KindSight 101

In Part two of my interview with Stefanie Faye Frank, we explore the dark side of growth mindset and why it’s important to go beyond the superficial teaching of adaptability. We discuss some of the physiological clues that suggest whether a student in experiencing fight, flight or freeze and how to become more aware of our own body language in order to create a safe environment for our students. We discuss top down extremism, which is the belief that our success lies in our ability to control our own thoughts, rewrite our stories. While this can be a powerful model, it’s important to remember that someone’s adverse and traumatic experiences can make it extremely challenging to reframe their thinking. Therefore, thinking alone is not always enough to overcome adversity. We need to be advocates for creating better circumstances at home and within the classroom so that our students can be healthy, happy learners. We learned that when someone is in physiological distress or in a triggered stress response, they ex