Program to encourage MFL MarMac students, teacher, parents to ‘Think Ugly’

MONONA – MFL MarMac Schools want you to Think Ugly.

That’s the name of a program coming to the school district on the first day of classes, Aug. 23. Presentations will be made to elementary, middle school and high school students as well as faculty. A public presentation is also planned for that day from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the high school auditorium.

Brent Pape, an instructional coach and special education teacher in the district, said the Think Ugly program teaches a growth mindset. It was put together by Trevor Ragan, a former Duke University basketball player who now makes his living as a motivational speaker.

“We got to see (Trevor Ragan) at a conference down in Dubuque last year and his message is just amazing,” Pape said.

After seeing Ragan’s first program, Pape said he changed everything else he had planned on doing that day so that he could see the rest.

“He was so intriguing that I went in and watched every one of his presentations,” Pape said.

Ragan has worked with several Fortune 500 companies as well and high schools, colleges and even some professional sports teams across the country. He has spoken at Iowa State University and Grinnell College here in Iowa, the Team USA women’s volleyball team and last year the Cleveland Indians Major League Baseball team brought him in following its World Series loss.

“The message he’s spreading is about having a growth mindset, being open minded,” Pape said. “We want to spread that to our whole student body.”

Instructional coach and Title I reading teacher Heidi Meyer described the growth mindset as having a belief that you have the ability to change.

“All aspects of your life – your relationships ...,” she said.

Pape said the growth mindset approach was originally conceptualized by Carol Dweck at Stanford University, who studied the difference between people with a growth mindset versus those with a fixed mindset.

“The fixed mindset is that belief that you were born with the skills that you have and what you have is what you have, you can never get better at anything,” he said. “It almost has that negative feel. ‘I’m not a math person, I’ll never be a math person so that’s what it is.’

 

“The growth mindset is that belief that you can build on those skills,” he said. “You may never be a super Einstein in math, but you can get better. You have to have that belief that you can get better with work put in.”

 

Read more in the Wednesday, August 16, 2017 edition of The Outlook.