What is a "Growth" mindset?

After organizing, facilitating and giving our first benchmarks for the year, I've discovered some of my old thinking coming to the forefront of my mind. Because as an educator and life-long learner, I've found that I enjoy making "good" grades, knowing the answer and being the "smart" guy in the room. However, as I have matured and gained experience (especially at the administrator level), I've noticed that the more I acknowledge what I DON'T KNOW I become open to learning MORE. Socrates said "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." This is not to imply that we have no knowledge but accepting that fact that we do not know EVERYTHING. Therefore, we should always be willing to grow and to become more knowledgeable in every way possible. As you look at your student's report cards, benchmark scores or any other assessment data; understand that this is only an indicator of what knowledge they have not attained YET. A growth mindset will helps us understand that an assessment only assesses where we are in a particular subject and helps us determine what we still need to learn to move forward. Only then can we reach our full potential because we know we still have some growing to do and we're open to the work that our growth will require.