Nothing You Can't Do! by Mary Cay Ricci

Author:Mary Cay Ricci
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Reflecting means to take some time (a few minutes to a few days or more) and really think about what went wrong, what went well, and how you might change the way that you are approaching the learning. Begin making it a habit to reflect and pay close attention to your thoughts—talk yourself out of that fixed mindset that might be sneaking in.

Reflecting on our learning or process is important. You can reflect silently or out loud (it depends on where you are).

You may be wondering if I’m asking you to talk to yourself by reflecting out loud—yes, actually, you should! Thinking out loud can help you tremendously to solve and get past obstacles. For example, this girl I know, Bella, was trying to put together one of those tall, skinny bookshelves that come in lots of pieces—no tools were required and the directions did not have words, just pictures. She studied the pictures, then got to it and began screwing these tube-like pole thingies into flat shelves. She was almost done when she stopped and reflected aloud, “Wait, if I keep doing it this way, how will the last shelf be attached?” She paused and really studied what she had built and looked at the pictures on the directions again. She said, “If I take it completely apart and start from the top, instead of the bottom, I think it may work.” So she took it apart and began building again. It worked … sort of … but she then realized that she wanted to add an additional shelf to the top. “I think I am going to have to take it apart again and start over,” she said. Then she paused and really thought about it harder. “Wait, I can add this one to the bottom because it has an area to attach the feet to.” Which is what she did … and ta-da! Her bookshelf was complete!

Bella’s ability to reflect on her process, recognize her mistake, persevere by starting over, reflect again, and solve the problem were all part of her resiliency. She could have just given up the first time she realized that she made a mistake—she could have said “I can’t do this” and asked her mom to do it. Instead, Bella showed that she was resilient.

To practice reflecting, you may want to use these sentence starters and questions:

–I wonder why … ?

–Maybe I could have approached this in a different way.

–I am surprised that …

–Do I understand how this connects to something that I already understand?

–What should I do next?

–Maybe I could try doing it this way.

Secret #12

Struggle, Struggle, Struggle

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