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Today, we have a great big leader feature that we are excited to have with you.
And her name is Michelle.
And I'm going to welcome her and ask her to tell us a little bit about herself.
Thank you so much, Tina.
I'm so excited to be here.
I follow along with you and I just love everything you do.
So I'm very excited to be here.
I am Michelle Blay and I have been a teacher.
This is my 18th year being a teacher.
I now, as of this school year, I teach part-time because I've started my own business called Miss Shell Mindset that helps parents support their kids to develop a growth mindset.
I actually, this is an interesting fact, I didn't always want to be a teacher.
When I was in university I did a degree bachelor's degree in psychology and I thought I was going to go forward and work with kids as a child psychologist.
And when I got close to the end of my degree I started realizing that.
You know, I really get attached to these kiddos.
And I thought it would be.
You know, maybe there could be a different fit for For me where I could help kids in a different capacity.
So I went back to school for teaching and it was the perfect fit for me.
What I started to notice though, of course, that feeling of wanting to really help kids didn't go away.
So as I started teaching, I noticed that there were many kids in the classroom who were anxious and nervous to try things that were new for them.
And so I just felt this calling that I'm supposed to help kids with this particular problem.
Of course, I love teaching math science, everything but I just knew that this was why I was a teacher was to help kids just become confident and brave.
Teaching is such a massive umbrella.
And may I ask what grade you have?
I've taught everything from first grade up to fifth grade, but grade three is like.
Where I've spent most of my time is in grade three.
And you wonder what is it about kids, Even from kindergarten through grade five?
What is it that makes kids anxious and nervous to try things?
You know, it's not like they're our age.
And I think as adults, we have more of that in us.
But kids usually jump right in.
Yeah, well, it's interesting because the older you get, the more you see it, right?
Like has anybody ever seen a baby who is learning to walk?
And then they just decided you know what?
This is too hard.
I'm not going to keep trying.
Never.
It comes as kids get older.
And so I'm so passionate about sharing with parents what can we do as they get older, so that they don't Start being afraid to try?
You know, they keep their I'm going to walk up like attitudes throughout.
So these experiences, are these what led you to focusing on teaching parents about growth mindset?
How did that evolve?
Well yeah, I also became passionate about it because it took me a few years to realize why I was so interested in helping these kids with this problem.
And I came to know that the reason is because I was that kid when I was younger and I wish I had had someone younger who would have been there for me with that.
Because as an adult it's a lot.
Kids are sponges, but as an adult it's a lot harder to change.
As an adult,
What I started to find is in my classroom.
I would see this massive growth of kids who would come in in September and they were nervous and they were scared and they would leave in June having made all of this growth.
And I thought, wow, they're good to go, like forever.
Right.
They're good to go.
And then the longer that I taught you know you get older and kids start going off to middle school and high school and they would kind of come back and visit me.
And some of them I would realize that they had totally regressed.
They had kind of, their anxiety had come back.
And I realized that the people who are in their lives throughout, which are their parents, Those are the people who need to know this stuff, because you have a new teacher the next year and the next year and the next year.
So for many kids, it's not enough to have one school year with one teacher who focuses on this.
If the parents use strategies Their children can thrive throughout.
So I'm just like, I need to share this with parents.
I think it's wonderful that you're doing it.
I think it's so needed.
So how can parents model a growth mindset in their own lives so that it can influence their kids?
What are some ways that they can grow that in their own life?
Modeling is so important.
I think that sometimes we want to be seen that we have all the answers.
I'm the parent, I'm doing, I have all the answers.
But what that can sometimes do is project like a bit of perfectionism, like I've got this.
I'm perfect.
But what we want our kids to see is that, you know what?
Everybody makes mistakes.
I make mistakes too.
Mistakes are actually great because you learn from them.
So modeling your own mistakes.
I do this all the time with my students and I have a really actually big example of how I did this.
Two years ago at the beginning of the school year, I actually made this massive mistake.
I was ordering supplies for all of the grade threes in the whole school.
Hit attach on my computer and attached an old order.
So when school started, none of the kids had any writing books, none, across the school.
And so I was like, oh my gosh.
So I used it actually as an opportunity.
I told the kids in the class, I was like, you know why you guys don't have any writing books?
It is 100% my huge mistake.
And like I said to them.
I said I totally could have just told you there was a shipping issue or like I don't know why they're here.
We just have to wait.
Why would I tell you that I made this big mistake?
And at first the kids are like looking around like, I have no idea.
Like, why would you tell us this?
And then eventually one child put up their hand and they said you're telling us that you made this big mistake because you want us to know that it's okay to make mistakes too.
And I was like, yes, that is it.
So I always make a point of if something's hard for me, I talk about it.
I say, you know, I tried this thing and it totally didn't work out for me.
And this is what I did.
So not being afraid to model your own mistakes for your kids and celebrate them even.
There is a thought leader who uses the expression, don't be afraid to fail forward.
In fact, try to fail forward every day.
And I never heard it expressed that way, but I thought it makes so much sense because with each failure you learn from it like, for example, I'm sure, your order last year.
You knew not to or to press the previous order or to double check to make sure, because it's so easy to press the wrong button, not know it.
And And that forward is because you learned from it so that you move forward after that.
Like I just thought that it ties right along in with your example, but it was such a powerful and actually friendlier way to talk about failure.
Definitely.
And it comes from us, right?
Like kids are sponges.
They're just soaking up what we say and what we do.
So there's little tweaks, right?
Like if you make banana bread and it doesn't turn out, you know Like it's okay to say oh my goodness, guess what?
I'm never going to forget this ingredient again, right?
Now I know for next time.
So it's all part of learning, right?
Just little tweaks you can make that make all of the difference.
And you can find it's easier, I think too, to find the humor in it, to find the humor in your mistake, when you don't have and when parents can show the funny side of making the mistake and moving forward.
Can you share a story about a time when a child applied a growth mindset strategy to overcome a challenge that they were facing?
Yes.
Oh my gosh.
I have so many.
I know you do.
Well, I can tell you, I can tell you that I remember clearly, the first child I ever really saw was this growth throughout a school year, with
You know, I was trying all these research-based strategies.
I was kind of obsessed with learning about it, trying all these things in my class.
The one child I remember.
She was a little adorable blonde girl who was very afraid to like when she was writing.
She could barely get a sentence out because she was worried about it being perfect.
She was worried about, oh my gosh, what are people going to think?
Or it's not going to be right.
And she wouldn't put up her hand.
She just seemed very, very, very shy.
And by the end of the school year she had written a full page in her journal and she got up and she read it to the entire class.
I was like I'll never forget that first experience where I saw what these strategies throughout a period of time, like what do?
It's cool.
And as a teacher and as a parent, there's nothing better than seeing that child go from the beginning of that journey to a point where they are so excited, confident and comfortable with the journey.
What are just some simple, actionable strategies that parents could use to help kids see moments of failure as moments of opportunity and growth.
Like if you were to offer any three or four steps.
Yeah.
Part of it is, like I said, modeling, but also it's like, talk about it.
So like at the end of, so this is an interesting story.
Sarah Blakely, she's the founder of Spanx.
Major Brandt, you know, does very well for herself.
She said when she came home from school, every single day her dad would sit down at the table and ask her and her brother what did you fail at today?
He would celebrate it with them because he would say to them when you fail, like all that stuff, when you fail you're learning, you're stretching your brain.
So like starting off, instead of saying, what did you do at school today?
Oh, nothing.
You know, start talking.
What did you fail at?
Because guess what?
If you tried something and you stepped out of your comfort zone enough to try something and if it didn't work wow, you must have made so many new connections in your brain.
Wow, you're going to know so much more for next time.
You're so much braver.
So I would say this new philosophy in your household of like, we try things.
If we fail, that's great because we're learning.
And that's the question you ask.
I would say also, if your kids are older, don't just suddenly ask them that out of the blue.
Like, it's okay to share with your kids and say, you know what?
I saw this thing the other day.
A lot of people who do really well in life.
They celebrate their failures and they know that they learn.
So I want to start doing that with you.
I'm going to start asking you from time to time or after school.
I'm going to start asking you what you failed at.
And I'm going to start sharing some things I failed at too.
So You know, we don't want to spring it on them like all of a sudden one day.
You're just doing this every day.
But like you can explain it to your kids and have this conversation.
Just listening to you share that that is such powerful language to have with your child as a parent and even as a teacher.
And look at it. how that impacted her life later on.
She wasn't afraid to try to create a business and create a product.
You know, that product didn't just show up the first time she made it.
She had to fail at designs and redesign and try it again.
Definitely.
And so if you can reframe it that like, what is actual failure?
Actual failure is not trying something.
Trying and not getting it the first time.
I always tell my students the word fail means first attempt in something. learning.
It's just your first try and it's all a part of it, right?
So actual failure is not trying something, just not even giving it a go.
I think that would be an awesome acronym to have in a child's room, or just, let's say, a common place like a refrigerator, you know where kids can see that all the time.
Definitely.
And of course, everyone's doing their best.
You're not going to remember to do this all the time either, right?
If this is new for you, it's also a cue for you to remember to do that if you have it up somewhere.
I totally agree.
How does teaching kids about resilience and confidence help them to better be able to connect with their peers and form strong friendships?
Well, one really important thing that I have seen over the years is I've seen a lot of kiddos.
Because they're afraid to try and because they feel nervous when something is new or outside their comfort zone, they miss out on a lot.
You know those who maybe they really want to play baseball and they go to the first practice and they feel like they don't know anyone there and they don't know what to do.
So they don't want to go back.
They want to quit baseball.
That's a great example.
Yeah.
Or like, oh, I'm nervous to go to this birthday party because I only know one person.
I'm going to be scared.
So by teaching them and helping them build up their resilience muscle and their mindset, they can embrace, change everything that life has to offer.
And like starting as a child, but throughout their life they're going to tackle things with excitement and joy because they're not afraid.
And the more they do it while they're younger and in the process of growing, developing and maturing, the easier it becomes once they are an adult, because they have that bag of tricks.
They know what to do.
And how many connections they make because they played a baseball team.
I know I have friends from when I was in elementary school still that are close friends, right?
So it helps like them connect with more people and build their strong circle of friends.
Today it's almost harder because they have so many more distractions, you know, things that pull them away from that face to face time.
So perhaps that even adds to some of that anxiety and nervousness, you know, whereas I remember still feeling that way, but you just did it because there wasn't anything else to do, you know.
So you kind of pushed yourself a little bit more.
I totally agree with that.
It can be so much easier just to go online.
Do you have an example and I know you do of a really fun hands-on growth mindset activity that parents and kids can do together?
Yes.
So I think like changing little things throughout your day is like slowly, slowly diving into it.
But once you've talked about this a little bit with your child and you've modeled some of the things,
There is well, there's so many.
You could just Google STEM challenges and do them together as a family, but make sure that before you do it say you know what the purpose of this.
It's not to get it right.
The purpose of this is for us to fail a ton of times.
And to learn from it.
And so set it up before you do it.
There's a really good one that you can just search up.
It's called the spaghetti marshmallow challenge.
And they've actually so.
They've used this anywhere from kindergarten classes all the way up to a lot of companies have done this with their employees as team building and problem solving.
It's called the Spaghetti Marshmallow Challenge.
And what it is is.
You get some marshmallows, you get some pieces of dry spaghetti and you need to build a tower.
What they found with the Spaghetti Marshmallow Challenge is the most successful group that they tried this with were the kindergarten kids, because they were still in that.
I'm okay to try things.
I'm okay to just get dirty in it and just try and just see what happens.
But the adults actually, they found in businesses where it's like, I'm at my place of business.
I'm with my colleagues.
Like there's a lot riding on this.
What will people think of me?
Those were the people that had the lowest success rate.
So what we want is we want, you know, the little kids who are just ready to explore.
We want to keep that in them.
We don't want them to like turn to perfectionism.
So do something like that as a family, like from time to time and just say, hey.
This is not about getting it right.
This is about us having a ton of fun, failing a lot and what we learn from it.
And we're going to laugh a lot.
And then while you're doing it, please make sure to model the appropriate responses.
When your tower drops, you're going to model laughing it off or talking about what you're going to do on your next try.
You're going to model all those appropriate strategies.
So it's really fun.
I love that.
And like you're saying, modeling that appropriate response, laugh it off.
And when you try again, because at that point that child can reflect on themselves and say gosh, what did I learn about myself when I just messed that up?
And just setting up the tone of your family, that I'm not only proud of you when you get everything right.
I'm proud of you for trying new things.
At the beginning of every school year, the very first time I hand out the first marked math test.
Just I thought of it because you were talking about math.
I find it out and I say to the kids I say, am I going to be more proud of the kid who gets everything right on this test?
And they're like compared to the kid who gets like almost nothing right.
They're always like nodding, like yeah, of course you're going to be more proud of the kid who who gets everything right.
And I say, no, no.
I'm not more proud of the child who just gets everything right on the first test of the year.
I'm proud of is when you're working on the math.
I'm walking around and I'm seeing what are you doing?
I'm proud of the kid who tries the question and they erase it three times and keep trying.
And maybe they don't get it right in the end, but they persevered and they kept trying new things, most proud of that child, whether they get it all right or they get it all wrong.
So like, change the tone of your family, that I'm not proud of you when you get just, when you get everything right.
I'm proud of you for doing your best, putting yourself out there And being a part of that process.
You know, and a friend of mine years ago said, it's not about practice making you perfect.
It's about practice helping the skills become permanent.
Permanence over perfection.
Definitely.
And I never say practice makes perfect.
I always say practice makes progress.
Right.
And you can progress from where you're at now.
Everybody should want to progress, whether you are in a classroom and math is really challenging for you, or you're in a
And math is comes to you quickly.
It's like if you already know that question, like you want to try to progress further.
If you can add in the thousands, why don't you try adding in the millions?
Right.
Wherever you start, you always just want to improve.
What's one piece of advice that you would give to parents to want to nurture confidence if they have no idea where to begin?
Because sometimes, as educators, we understand all of this language.
But sometimes, I know with my own parents, they're from another country as well.
So they really struggled.
And so what would be... a way to help them understand and know where to begin.
One of my most favorite ways to teach kids concepts or difficult things or things that might be new to them is through the power of a really good storybook.
But a really good story that teaches the lesson within the story in its engaging to the child.
They're interested.
They're following along.
And it almost it takes that from you, the pressure from you.
And I'm not even saying you don't even have to go out and spend money and buy a lot of the books.
Every single one of them that I recommend.
Also, they have it as if you just Google online read aloud of the books.
You can get them all online.
I know that, you know, some parents definitely want to limit screen time.
And so in that case, you may want to go to the library and get it.
Or if you love it, you may want to purchase it.
But there's many options, is what I'm saying to get these great stories in the hands of your kids and read it to them as their bedtime story.
Where can our listeners find you online?
I am miss shell mindset everywhere.
So M I S S C H E L L E mindset.
So my website is MissShellMindset.com.
Instagram is where I spend most of my time is on Instagram and it's at MissShellMindset.
And I also have a Facebook page too.
So yeah, that's where you can find me.
And if you ever want to reach out or ask a question, I love that.
So I would love to connect with your listeners.
As you look forward, what excites you the most of what you're building and what's to come?
I have this vision that I'm going to connect with these parents and they're going to build their child's confidence.
And I just imagine their children growing up to do great things and just thrive.
And then I imagine, you know, maybe they have children.
And they're going to automatically, because it's what they know, they're going to instill this in their children.
And then their children are going to instill this in their children.
I just envision like a shift where we have the power now to pass it on to our children and it's going to keep going and we're going to see a lot of confident people in this world.
I love that vision.
Oh, I just love it.
Well, Michelle, I have to thank you so much for joining us today.
Yes, it's been such a pleasure.
As you can tell, I love talking about this stuff.
So it's just been so great.
And thank you so much for having me, Tina.
You are welcome.
Listen to Mitch and Claire's picture book recommendations.
For more information and some cool discussion questions, visit thelittleleaderspodcastcom or at the Little Leaders Podcast on Instagram.
Our first picture book spotlight is on Emily Snook, the World's Smallest Cook, written by Laura Bauer and illustrated by Rekha Saleen.
We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
Emily Snook is a whiz in the kitchen, but when she enters an international cooking contest and meets the competition, her hopes of winning deflate like a botched souffle.
Everyone is older, taller, and in serious doubt of her cooking capabilities.
The classic underdog story Emily Snuck, the World's Smallest Cook reminds readers of the power of determination and a willingness to take risks.
With the encouragement and support of her favorite sous chef, her grandpa Emily, tackles each cooking catastrophe that threatens her chance of winning.
From utensils that are too big to counters too high, Emily Snook takes on the challenges of being the tiniest contestant, proving to everyone that being small doesn't mean that you can't do it all.
Told with rhythmic rhyme and incorporating vibrant kid-friendly illustrations, this story will delight young readers who enjoy crafting culinary creations of their own.
Our next picture book spot is on Kepochi Minnie's Perfect Kite, written by Susini Gupta and illustrated by Devika Oza.
It's Makar Sankranti, the Indian Festival of Kites, and Minnie wants to join in the fun, but her older brother insists that flying kites is not for little girls.
Using her craft-making skills, Minnie constructs her own not-so-perfect kite and learns to fly it with her brother's help.
But during synchronicity, it's fair to cut another's kite string and keep it as your own.
When a red kite comes along and causes a kite-astrophe, Min Yi decides it's time to challenge the red kite to a battle in the sky.
In the end, she discovers that her not-so-perfect kite is really her very own perfect diamond.
Suhasini Gupta and Davika Oza create an exciting story filled with culture, determination and the love between siblings, filled with stunning, richly colored illustrations and including author's note in the back matter about Syncranti.
In The Math and Science of Flying Pipe.
This book will make a delightful addition to Library Storytime's read-alouds at the home and classrooms and is sure to have Kids shouting kai poochie and making kites of their own.
The Little Leaders Podcast is written, edited, and produced by me, Tina Shepardson.
Thank you to Mitch and Claire, our little co-hosts, for today's picture book recommendations.
Our podcast artwork was created by Tara Hannon.
Music is from Pond5.
And podcast hosting is by Libsyn.
Take care, everyone.
Thank you.
