#GrowthMindset

The Ricca Family enjoyed a "stay-cation" during the recent February break.  We purposely chose to be home and spend the time off intentionally together, with each of us choosing something to do together.

Since we moved into our home almost six years ago, My Bride has been hoping to repaint the Master Bedroom and Bathroom.  In true parental fashion, we took care of all the other rooms except ours.  So for the past several weeks, we have had paint samples taped to the walls of our bedroom, trying to figure out what would work best with the colors we had on the bed, the framed pictures on the wall, and with the furniture in our bedroom.

We ultimately decided on "Pewter," purchased three gallons from the Vermont Paint Company and we decided to finally paint our own room.  As I have noted in this blog previously, I am not the most handy individual although I think I can handle a paint roller.  Sort of...

We were all doing this together - all four of us.  We each had a job and I was tasked with taped the baseboards originally.  There are not a lot of them in our room and I take my straight lines very seriously.  Very seriously.  Have any of you ever tried to tape a baseboard in advance of painting?  It's not easy to do, and to be honest, I didn't have the best attitude as I wasn't doing it very well.  Unfortunately, my attitude was seeping out and My Boys were noticing and worse, were starting to balk at their work.

I was staring at a lopsided piece of tape on one of the baseboards and realized how utterly ridiculous I was behaving.  I took a deep breath and apologized out loud to My Boys.  I told them I was not being a good role model, because I challenge them to have a growth mindset about things in their worlds.  I needed to do the same.

As a teacher, there are many eyes on you in that classroom.  Do they see your growth mindset?  As a building leader, there are plenty of eyes on you in that building.  How do you model growth mindset?  As a district leader, the eyes of the community are on you.  Do you practice what you preach when it comes to growth mindset?  Finally, as a parent and family member, the eyes of your family watch and listen for your growth mindset.  This is the world we've chosen as professional educators!

So what if the tape wasn't perfect?  So what if there were little flecks of paint on the carpet, ceiling, and on the precious baseboards I was taping?  At the end of the day, it was much more important for the four of us to do something together that we could all be proud of.

#GrowthMindset