I was on the cusp of getting the entire structure written out for the course “Growth Mindset and the Music Teacher” when I realized I needed to stop. I stumbled upon a resource that I needed to review and knew that if I proceeded, that I would be doing the music education world a disservice if I didn’t research this first. The book is Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.
She is known to be the creator of the concepts of growth and fixed mindset. A psychology professor from Stanford University, it is clear that the amount of research she has done in the field is extensive, well-justified to be credited with the invention of these mindset terms, and she has the accolades to match the efforts. Thus, it would have been silly for me to proceed with the development of the course without her insight.
Also, I really should say that neither Dr. Dweck or anyone affiliated with her has paid me to write this endorsement or anything even remotely close to it. I wanted to write this review on my own accord.
Why Stop Now? It's Good to Step Back and Research!
I have a quick and funny little side story before I get into this. I was telling my mother about my progress into the mindset course, and I told her I needed to stop and read this book. Now, for a little context, my mother is a retired kindergarten teacher. She laughed at me and said she wished she had a hard copy of it, and not just borrowed it on her Kindle library app. For her it was required summer reading when she got a new principal one year. I thought that was a funny coincidence!
For my own reading, I was specifically looking for her take on beginning the journey, hopefully based on research and her observation of what works with her subjects, based on experience with her methods. Mindset did that, but mostly at the end of the book. We’ll get to that part soon.
I also was looking for connections to how this would be applicable to the music teacher’s journey toward a growth mindset. The whole first couple hundred pages I saw as justification. There were many stories of people, real people, famous people, people she knew, researched people in her journey, and they all had stories about fixed mindset and the consequences, and personality morphings into growth mindset. It had many anecdotes about growth mindset, and the evidence about it working and helping people achieve great things, both in themselves, and in the people they needed to influence.
And there it was, an entire chapter devoted to teaching and coaching. There were success stories, stories of failure and stories of change. It wasn’t what I was looking for, but if I hadn’t gotten very far in my own growth mindset journey, I would have needed convincing just like this. I learned about false growth mindset, and some other valuable knowledge along the way. What I was looking for was found in the last fifty or so pages, the journey, and it is, indeed, leading me toward some slight changes in the journey I am developing for music teachers. My gut was once again correct; it was the right choice to step back and do more research.
So As in Any Good Book Report, Do I Recommend This Book?
So do I recommend that any music teacher (or heck, any teacher… or wait, any person?!) read Mindset by Carol Dweck? Absolutely. It’s a much better starting place. This is where it all began. This is where the whole revolutionary concept came to be. I didn’t invent it. So anyone that wants to get started but is skeptical that it will work or work for them- this book will help frame their mind to be accepting and ready for the change. I’ve already decided that it should be required reading for my course to be most effective. I’ve also decided that there needs to be a slow and a fast pace method to completing “Growth Mindset and the Music Teacher” course, where you can complete it in a full day or two with a plan to retrace your steps to allow for slow change, and a method that supports the slow change! I came into this project with many, many resources (which will be listed in a future bibliography) to shape me, my thinking and the methods that I’ll be teaching. I think those that take the course need one, and this is it.
Anyhow, even though this is a book report for a wonderful resource on growth mindset for the music teacher, I do not want to follow the traditional guise of a book report and give it all away. I want to simply say that you will just have to read it yourself and give yourself a head start. You’ll be even more ready for “Growth Mindset and the Music Teacher” when it is released by Uplevel U: Music.
About Growth Mindset For Music Teachers, Some Q&A
Here’s a couple miscellaneous questions/answers you might have in the meantime:
What could this mean if you develop this course and then read another amazing book? One awesome thing about Uplevel U: Music and its courses is that the courses are live. They aren’t developed and dead and neither am I. I enjoy learning more about these topics and love sharing the knowledge just as much. If it’s a good addition to an already-released course, it will be added as bonus material, adding even more value to the course. If someone already took it, their email address is on a list of past participants that will be notified that something of value has been added to their course. That added material is free.
Would you consider doing a live professional development seminar on this material? Yes, but not yet. Right now in August, 2024 my teaching load and Uplevel U: Music development and marketing load is too much to accommodate travel. As Uplevel continues to grow, the plan is to cut back on teaching students and to focus on developing teachers, in which case, speaking engagements, seminars, PD days and conventions are on the table. It’s how I want to visit all fifty states and see the world.
What is your main goal with “Growth Mindset and the Music Teacher? I have a few. I want to use it as further research to develop a system for the 21st century, post-COVID, and post mental health awareness boom, for music education. This is the system, but again, I want to continue to refine it as I see it in action. The system is researched, I use it, my students are benefitting from it, and my staff is beginning to use it with their students. But the feedback and group conversation within the course will help us all get meta research on how to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of implementation. The second is that the mass use of growth mindset can change the world, and I want to help make that accessible in my niche of music education.
What if I read the book and take the course and it doesn’t work? Then something went wrong in the thought process, there’s a block and I want to know about it. I want to talk to you. I want to learn from you. I want to use what’s going on to help you troubleshoot. With your permission, I would use your anonymous story to help others that struggle in the same way. Trust me, you would not be the only one. Let’s talk.
But you don’t even have a psychology degree. Why should I trust you? I have a Bachelor’s and a Master’s in Music Education. The Master’s degree was infused with doctoral-level research courses from Carnegie Mellon and University of Pittsburgh, where I researched a variety of pedagogical methods for my thesis (almost a dissertation). Sure, there were some psychology courses there, sure there’s over two decades of teaching experience there, but the education of myself did not end there. I also have mindset coach training from NASM National Academy of Sports Medicine, because I thought I was going to side hustle as a health coach after COVID. Before this, I had a very immersive experience in therapy (not just 1:1, but many, many hours of webinars) during the COVID lockdowns, which was the beginning of my growth mindset journey. This absolutely provided me with more psych training than all of my psych and ed psych courses combined. Now, I keep up my CPT (Certified Personal Training) license from NASM because it’s fun to take health and wellness courses, and because I now teach dance using that knowledge. Whether you are trying to help someone teach better or lose weight, the science behind behavioral change is not all that different, just refined according to topic. You can choose to see the lack of a psychology degree as a setback, or you can see that I have embraced the above knowledge and fused it all together into the creation of a new resource for music teachers like us, from a music teacher who has been there and who knows what music teachers need to excel at their skills.
“Growth Mindsets for Music Teachers” has the potential to revolutionize music education forever, and I’m pleased to share a review of the literature that demonstrates where it all began. I’d like to give a huge endorsement to Mindset by Carol Dweck and recommend that if you are looking to begin the journey toward growth mindset, that you begin there.
This article was written by Music Room/Uplevel U: Music's owner and creator, Karen (Kay) Janiszewski.
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