Class is back in session for the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District. And among the 4,037 district students are 352 at Chadds Ford Elementary School.
CFES Principal Shawn Dutkiewicz said he and the faculty and staff at the school are looking ahead to a school year that picks up where the last academic year left off.
He was referring to a focus on mind growth, which is a continuation of last year’s focus on resiliency.
The resiliency initiative was a means to teach students how to set goals and be resilient enough to follow up to achieve them.
“This year we’re implementing a growth mindset,” Dutkiewicz said while waiting for the school buses to arrive.
“The growth mindset is the opposite of a fixed mindset. A growth mindset is a philosophy that says anybody can learn whatever they put their minds to,” he said. “It’s not as if they’re inhibited by a certain IQ or innate ability. With enough practice and dedication, they can learn anything they put their mind to.”
Dutkiewicz explained that from kindergarten through second grade, students have that growing mind, which tells them they can learn and do virtually anything. However, that starts to drop off into a fixed mindset, which is limiting, from third grade onward.
That growth ability is based on neuroplasticity, which allows the brain to grow and develop better neural pathways, he said.
During an assembly next week, the students will again be introduced to goal setting and will experience “buddy classrooms,” where younger students will meet with older ones in a mentoring situation, the second-year principal said.
Students will also begin being taught how the brain works. He said 14 members of the staff did a book study over the summer and put together a plan to teach students how the brain works so they can maintain that growing mind for a longer length of time than they normally do.
Dutkiewicz said a number of the other schools would be planning their own growth mindset programs, but he couldn’t go into specifics except to say it is a shared philosophy.
(Photo: Students are greeted with high hooves from Chad the Charger and low fives from Principal Shawn Dutkiewicz as they get off the bus for ther first day of classes at Chadds Ford Elementary School.)
About Rich Schwartzman
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
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