.

I heard everything you said

This is another funny little story that happened on my 2002 trip to China. The last leg of our trip took us to Beijing. I got in the elevator with a couple of students to go to the lobby. There were was a twenty something looking Chinese couple already in the elevator when we entered. They didn't say or do anything too indiscreet but I noticed them start to look over at us and saying things in Chinese. I couldn't hear everything but I picked up words that let me know they were talking about us. When we got to the bottom, just before the doors opened I said "Wo ting dao ni swo da hua chwen bu." Translation: "I heard everything you said." When I said that, their eyes widened and their jaws dropped in utter surprise and shock. They rushed out of the elevator as fast as they could, never to be seen or heard of again. At least not by us.

Language Man

This is an extension of the Professional Liar post. For the background that goes with this story please read that one first.

So on our way back to the bus stop we had to pass by "wildcat" vendors who didn't want to pay for a booth. They just put blankets down on the ground to display their goods. I'm not sure if you have heard but China is a crowded place. Needless to say, we were not the only people walking down the sidewalk so it is hard to know for sure what really happened next. What I know for sure is that I heard a hulabaloo behind me. I looked to see the smallest kid in our group being accosted by an angry Chinese woman. If I didn't know better, I would have thought it was the same one that Makena had scammed a few minutes earlier. If text messaging existed back then, it would make sense that she had texted a message to this woman to get revenge.
At any rate, this woman was standing there in Nick's face yelling at him. I'm not sure if you have heard but Chinese people are short. So the fact that this woman was face to face with Nick tells you how short he was. I made my way back past my students and a host of other curious Chinese people to see what she was so upset over.
On a short biographical side note, after graduation from BYU in 1992 I lived in Taiwan for two years. One of my reasons for going there was to learn Chinese. I had become what would be considered fluent but in ten years with no chance to practice my Chinese had become rusty. While some of the vendors could speak English, this angry woman could not. She was yelling "Ni kwai dao la" as she held up a broken hair comb. "Ni gei wo chen" Translation: "You broke it, give me money!" I was not so sure Nick broke it but I had my doubts. In my best Chinese I said,
"He didn't break it you are just trying to cheat him." She insisted that he had stepped on the comb and that he had to pay for it. We went back and forth for what seemed like a while but was probably less than a minute. The debate did not, however, include how much she expected to get for it; probably less than a buck. Pride, however, is rarely laden with logic. The discussion centered on whether Nick had broken the comb and I was defending Nick's honor. A crowd was beginning to assemble and I was getting nervous. At last, I said "no, we are not going to pay you and I nudged Nick to move on and gave a look to the others that they should move out. With that, the woman, afraid that she was going to end up empty handed, attempted to get something of value and grabbed the bag of goods that Nick had purchased. In so doing, the plastic bag broke and a jade statue fell to the ground and broke. Now I had cause to be upset. I'm sure the statue was worth more than the stupid comb. The crowing crowd and the woman's rash action, resulted in panic that forced pride from me. Now logic took over and I saw a vision of an angry mob busting out their kung fu. That wouldn't have gone over well with the parents that had entrusted this kids into my care. I reached into my pocket. I threw her the first bill that emerged and took off for the bus. I am sure it was more than the comb was worth. Even if it was a scam. If I would have calmly asked her how much she wanted and then offered her half of that we might have come to terms. Even if I would have paid her what she asked I would have come away with more money in my pocket. My ego allowed things to get out of hand and I ended up rewarding her bad behavior. Even if her story was legit, I taught her how to exploit dumb, prideful Americans. The funny part of the story and the reason for the title of this piece is that when we finally made it to the safety of the bus and started to relax. Makena, who didn't understand any of what had just taken place, looked at me in amazement and with a sense of awe in his voice and expression said " Mr. Jeppson, your....your like language man!" Apparently he had not heard me speaking Chinese. The longer I had been there, the more it improved. To him though it was all just jibberish. Even if I was slaughtering the language, to him my language skills had saved them from the impending doom of a Chinese mob.

Professional Liar

Back in the year 2002, I took 27 students from Wasatch Mountain Junior High to China. Such a choice could bring into question my sanity but that is another topic for another day. We spent a lot of time visiting temples, gardens and learning about accupuncture, tai chi, martial arts and Chinese food. The thing they really wanted to do though was shop. After all, we were in China! The problem was that our trip was already scheduled to the hilt. One night, however, we had a couple hours of free time. The kids begged me to take them to the market. This was a scary prospect. I was supposed to take them on a bus, across the city of Nanjing and back to our hotel. What if a kid got lost? In a major U.S. city that would be one thing but half a world away in China?
Well, we got to the market without any trouble. The kids spent a couple of hours going around to the different booths in the open air market where they bought things like knives, mah jang boards, jade statues and, of course, clothes. I bought all of my kids jade necklaces with the animal of their Chinese zodiac carved on it. We all knew that whatever price they were quoted was grossly inflated. Part of the fun was to haggle to see what kind of price they could get. The Chinese knew, however, that the Americans were flush with cash. Furthermore, these were fourteen year old kids and should be easy to exploit. Makena Walsh was a particularly savy and courageous youth. He was haggling with a vendor over some item and the vendor had reached her bottom line. Or what he wanted Makena to think his bottom line was. But Makena was not going to be had so easily. He had a few tricks in his proverbial bag. He was determined to get the best possible price. After naming a rock bottom price that the vendor refused. Makena exclaimed "That is all the money I have."
The Chinese woman said "No, you have money, I know!" Makena, with a strait face, said
"That is all I have" and started to walk away.
In a frustrated but desperate tone the Chinese woman said, "Ok, ok I sell!"Makena stopped, turned around and went back to the booth. His mistake was that when he took out his money, the woman was able to see that he actually did have more than the named price. The woman's expression grew sour and she said angrily "You, professional liar!" I guess she could still have refused to sell to him but the price was set, so Makena got the deal. I do believe in karma and a few minutes later his chicanery would come back on all of us.

life lessons

Every year several students tell me that I should write a book that includes the "mostly true" stories that I tell them about the lessons that I have learned from life. Every year a number of new students say it but has it happened yet? No! This might be a way for me to ease into it while hopefully getting both solicited and unsolicited feedback. While some have a moral, some are immoral. Some are practical (like my musings on how to defeat the law of diminishing returns by drinking Coca-Cola) and some might be seen as idiosyncratic (like my wishes regarding the disposal of my dead body). Some are short and some are long. Whatever the case, I hope that what I write will be both entertaining and maybe even helpful.

So lets, begin with a short one: Cute Is in the Eye of the Beholder

One night sitting at the dinner table we were speculating over which child looked most like which parent. Since it is often hard for members of the same family to see resemblances we began talking about what other people said. A lot of people thought that my eldest daughter Alexandra looked like her mother. I had people tell me that they thought Jessika looked like me. Now to truly understand Jessika's reply, you have to have a little background information. Jessika was about three years old at the time. She had curly hair like little orphan Annie only hers was blonde. She had chubby cheeks with a dimple on her left cheek and a cleft in her chin. She was like a little cabbage patch doll. You can imagine then that total strangers would come up to her and fall all over themselves pointing out how cute she was. She was constantly hearing people say "cute, cute, cute, you are soooo cute." So when I say that she looks like me, the wheels in her little brain started to turn. She wrinkled her brow and turned down the corners of her mouth in a puzzled expression as she studied my face. Then, though it was a statement, it was said like a question she said "but daddy, you're not cute."
I wasn't offended then but I think I am now. I know I'm not cute but the only characteristic that I thought that she and I had in common was the cleft in our respective chins. But maybe when people said that she looked like me they were really saying the I was chubby!

I hadn't planned on sharing this one but as I was writing about cuteness it came to mind.

At the age of nineteen, I served a two year mission to Japan for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For a number of reasons, missionaries go out into the cold cruel world in pairs. The older of the two is responsible for training the younger, green missionary who, depending on how fresh of the boat he is, has to rely heavily on the senior companion for help in communication. For the experience that I am about to write about, I had been in Japan for about a month so you can immagine that may linguistic abilities needed work. Still, I was fiercely independent and hated to rely on my senior companion. In this case, I was trying to talk to a Japanese lady holding a baby at her front door. I said "Kodoma wa kowai desu ne." As polite as the Japanese are, her initial expression showed horror and then revulsion. My companion immediately stepped in to smooth things over. As we turned away from the door, I could see he was trying his best to hold back the laughter. I asked him what I had said. He explained that while I used the adjective Kowai, I should have said Kawai. Kawai means cute. Kowai means scary. So instead of saying what a cute baby, I said " Your baby is really scary!"