Learning to Fly

This is one of the best picture books I've read in a while, and that's really saying something. I love picture books. But I also love growth mindset and books that display it, and this one does that impressively well. It also doesn't hurt that the drawings are awesome and penguins are adorable.

The narrator stumbles across a penguin who says that he decided that he wanted to fly. So he did. And as he flew he saw some other bird who told him that penguins can't fly. And he fell. The penguin wanted to fly, reached his goal, and then allowed someone else who didn't believe in him ruin everything. How often do we do this to our students? How often do we destroy their fires by believing that they aren't capable? They know when we don't believe in them, and they believe it themselves. Thankfully, the narrator believes in the penguin; he sets up a training program and does everything he can to help the penguin fly again. Unlike the first time, though, nothing works. It's not until the last page of the book, when they spot a penguin colony flying overhead, that the penguin believes once again and easily takes flight. Unfortunately, our students may need an incredible amount of convincing once they've been taught to believe that they're incapable of succeeding. The narrator of this book did everything he could to help the penguin but the final ingredient for success only came when the penguin believed it about himself. This is the case with students, too, and we need to be patient as their educators. It may not be an instantaneous change, but we need to do everything we can to encourage them so that when the moment comes and it clicks and they see what they're capable of, they'll fly just like the penguin.