Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Thank You for Your Dedication and Efforts!

As we reach the mid-point in the school year, let’s enjoy a well-earned holiday respite while also taking some time to reflect on what thus far has been a truly outstanding school year!

We began the year with the plan of Trinity functioning without any Covid protocol restrictions. Reviewing the first months of our school calendar, I am elated that we have been able revive school events that we had to modify or cancel the past two years like last week’s 5th Grade Nutcracker performances, Monday’s EED Holiday Sing-a-long, and tomorrow’s UED Holiday Program at Trinity Church. It’s been so enjoyable and important to come together as a full community once again and for our students to perform in front of in-person audiences!

Despite being back to pre-pandemic normality, this year like any school year brings with it inevitable fatigue, stress, and frustrations. Teachers on the whole are perfectionists and idealists, and we tend to dwell on what we haven’t been able to do and not enough on our many successes. Yet regardless of the ups and downs of a school year, we most significantly make a difference in the lives of others. For me, that’s why teaching when all is said and done is so rewarding: we positively impact others and we help shape the minds and character of the next generation. I feel fortunate to work in a school with its eternal optimism and hope. Yes, there are struggles and downtimes, yet whenever I reflect on my chosen career, I picture the thousands of students I’ve helped guide and support!

I’m even more grateful to work at Trinity. I’ve taught for over 40 years in many different schools (Pre-12th Grade, Pre-8th Grade, Quaker, Episcopal, non-sectarian) across the country (New York, Oklahoma, Indiana) and after ten years at Trinity I still arrive each morning as excited as my first day back in 2013. I’ve learned a lot from all of you, been in awe of your dedication and professional expertise, and made lasting friendships. Despite seeming serendipitous, Trinity is an intricate, interdependent organization with each and every one of us fulfilling our duties and responsibilities. Daniel Pink and others write about how professional fulfillment comes when one feels he/she is part of something bigger than themselves, and that’s what education is. Daily I feel a sense of pride working with all of you. I put my trust in you and you put your trust in me. It’s this mutual trust in one another that undergirds our positive school culture.

This week’s article summary The Best Advice I Ever Received From a Teacher is a celebration of the impact of teachers on their students. It’s about simple yet wise phrases from teachers that continue to influence students as adults.

Thank you for all you do for our students! Enjoy holiday break with family and friends! 

Joe

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Effort beats skill: You don’t have to be the best or the most talented, you just have to be willing to work the hardest.

Adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it: And as much as my 17-year-old old brain was at the time, that clicked. I immediately felt wiser and grateful for that information.

Keep reading: Read all you can. From my senior high school in British literature teacher.

Greatness requires sacrifice: My grandma (and teacher) told me this. She said that when I understand that, I have the basics of understanding life.

Take the next step: It wasn't what he said, but how he taught. Everyone had a place and was always challenged to take the next step

Changing: When the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of change, you will change.

Writing is rewriting: The fun is in rewriting!

There’s good in people: While she wasn't my direct teacher, my mom's 30-plus year career as a teacher gave me such respect and admiration for the profession. As a teacher she was always so kind and respectful to any student she had, no matter their background or how well they fared in her class. So in a way her advice was shown through her actions of being patient with people and knowing there's good in them.

Be an active world citizen: Discover new things about the world and the people in it.

Don’t read bad books: Life is too short to read bad books. A bad book is any book you think is a bad book. My teacher had a personal policy – he'd give any book 125 pages and if it didn't work for him, he tossed it and started a new book

It’s okay to break the rules once in a while: It’s OK to break the rules once in a while, as long as you know the rules like the back of your hand. With this advice, she taught me that it’s OK to be creative. It’s changed my writing and reporting process for the better, and I’ll always be grateful for her guidance and advice.

Smart people don’t know everything: But they know how to find information.

Many things aren’t so black and white: I had a government teacher in high school who, in the face of my fixed and certain political views, told me, 'You will find that many things aren’t so black and white.' It was probably not the most profound advice I have heard, and I think about it a lot.

Find the joy: Feel whatever you need to feel, just don’t stay there any longer than you have to. Find the joy.

When presented with an opportunity: Say yes and then figure it out

 

No such thing as a free lunch:  Be prepared to work hard and never expect anyone to hand you what you haven’t earned.

 

Friday, December 9, 2022

How Today's Youth Compares With Previous Generations

This week's article summary is America's Youth Today.]

As the article points out, today’s youth have many positive attributes: they are smart (as measured by IQ tests), possess self-control and self-regulation, are hard-working and industrious, and exhibit compassion and empathy for others.

Nevertheless, today’s youth have struggles, resulting from internal and external pressures.

First, they are physically and emotionally exhausted due to their (and often their parents’) ambitious college and career goals. My high school senior class had 80 students. Our academic pecking order was well defined and accepted: a few really good students, a few who really struggled, and a group of middle of the bell curve kids. I was a middle kid and was fine getting mostly B’s, a few As, and an occasional ‘Please see me’ note from a teacher. Today with weighted grades, most GPAs are well above 4.0 and college applications demand much more extracurricular activities, particularly in service learning. Getting into a competitive college is much more daunting than when I applied. The article’s author refers to today’s youth as being ‘overwhelmed’, especially with getting into the ‘right’ college.

This leads to their second challenge: today’s youth are less confident and assured. Think back to the past generations when the emphasis for most kids was personal fulfillment and happiness. The jobs were there; it was more about finding the right fit. My parents wanted me to work hard, be nice, and become successful, yet they allowed me the latitude to chart my own path and find my professional calling. I always felt I had time to find my niche and an occupation that provided me both fulfillment and financial security. That’s not the case today with so much more competition and more limited opportunities.

And finally, today’s youth are far less trusting and more pessimistic about the future. Think about the competitiveness within the global economy, the seemingly hopelessness of environmental issues like global warming, and America’s diminishing influence as a world political and economic power. There were certainly issues when I was a kid, particularly fear of nuclear war, yet the future right now appears more uncertain than ever.

The author recommends that we adults help today’s youth by trying to redirect their priorities, perspectives, and attitudes. 

As we at Trinity shape our students’ character, we can further help them be strong, confident, positive, well-rounded, and, most important to me, carefree. My hope is that the foundational work we do in these elementary-school years will equip our students with the fortitude to handle the myriad challenges they’ll face. 

There’s so much good in today’s youth, yet it’s incumbent upon us to help them combat the negative feelings the article lists.

Joe

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“The worst part is that they don’t care what people — their mothers and fathers and uncles and aunts — think of them. They haven’t any sense of shame, honor or duty… they don’t care about anything except pleasure.”

What are today’s young people like compared to young people in the past? We often hear stereotypes about American teenagers and young adults, and the above quote feels fresh, even though it was written about flappers in 1926. You can find similar views about the wayward ways of youth as far back as 700 BCE in Ancient Greece.

Older generations tend to stereotype recent generations of young people, questioning their intelligence and self-control and calling them lazy, selfish, and uncaring. 

In her book, Unfairly Labeled, Jessica Kriegel argues that, as with other stereotypes, generational stereotypes are harmful and unfair.

I’m a social scientist who has been following generational trends in the psychological traits of young Americans for most of my career. So, what does this research say about young people in recent years? 

First, recent generations of young Americans are not less intelligent than earlier generations. The evidence, in fact, suggests the opposite: There have been consistent increases in IQ scores in the past century (three points per decade in the U.S.), which is known as the Flynn Effect. This indicates that younger generations of Americans perform better on standardized measures of intelligence.

How about self-control? Are today’s young people more prone to instant gratification than those in the past? Quite the opposite. Indeed, two recent studies found that today’s children are able to wait longer for rewards than children in previous decades. 

Another common stereotype about younger generations of Americans is that they are lazier than previous generations. Yet, recent generations of American children have been in school for more of their lives, for more hours per week, with more jam-packed schedules, and with less free play, than earlier generations. Young people today are anything but lazy: They are working more and having less unstructured leisure time. 

As for narcissism and empathy, my previous research found that narcissism was increasing and empathy was declining between the late 1970s and 2008. However, new research has found that these trends dramatically reversed after the Great Recession, with a decrease in narcissism and increase in empathy among young Americans since then. People tend to turn to others during times of economic crisis.

Overall, when examining these trends, it looks like the kids are good — in terms of both their competence and their moral compass. They are increasing in intelligence and self-control, and at least since the 2008-2009 recession, they are becoming less narcissistic and more empathic. 

But are the kids okay? In my forthcoming book, Culture of Burnout: American Life in an Age of Increasing Expectations, I provide evidence that young Americans have been showing increased burnout symptoms over time.

The first symptom of burnout is emotional exhaustion. Younger generations have been reporting higher stress, compared to older generations. . They have also reported feeling increasingly overwhelmed since the 1980s. But emotional exhaustion can go beyond stress, and recent generations of young Americans also have been showing increased mental health symptoms such as depression and anxiety. 

The second symptom of burnout is cynicism, or low trust in others. There have been declines in the percentage of young Americans who agree that people are basically good and trustworthy. For example, in 1972, 32.1% of 18-25-year-old Americans reported being trusting but by 2018, only 15.4% did. This is a worrisome trend because trust is the foundation of positive relationships.

The final symptom of burnout is feelings of low accomplishment or low self-efficacy. In recent years national surveys find that American high school students are more likely to believe that the plans they make will not work out, that there are barriers to getting ahead, and that they don’t have a chance of being successful in life. These feelings are especially remarkable in light of the research that finds rising intelligence, self-control, and hard work over time. 

Why are young Americans increasingly burned out? The burnout equation involve too many expectations and demands, plus too few resources and support. These increasing demands have been both internal (e.g., unrealistic educational goals and perfectionism) and external (e.g., the rising cost and competition of college and stagnant wages). 

Relative to previous generations, today’s American young people are intelligent, able to delay their gratification, and cooperative and caring. Yet, they are trying very hard to meet the increasing expectations for success in our society, only to find themselves exhausted, frustrated at the doors slamming in their faces, and minimizing their accomplishments, since they don’t seem to pay off. Burnout is an understandable response to an untenable situation: It is a forced halt to the rat race. 

What are some potential solutions to increasing burnout? We need to flip the burnout equation: decrease expectations and demands on young people, while also providing more resources and support. This needs to come from many different sources, ranging from educational institutions to workplaces to government policies. In terms of the latter, policies can focus on either limiting the winner-take-all economy or providing opportunities and subsidies that help offset the rising costs of trying to succeed in today’s increasingly competitive environment.

Unfortunately, burnout itself is a demoralizing force, making it less likely that groups of young people will rise up and fight the system. So, older generations need to fight it on their behalf, and young people need to reclaim rest, rejuvenation, and revitalization. 

Engaging in burnout buffers can help restore energy levels in order to rethink and retool the world we live in. Most of them are free or inexpensive, whether taking a hike or bike ride in nature, spending quality time with friends, or creating or enjoying some sort of art — basically, anything that is done for the sake of enjoyment alone, without an economic benefit. Make Love, Not War was the mantra of 1960s youth, and perhaps we need a new one today: Make Love, Not Work. 


Friday, December 2, 2022

Using Grades as Effective Feedback

This week's article summary is Can Grades Be An Effective Form of Feedback.

A number of my recent summaries have focused on feedback: Is Any Feedback Effective, The Many Negatives of High-Stakes Standardized Testing, IQ Testing.

This week’s summary focuses on how to make classroom grading more effective through feedback. (Thanks to Jill for sharing the article with me!)

The article begins by detailing the many negatives of grading, in particular how demoralizing a bad grade can be for a student. We tend to think that a bad grade—like punishment for bad behavior—will act as motivation for more effort. Yet, most of us don’t respond positively to negative results.

Equally interesting to me is that the absence of grades in the classroom is also ineffective. I had one class in college in which we students chose our final grade. The professor’s intentions were to motivate us. I didn’t work very hard yet still gave myself an A. All I really learned from that class was the professor was naive to trust a bunch of 20 year olds.

The gist of the article is grades are effective when used principally as a feedback tool to students, including four components. 

First, a grade shouldn’t define the student. Following Carol Dweck’s work on growth mindset, teachers need to be careful that students don’t view a grade as the final word on them and their capacity for learning. Teachers need to help students see that any grade is an assessment of where a student is in the process of learning/mastering something.

Second—and similar to the previous component—is making sure students view grades as formative, not summative. Grades viewed as formative help students see what they have learned, what they still need to know, and next steps to get there. 

Third, classroom grading should be criterion-based, not norm-based. I had a few teachers when I was a student who graded on a curve, their rationale being that the curve took into account the level of difficult of the assignment/assessment. I don’t necessarily agree with all the negatives the article lists about norm-referencing in the classroom, yet I agree that basing grades on mastery of skills, concepts, and procedures is more beneficial for the learner. After all, the goal is to learn and master material, not compare oneself against the rest of the class.

Fourth, grades need to include teacher specific next steps so students can move closer to mastery.  

At our fall divisional parent meetings Sheree, Ira, Marsha, and Jill spoke about how education has evolved over the past twenty years in having grading/assessments move from the summative/normative to the formative. As I read this week’s article I was again proud of how Trinity is a leader in this area as we are in so many others.

 Joe

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Grades are portrayed as a villain by many in education today. Some researchers and authors contend grades stifle creativity, foster fear of failure, and weaken students’ interest. Others argue that grades diminish students’ emotional and behavioral engagement in learning. These claims have led some to believe that we could significantly improve students’ attitudes, their interest in learning, and the classroom learning environment simply by going “gradeless”.

But do grades deserve the supervillain label? Would eliminating grades suddenly increase students’ interest in learning and make our classrooms better places to learn? Not much evidence supports this. 

If we use grades the right way, at the right time, and for the right reasons, they can be an effective form of feedback for students. To guarantee their proper use and avoid their misuse, however, we need to be sure that teachers develop and implement grading policies and practices that highlight grades’ usefulness as a form of feedback while reducing any potentially negative connotations. To function as effective feedback, grades must meet four necessary conditions. These conditions not only allow grades to serve important formative purposes, but also help remove the negative consequences of misuse.

Grades must be assigned to performance, not to students: Beginning at the earliest levels, teachers must help students and their families understand that grades do not reflect who you are as a learner, but where you are in your learning journey. Teachers further must stress that grades never describe students’ capabilities or learning potential. Rather, they provide an indication of how near or far students are from reaching specific goals. Too often, students see grades as a reflection of their innate talent, skill, or ability. Grades become personal labels that students use on themselves that can be difficult to change. When students and families see grades as a reflection of current performance only, they recognize that knowing where you are is essential for improvement. Informative judgments from teachers about the quality of students’ performance help students become more thoughtful judges of their own work. 

Grades must be criterion-based, not norm-based: Norm-based grades assess students’ relative standing among classmates. It’s sometimes known as “ego-involving” grading or “grading on the curve.” With norm-based grading, a C doesn’t mean you are at step three in a five-step process to mastery. Instead, it means your performance ranks you in the middle of the class and is “average” in comparison to your classmates. Norm-based grading has profoundly negative consequences. First, it communicates nothing about what students have learned or are able to do. Second, it makes learning highly competitive, because students must compete against one another for the few high grades the teacher will assign. Third, it discourages student collaboration, because helping others threatens students’ own chances for success. Criterion-based or task-involving grading describes how well students have met learning goals. Students’ grades are based on clearly defined performance expectations and have no relation to the performance of other students. Thus, criterion-based grades serve the communication purposes for which grades are intended. Because students compete against themselves to meet learning goals and not against each other, criterion-based grading encourages student collaboration. It also puts teachers and students on the same side, working together to master the goals.

Grades must be seen as temporary: Students’ level of performance is never permanent. As students study and practice, their understanding grows and their performance improves. To accurately describe how well students have learned, grades must reflect students’ current performance level. When students understand that grades are temporary, they recognize that assessments don’t mean the end of learning. Instead, assessment results describe where students are currently in their journey to mastery. Teachers must emphasize to their students that achieving less than mastery doesn’t mean you can’t make it, but only that you haven’t made it yet, and there’s more to do. This temporary quality of grades also calls into question the process of averaging, which combines evidence from the past with current evidence, yielding an inaccurate depiction of what students achieved. Instead, current performance should always replace past evidence to make sure grades are accurate and valid.

Grades must be accompanied by guidance for improvement: Students need guidance and direction on how to make better progress, reach the goals, and achieve success. This is true of all forms of feedback.

This aspect of feedback stems from the work of Benjamin Bloom. In his descriptions of mastery learning, Bloom explained how teachers could use well-designed formative assessments to offer students regular feedback on what they learned well and what improvements were needed. He referred to these as corrective activities. Corrective activities must be new and different from the original instruction. Reteaching concepts in the same way simply repeats a process that has already been shown not to work. Instead, correctives must offer instructional alternatives that present concepts and skills in new ways. He also recommended that students study only the concepts and skills on which they are having difficulty. In other words, the correctives are individualized, based on students’ unique learning needs.

Students need honest information from their teachers about the quality and adequacy of their performance in school. Parents and families need to know how their children are doing and whether they are meeting grade-level or course expectations. Although grades should never be the only information about learning that students and families receive, they can be a meaningful part of that information. When combined with guidance to students and families on how improvements can be made, grades become a valuable tool in helping students achieve learning success.

Friday, November 11, 2022

Is There Any Value in IQ Tests

This week's article summary is Is IQ a Load of BS?

Similar to last week’s summary on standardized tests, this one focuses on the pros and cons of IQ tests.

With both standardized and IQ tests, the goal is an objective assessment of general intelligence (aptitude and/or achievement).

As you’ll see in the article, there is a slight correlation to IQ results and career success, yet myriad other factors play a role in our professional and personal successes. It’s not simply what your brain can do, it’s how you use it, especially in your interactions and relationships with others. Yes, you need some gray matter to succeed, but, especially in today’s marketplace, you need to be able to work collegially, collaboratively, and productively with colleagues. 

Nevertheless, it seems to be a human instinct for us to want to know our IQ score. Whenever I come across an article that promises to assess my IQ in only a few questions, I can’t resist taking the bait. I think we all want to be considered smart. Validation from an IQ test perhaps can give us the confidence to push ourselves to take intellectual risks, like reading Moby Dick, a book I’ve tried to read several times yet failed miserably.

Just as Trinity emphasizes a whole-child approach to education, we also need to see that our brain power is only one part of the greater whole of who we are and what contributes to our success and happiness. It’s why Trinity focuses so much on character/social-emotional (sense of self and care and concern for others) development. Intelligence is dangerous without being guided by goodness.

 Joe

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At the turn of the 20th century, people were falling over themselves trying to make tests to objectively measure intelligence. It was based on the common assumption that all kinds of intelligence — verbal reasoning, spatial awareness, memory, and so on — were simply manifestations of some central, basic general intelligence. The first test to measure this general intelligence was well intentioned. It originated in France and was designed to identify which children would need extra help at school. This test, known as the Binet-Simon test, eventually became the model on which all IQ tests today are based.

It wasn’t long, however, before the tests were turned to ill. Children as young as three are told they are of below-average intelligence based on a series of questions inspired by a century’s old psychology. Racists have long used IQ as an “objective” measure of racial superiority. The Nazis used versions of these tests to “prove” that certain ethnicities were subhuman. They used it to justify forcible sterilizations or the murder of children considered of an insufferably low IQ. In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 8-1 in Buck v. Bell to allow states the right to forcibly sterilize those they deemed “mentally deficient” by these tests. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes infamously wrote: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” It’s thought that roughly 70,000 people were victims of this ruling.

Just because something has, historically, been used for immense evil doesn’t necessarily mean it is, in itself, unfit for purpose. So, with what we know today, how far should IQ be trusted?

To answer that question, we have to first ask what IQ is. These days, most reputable IQ tests or psychologists will openly admit that IQ is not a complete measure of how smart you are. These tests do not tell you, nor are they intended to tell you, your overall cognitive prowess. What IQ does measure is something called “general mental ability” (for example, pattern recognition), also called g. The Raven Matrices, one of the most popular tests, is pretty reliable at telling you what a person’s g might be. There are many other more specific tests that can investigate particular cognitive aspects — like memory, verbal reasoning, mathematical ability, and so on. If you want to know someone’s g, then an IQ test is the best tool for the job.

Additionally, there does seem to be at least some evidence pointing toward a correlation between someone’s g and their overall academic and professional success. Personality traits such as agreeableness, conscientiousness, trust, and generosity also feature highly in indicating future success, but, as one study puts it, “Higher intelligence results in significantly higher… earnings.” Personality matters, but IQ matters a bit more.

There’s also a practical aspect to IQ. In a world where large organizations, from the military to multinational corporations, insist on some kind of psychometric testing, IQ tests might be the best we have available.

But, there are two major problems with IQ.

The first problem with IQ stems from those who misunderstand what it’s trying to measure. IQ measures your score on a test against the averages of everyone else taking that test. It tells you how good someone is at answering certain types of questions, as compared with others. Thus, it’s not about an absolute intelligence, but relative intelligence. The trouble occurs when people misunderstand this point.

They assume IQ represents raw “brain power.” Worse, some people equate IQ with worth. Employers, especially, might write off a person based on a low IQ. Doing so fails to appreciate that many employees can offer skills and abilities that lie beyond the scope of IQ tests (such as personality factors like conscientiousness). Furthermore, the correlations mentioned above — that is, those between IQ and success — are still, statistically, considered small ones. The data we have — the data some people use to pigeon-hole a person for life — is desperately weak and inconclusive.

The second problem is that IQ is far too narrow a metric to dominate so much of the psychometric landscape. IQ represents only one, or a few, kinds of intelligence. Even the ancient Greeks knew there were different types of intelligence. For example, there was techne (vocational skills), episteme (general knowledge), phronesis (practical wisdom), or nous (a kind of rational intuition). Psychologist Howard Gardener identified eight different kinds of intelligence, and “IQ tests and other kinds of standardized tests valorize” only two of them.

So, is IQ BS? Well, it’s complicated. IQ is a test, designed to gauge a certain type of intelligence, which some argue (on weak data) is a good indicator of lifetime success. It ranks people against each other, when no other information (such as examinations or qualifications) can meaningfully help in that ranking.

Headlines like “Ways to improve your IQ!” seem to reveal what IQ is — an examination. And, like any exam, you can game and train for it. The fact that you can improve your IQ reveals a still more fundamental point: IQ is not a measure of who you are. It isn’t something structural to your being, unchangeable and predetermined (such as your genetics).

Human society is diverse. No one is identical, and no two people will approach a problem in quite the same way. Each of us is better and worse at different aspects of life. When employers seek to hire only one type of person, they risk missing the benefits of what others — those beyond the remit of IQ tests — can provide.


Friday, November 4, 2022

The Many Negatives of High-Stakes Standardized Tests

This week's article summary is The Psychological Toll of High-Stakes Testing.

I’m guessing that very few of us recall with glee taking standardized tests. I remember getting my first SAT results as a junior in high school: I had always felt I was fairly intelligent and while not Ivy League material I assumed most colleges would accept me. Getting those SATS scores was a shock to my ego. I literally worried if I would get into any college.

So, I prepped before I took the test a second time and raised my scores enough that I no longer felt stupid. Still, it really wasn’t until second semester of my freshman year in college that I began go regain confidence in my academic abilities.

Not surprisingly, the article below highlights the many negatives of standardized tests.

Topping the list is that they are a poor predictor of future academic performance because they don’t measure qualities like creativity, work ethic/effort, perseverance, and resilience.

The article points out some good aspects of standardized tests as well, especially that they provide a snapshot in time of where we stack up compared to others.

It’s dangerous, however, when scores are used to determine important decisions like college admissions or for our students middle school acceptance.

Partially due the pandemic and partially due to changing trends, many schools are beginning to re-assess the purpose and use of standardized tests. In many ways, what we have traditionally done at Trinity is what many schools are now using them for: one data point to help inform where a child is and needs to go. We don’t teach to the test yet we know from experience that our child-centered, differentiated pedagogy yields positive results (more a byproduct of) in traditional assessments, like standardized tests.

According to the article, it’s not standardized tests that are evil; it’s making them ‘high-stakes.’ It will be interesting to see to what extent colleges continue to de-emphasize standardized test results in their admissions process.

 Joe

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One problem with standardized tests: We don’t fully understand what they measure.

They are ideally designed to provide an objective appraisal of knowledge or perhaps even of inherent intelligence. 

But a recent study by Brian Galla, a psychology professor at the University of Pittsburgh, with Angela Duckworth and colleagues concluded that high school grades are actually more predictive of college graduation than standardized tests like the SAT or ACT. 

That’s because standardized tests have a major blind spot, the researchers asserted: The exams fail to capture the “soft skills” that reflect a student’s ability to develop good study habits, take academic risks, and persist through challenges. 

High school grades, on the other hand, appear to do a better job mapping the area where resilience and knowledge meet. Arguably, that’s the place where potential is translated into real achievement.

“The more I understand what testing is, actually, the more confused I am,” said Duckworth, a psychologist and expert on measuring human potential. “What does the score mean? Is it how smart somebody is, or is it something else? How much of it is their recent coaching? How much of it is genuine skill and knowledge?”

Yet standardized tests are still a mainstay of U.S. education. They play a critical role in deciding whether students graduate, what college or university they’ll attend, and, in many ways, what career paths will be open to them. Despite the fact that they take a few hours to complete—a tiny fraction of the time students spend demonstrating their learning—the tests are a notoriously high-stakes way to determine academic merit. 

By several measures, high-stakes tests are an inequitable gauge of aptitude and achievement. A 2016 analysis, for example, found that the tests were better indicators of prosperity than ability: “Scores from the SAT and ACT tests are good proxies for the amount of wealth students are born into,” the researchers concluded. 

Even students who manage to do well on the tests often pay a steep price emotionally and psychologically. “Students in countries that did the best on the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) often have lower well-being, as measured by students’ satisfaction with life and school,” wrote Yurou Wang, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Alabama. 

Test results are often tinged with a kind of existential dread. In an 2011 study, Laura-Lee Kearns, a professor of education at Xavier University, discovered that high school students who failed the state standardized literacy test “experienced shock at test failure,” asserting that they “felt degraded, humiliated, stressed, and shamed by the test results.” Many of the students were successful in school and thought of themselves as academically advanced, so the disconnect triggered an identity crisis that made them feel as though “they did not belong in courses they previously enjoyed, and even caused some of them to question their school class placement.”

“I enjoyed English, but my self-esteem really went down after the test,” a student reported, echoing a sentiment felt by many. “I really had to think over whether I was good at it or not.” 

High-stakes testing commonly begins in third grade, as young students get their first taste of fill-in-the-bubble scantrons. And while the tests are commonly used as diagnostic tools (presumably to help tailor a student’s academic support) and to evaluate the performance of teachers and schools, they can come with a bevy of unintended consequences.

“Teachers and parents report that high-stakes tests lead to higher levels of anxiety and lower levels of confidence on the part of elementary students,” researchers explained in a 2005 study. Some young students experience “anxiety, panic, irritability, frustration, boredom, crying, headaches, and loss of sleep” while taking high-stakes tests, they reported, before concluding that “high-stakes testing causes damage to children’s self-esteem, overall morale, and love of learning.”

Tests like the SAT and ACT aren’t inherently harmful, and students should learn how to manage reasonably stressful academic situations. In fact, banning them completely might be counterproductive, denying many students a critical avenue to demonstrate their academic skills. But to make them a condition of matriculation, and to factor them so prominently in internal ranking and admissions processes, inevitably excludes millions of promising students. 

Last year, the University of California dropped SAT and ACT scores from its admissions process, delivering a resounding blow to the power of two standardized tests that have long shaped American higher education. Meanwhile, hundreds of colleges and universities that dropped testing for pandemic-related reasons are reconsidering their value--including all eight Ivy League schools.

“This proves that test-optional is the new normal in college admissions,” said Bob Schaeffer, FairTest’s Public Education director. “Highly selective schools have shown that they can do fair and accurate admissions without test scores.”

In the end, it’s not the tests—it’s the almost fetishistic power we give to them. We can preserve the insights that the tests generate while returning sanity and proportionality to a broken system. Quite simply, if we deemphasize high-stakes tests, our students will, too.


Friday, October 28, 2022

7 Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs

This week's article summary is The 7 Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs.

At a parent education meeting earlier this month, I used the 7 skills listed below (from Ellen Galinsky’s Mind in the Making) as an example of how we shape our students’ academic and character foundation needed for subsequent success in school and beyond.

 

As the article explains, these 7 skills constitute the many different qualities needed for successful executive functioning: habits and skills that help us manage our thoughts, actions, and emotions to achieve our goals.

 

What I like about this list of skills is it encompasses both the self (interpersonal) and relationships with others (intrapersonal). It’s these EQ habits and skills that complement and support our IQ (intelligence) to help us be happy and successful.

 

As I discussed with parents at that meeting, schools can often overly fixate on content knowledge and overlook that students’ social-emotional development requires as much time and attention and instruction and practice as academic work.

 

Especially as we are about a third of the way into the school year, ask yourself to what extent your students are developing and exhibiting these skills.

 

Joe

 

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What can teachers and parents do to strengthen critical executive function skills in children? These aren’t skills that children just pick up.


Executive function refers to the processes that involve managing thoughts, actions, and emotions to achieve goals. The skills make it possible to consider alternative perspectives and respond to changing circumstances (cognitive flexibility), to keep information in one’s mind so it can be used (working memory), and to resist automatic and impulsive behavior (inhibitory control) so one can engage in goal-directed reasoning and problem solving.


Why are they so important? Higher executive function skills have been linked to success in school and life—health and wealth in adulthood—and have been shown to be even more important than IQ for future success. While science tells us that developing these skills is critical in the youngest years, they can be developed throughout life: it’s never too late!


Focus and Self-Control: Children need this skill to achieve goals, especially in a world filled with distractions and information overload. This includes paying attention, exercising self-control, remembering the rules and thinking flexibility.

 

Perspective Taking: This involves understanding what others think and feel, and forms the basis for children’s understanding of the intentions of parents, teachers and friends. Children with this skill are less likely to get involved in conflicts.

 

Communicating: Much more than understanding language, reading, writing and speaking, communicating is the skill of determining what one wants to communicate and realizing how it will be understood by others. It is the skill teachers and employers feel is most lacking today.

 

Making Connections: This Life Skill is at the heart of learning: figuring out what’s the same, what’s different, and sorting them into categories. Making unusual connections is at the core of creativity and moves children beyond knowing information to using information well.

 

Critical Thinking: This skill helps children analyze and evaluate information to guide their beliefs, decisions and actions. Children need critical thinking to make sense of the world around them and to solve problems.

 

Taking on Challenges: Children who take on challenges instead of avoiding or simply coping with them achieve better in school and in life.

 

Self-Directed, Engaged Learning: By setting goals and strategies for learning, children become attuned and better prepared to change as the world changes. This helps children foster their innate curiosity to learn, and helps them realize their potential.


Friday, October 21, 2022

Is Any Feedback Effective

This week's article summary is The Danger With Giving Students Feedback.

In the course of my career in education one area that has grown exponentially is feedback—to students, to/from colleagues, to presenters, to/from direct reports. (Back when I began teaching there was very little feedback. I still remember the words of my middle school principal the year I started teaching: “Joe, if the next time we meet is in June, you’ve had a successful first year.” Nothing formative, just summative.)

As a kid, I never really felt much benefit from feedback. If I had to get it, I obviously preferred positive to negative. Yet, I found the positive didn’t help me get better beyond feeling good and the negative didn’t motivate me to try harder.

As you’ll see in the article below from Alfie Kohn (who’s the ultimate intrinsic motivation, anti-authoritarian gadfly of education, hence I only heed the spirit of what he writes) that there’s little research that shows feedback helps us grow and learn.

So if feedback from an expert (and we teachers are experts) doesn’t lead to greater learning, what does

The most important motivator is our own desire to learn. When we’re motivated to learn something, almost nothing will stop us. Especially today with YouTube, the basics of everything are a click away—from how to throw a sinker in baseball, to re-tiling a bathroom floor, to learning how to play guitar.

How do we know if we are getting better? Through self-evaluation. We are great at assessing progress (personal improvement) and achievement (how we fare against an objective standard). 

Do we need the advice and guidance of experts? Yes, but it’s really only effective when we seek it. Being assessed constantly by a superior does little to motivate or improve. However, when we ask an expert for advice—often a specific question about how to do something—we are more likely to utilize the tip.

Ultimately the key to learning, improving, mastering is self-reflection, evaluation, and ongoing trial and error. As the earlier article stated, teachers need to empower our students to be the most important contributor to their learning. 

I know it’s ingrained in us as teachers to be assessing at all times, and I do believe that the increase in formative assessment has been a plus in schools. Yet Kohn’s article is a reminder about how critical to learning our relationship to and support of our students is to their learning than telling them how well or poorly they’re doing. Or as the article’s last sentence says: “I was concentrating so hard on perfecting my feedback that I forgot to focus on my kids!”

 Joe

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A lot of people make a living by offering advice about how teachers should give feedback to students—or how administrators should give feedback to teachers. 

Unfortunately, a body of compelling theory and research raises troubling questions about much of that advice. It turns out that hearing how well we’ve done (typically from someone in a position of power) often doesn’t lead us to improve.

When feedback is contaminated with evaluation (“Here’s what I think about what you did. ... "), it tends to become not only less effective but often downright damaging—both to future performance and to recipients’ interest in whatever they were doing.

For decades, studies have shown that praising people when they succeed can be just as counterproductive as criticizing them when they fail. Nor does it help to tweak the phrasing or to praise one thing rather than another (for example, effort rather than ability) because the problem rests with the experience of being judged. 

In the 1980s, researcher Ruth Butler found that students often became more intrigued by a task when they received simple comments about what they had done, whereas praise “did not even maintain initial interest at its baseline level.” More recently, two Vanderbilt University researchers reported that students, particularly those who were reasonably proficient, did worse at math if they had previously received praise for succeeding.

What is true of the judgment inherent in praise is also true of the judgment inherent in grades. A series of meta-analyses published in 2020 by Duke University researchers showed that substantive feedback without any grade attached was preferable for promoting both motivation and achievement. In fact, getting a grade was more damaging to motivation than receiving no feedback at all, particularly for struggling students.

If good grades are just as destructive as bad grades, incidentally, it may be because the most striking feature of a positive evaluation isn’t that it’s positive but that it’s an evaluation. (One psychologist remarked that kids would come to find it unpleasant even to watch TV if they were regularly evaluated for how well they did it.) 

But the central point here applies to adults as well as children, which is why teachers often bristle at having an administrator sit in judgment of them. What’s remarkable is that some of these teachers may not think twice about subjecting their students to a constant stream of evaluations.

Why do evaluations backfire? First, because they, like other rewards, are typically experienced as controlling—and people don’t like to be controlled. Second, to receive a pat on the head (an A or a “Good job!”) for doing a task well serves to devalue that task; it’s been reframed as just a prerequisite for receiving a reward. Finally, evaluation creates pressure to keep up the good work, which, in turn, leads to risk avoidance. If the point is to perform well, better to stick with what one is likely to succeed at—a posture not exactly conducive to learning or growth.

Feedback is better than evaluation, but that doesn’t mean it’s always constructive. In fact, the most comprehensive review of the research, comprising more than 600 experimental comparisons, found that even pure feedback often has a negative effect on performance. And even when the effect is positive, its impact may be small, and any learning that results may be shallow.

So what determines whether, and to what extent, feedback will help?

  • Hearing that you succeeded at a task, not surprisingly, is more apt to strengthen interest than hearing that you didn’t. (The supposed benefits of failure are wildly overrated.)
  • Sometimes it’s obvious whether your efforts paid off: Either the seed you planted sprouted, or it didn’t; either readers are surprised by your ending, or they aren’t. Such feedback is less likely to reduce interest than when someone tells you how well you did, which pulls you out of the learning experience. Students are then less engaged with what they’re doing and more concerned with how well someone thinks they’re doing it.
  • Feedback is most likely to backfire when it’s given publicly or in comparison with other people. Contrary to a widespread American myth, competition tends to undermine intrinsic motivation and achievement—for winners as well as losers.
  • Feedback works best when it’s just one step in a learning process rather than a final judgment, although even the formative kind isn’t always beneficial (particularly if it’s based on a test).
  • It matters not only how but why feedback is given. If the rationale is experienced as manipulative (to meet someone else’s standards), it may be damaging. The ideal scenario is for information to be offered at the recipient’s request. In general, effective teachers and managers do a lot more asking than telling: “How can I help?” “What do you need to know?

A final caveat: Even research suggesting that certain feedback can be useful turns out to be less reassuring than it appears because of dubious assumptions about what “useful” means. As Lorrie Shepard at the University of Colorado noticed, most studies of feedback “are based on behaviorist assumptions. Typically the outcome measures are narrowly defined [and] feedback consists of reporting right and wrong answers.” Thus, even if feedback “works,” it may do so only on tasks of questionable value, such as cramming forgettable facts into short-term memory.

With feedback, then, as with so much else in education, paying too much attention to perfecting a method distracts us from reflecting on our goal. And the goal should concern not only the quality of learning but the experience of the learner. Hence, educator Cris Tovani’s evocative confession: “I was concentrating so hard on ... trying to perfect the feedback ... [that] I forgot to focus on the kids.”

Thursday, October 13, 2022

The Five Virtues of a Good Writer

This week's article summary is The Five Virtues of a Good Writer, and it is a follow-up to last week's summary in which I reminisced about my high school years learning—or more accurately not learning—how to write well.

This article identifies five components of good writing. For me, these components are more applicable to us as adults than our students, as the most important goals we should have for our elementary school students are to foster their enthusiasm and confidence as writers. Yes, we begin to introduce these components to our students, particularly in our upper elementary grades, yet true understanding and application of them doesn’t begin to coalesce until our students are in middle, high school, or even later.

Hence, as all of us at Trinity have writing responsibilities from progress reports to written communication to students, colleagues, and parents, keeping these components at the forefront of the writing process can be very helpful.

As I read the article, what impacted me the most was the need for a clear purpose before writing. I wrote progress reports for over 30 years, and I often struggled writing about the students who fell within the meaty part of the bell curve. The all-star performers and chronic strugglers were easy for me to write about because I knew where they shined or needed to improve. It was the middle kids whose description (strengths, challenges, needs/next steps) eluded me. But as the summary below points out, I didn’t have a clear purpose of what I wanted to write about them because I hadn’t thought carefully and deeply enough about them before I started to write about them. Instead, I would just begin writing and hoped the right words would follow. Those progress reports were often uninspired and ineffective because they didn’t capture the uniqueness of the child.

Stephen King is his book On Writing, advises to “write with the door closed (for you), then rewrite with the door open (for others).” Once you have your purpose, writing–at least the rough draft—becomes much easier.

The other four components of writing (although I also like the article’s sixth one: rhythm) come into play during the editing and revising processes. It’s through revision that our ideas are reorganized and more clearly expressed so others can easily follow and understand.

Like any skill—and writing ultimately is a skill—writing requires constant practice. Even as we write simple emails to colleagues, we should keep these five components in mind and strive to further hone our writing.

Joe

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The great journalist and author Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993) offered the following excellent advice to writers:

“The reader who seeks to write well and think well should aim first at the essential qualities—coherence, clarity, precision, simplicity, and brevity. Euphony (pleasant to the ears) and rhythm are of course also desirable, but they are like the final rubbing on a fine piece of furniture—finishing touches justified only if the piece has been soundly made. The apprentice writer should try to acquire these Five Virtues by vigilant abstention from the Five Vices of Incoherence, Obscurity, Vagueness, Pedantry, and Circumlocution.”

Here are a few of my own thoughts on these writing virtues and corresponding vices.

Coherence (as opposed to Incoherence) is the quality of forming a unified, integrated whole. For a writing piece to have coherence, it must have a clear purpose, and every constituent part of it must contribute toward that purpose. Long digressions and non sequiturs can make a piece incoherent.

Clarity (as opposed to Obscurity) in writing is about being easily understood by the reader. A writer who wants to be understood must think in terms, not only of expression (sharing one’s thoughts) but exposition (sharing ideas intelligibly). Often attaining greater clarity in exposition goes hand-in-hand with attaining greater clarity in your own understanding of the topic. For a piece to be clear, it must flow well: both narratively and logically. Each passage must advance the story and/or argument of the piece in a way that naturally follows what came before it. A piece that is disjointed and “jumps around” too much will confuse the reader. Clear writing must also be complete. It must not omit any points that are necessary for the reader to understand what you’re saying. Missing context will obscure your message. Unfamiliar, un-introduced jargon will also make your presentation opaque to the reader. Remember that the reader does not share all your knowledge. Be wary of presuming that a necessary connection will “go without saying.”

Precision (as opposed to Vagueness) in writing is about being exact and specific in conveying your meaning. Attaining precision is often a matter of “playing around” with a sentence to find just the right wording and phrasing to accurately get your meaning across.

Simplicity (as opposed to Pedantry) in writing is about limiting your exposition only to the essential. Writers with extensive knowledge of their subject are often tempted to over-share arcane details that would overload the reader. Don’t try to cram a comprehensive education of your subject into one piece. Shoot for the realistic aim of providing your reader an important lesson that is simple enough to be fully digested in one sitting.

Brevity (as opposed to Circumlocution) in writing is about getting your meaning across in as few words as necessary. (But no fewer. Brevity in excess can result in vagueness and obscurity.) Often one’s first stab at a sentence will be needlessly wordy and thus unwieldy to the reader. See what you can do to cut, compress, and recombine your wording to make your sentence more concise and elegant. Prune any sentences that don’t “carry their weight”: that don’t contribute enough value to your presentation to justify the additional work they demand from the reader. Sometimes this can mean cutting whole sections. You have to be willing to “kill your darlings” as William Faulkner put it.

Friday, October 7, 2022

Feedback That Empowers Students

This week's article summary is Feedback That Empowers Students.

Think back to when you were in high school nervously awaiting your English teacher to hand back the essay you wrote. 

Once the teacher returned the graded paper to you, you probably flipped to the end--skipping over the teacher’s corrections and comments, usually written in blood red ink--and jumped right to the grade he/she wrote. 

If the grade was B or better, you then might have looked at the teacher’s written comments, expecting there’d be more praise than suggestions for improvement (which to most of us means criticism)—after all, only a masochist prefers criticism to praise.

However, if the grade was below a B--if you were like me--you crumbled the essay into a tight wad and threw it in the classroom waste basket when the teacher wasn’t looking. As someone who received a lot of grades below B on essays, my defense rationale was that the teacher didn’t like or understand me. (Every student knows the story that Einstein failed  a math in middle school.)

Similarly, when I was an English teacher, I was discouraged when my students did the same thing to me when they got back their papers that I had critiqued so diligently. For them, it was basically an either/or dichotomy where good writers got praise and satisfaction while poor writers sunk deeper and deeper into the belief that they would never get my approval and were destined to never write well.

Schools and English classes have gotten better with tools that help students write like laptop computers (which make revising and editing much less painful) and rubrics (where students have a better understanding of the components of their assignment like a persuasive essay).

Still, as an adult whose job involves a lot of writing, I wish I had begun to hone my writing skills back when I was in school rather than learning on the job what good writing entails. As a student, I was loath to revise my rough drafts; today, I embrace that my initial draft is nothing more than a rough sketch or outline that will take much thought and revision on my part.

What you’ll see in the article below is how important it is for teachers to guide their students to be more empowered and to understand how much influence they have in their own learning. I sought my teacher’s approval in the grade he/she gave me when I should have focused more on his/her comments to further my development as a writer. I just didn’t feel empowered as a student, and most students struggle with their confidence throughout the inevitable ups and downs of their school years. 

Another article I read over the summer on ‘resilience in the classroom’ stated that the purpose of school is to help students learn, practice, and reflect. 

When I was a kid, I only thought school was for learning,  yet now I know that it’s through practice and reflection that we learn.

Joe

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Feedback can be a powerful process that greatly impacts student learning when it affirms students’ identities as learners, is clear and direct, and considers the individual attributes of each student.

Here’s an example. A student receives the following feedback from her teacher:

  • Strength: You clearly state your claim, The women’s rights movement began with the suffrage movement but it’s not over yet, and provided a list of recent events, such as the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team’s court case, to support your thinking.
  • Need: Include the counterclaim and how you would respond. What would someone say if they disagreed with you? Where would they find fault with your supporting evidence?
  • Next Steps: Work with your writing partner to talk through the Claim, Support, Question protocol. Do some more research to address the questions that you and your partner generate, and add this information to your essay.

This feedback moves beyond what students often receive in response to their work—statements such as “Great job!” “Shows improvement.” “Add evidence.” The more comprehensive feedback can empower students because it’s individualized to the student; leverages students’ assets, interests, and learning preferences; and builds students’ confidence in themselves. Let’s unpack the above example to see how to accomplish this.

Strengths: Identify what students can do in relation to the learning target, regardless of whether they’ve achieved mastery. The feedback in our example is based on the following learning target and success criteria for the student: I can write an argument by doing the following: stating a claim, providing supporting reasons and relevant evidence, addressing counterclaims

When a teacher identifies what students can do, it communicates the belief that all students are learners and can achieve high expectations. Students know what to repeat in future assignments and, most important, develop confidence in themselves.

Needs: Identify where a student is in relationship to the learning target. The language the teacher uses in identifying needs can affect how students receive the feedback. In our feedback example, the teacher states the need—Include the counterclaim and how you would respond—and then provides some questions to prompt student thinking. 

Direct and honest feedback helps students understand that feedback is affirmation that the student can reach the goal. When feedback is cushioned or vague, a student may interpret it to mean that the teacher doesn’t believe in the student’s capability.

Next Steps: These directly correlate with the identified needs and provide suggestions on how students can move forward. Too often, students are given feedback but don’t know how to address it. The teacher supports student independence and self-regulation by describing actions that the student can take on their own to strengthen their work. In our example of feedback, the teacher reminds the student to use a thinking routine that has been repeatedly used in class—to identify possible counterclaims and provide stronger evidence to support their reasoning.

Next steps should also consider the individual attributes of the student. For example, if the teacher knows a student is an artist, suggesting that the student use sketch noting before writing might be a good next step. Students who use oral language to process information might benefit from peer discussion, as mentioned in the example, before writing.

The Amount, Timing, and Format: These can influence how a student receives the feedback and their willingness to act on it. Some students need less feedback more often, while other students prefer to have the time to process and apply the feedback. Feedback can be verbal or written and offered privately or in small groups. The same process for providing feedback will not work for everyone. If a teacher is unsure as to what strategy might work best for the student, the teacher can conference with the student and discuss different strategies. This builds the trust that underlies the successful feedback relationship.

The feedback that students receive from their teachers serves as models for students to engage in peer feedback and self-assessment. When students use the same process with their peers and then apply it to themselves, they’re truly empowered. Students, like their teachers, must have clearly articulated learning targets and a protocol, such as the strengths, needs, and next steps. They must also reflect on the feedback process. Questions such as “How did feedback from your classmate help you revise your work?” “What did you learn from examining your classmate’s work that will help you in revising your own?” and “How did you revise your work after completing your self-assessment?” all help students see the value of the feedback process.

Empowering students through feedback begins with teacher feedback that identifies what the student can do, clearly states areas of needs, and considers the individual attributes of each student in providing next steps. When students receive quality feedback from their teachers, they are primed to engage in peer feedback and self-assessment, and empowered to be self-regulated, independent learners.

Friday, September 30, 2022

The Importance of Recess

This week's article summary is What Recess Looks Like Around the World.

‘Recess’ is the most typical response from kids when asked what their favorite class in school is. The reason for this is recess time is one of the few less structured times during the school day: it’s when kids get to be social, creative, innovative, exploratory, imaginative, and collaborative.


Take a few moments to see the photos of recesses around the world in the link below. The settings are different but the takeaway for me is kids are clearly kids regardless of where they live, what school they attend, and what resources they have.


Similar to last week’s summary about kids wanting calmness, clarity, and compassion from their teachers, this week’s reminds us that kids want teachers at recess to watch over their physical and emotional safety. They want the latitude to work out their squabbles with peers at recess, yet they recognize that sometimes they need teachers to, as the article states, ‘coach them through social conflicts.’


Last week a number of us chaperoned the sixth graders on their fall outdoor education trip--in many ways an extended recess where kids get a lot of free, down time to just be kids and savor a little freedom while also honing their evolving social-emotional skill development, or as Trinity says, shaping their sense of self and sincere care and concern for others. I recently reviewed another school’s website for SAIS accreditation and was struck by how the school combined these two critical aspects of human development: ‘our students learn about self within the context of others.’ While we are all individuals, we all must get along with others.


Helping our students learn about self in the context of others is what the sixth grade teachers did last week and what we all do every day in our classrooms, at school, and at recess!


Joe

 

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Children may play in fundamentally similar ways everywhere but recess unfolds very differently around the globe.


In elementary school classrooms around the world, kids strain to contain their energy until recess. When the bell rings, they burst onto rooftop playgrounds in Tokyo, hopscotch courts in Los Angeles, and concrete yards in the West Bank to race, fight, joke, bounce, sing, tease, and squeal. 


Their experience on the playground — joyful or vicious — will impact their development much as any math or science class. Kids aren’t just returning to school this month; they’re returning to the wilds of recess: spontaneous, unpredictable, and an essential respite from the strictures of in-class learning. 


And out of all that unstructured play comes some of the richest social-emotional learning — provided the recess is well run. That’s harder to do than it sounds.


“There’s a mismatch between what kids and adults expect supervision to look like at recess,” says William Massey, who studies the intersection of play and child development at Oregon State University. “Adults think they should ensure kids don’t get hurt; kids want to be free to jump off high structures and risk physical injury — but they want adults to ensure they don’t get picked on or beat up.” It turns out that, in this case, what kids want is what’s best for them. They need the freedom to take physical risks during activities of their choice, while caring and supportive teachers stand by to coach them through social conflicts.


One of the most compelling studies on recess globally is James Mollison’s photo collection entitled Playgrounds. Mollison’s images of school kids playing during breaks — whether on a mountainside in Bhutan, on train tracks in Mexico City, in a refugee camp in Jordan, or on a schoolyard playground in Massachusetts — contain familiar vignettes: school children cheering in groups, playing ball, sitting alone, tumbling on the ground, or pointing and teasing.


The photos show us that regardless of the backdrop, given the freedom, kids are boundlessly energetic and creative; for thousands of years, they have invented their games using stones, marbles, and drawings in the dirt as well as chants, songs, riddles, and handshakes


The games kids play and songs they sing — from kickball and kick the can to double Dutch— give kids the chance to work through tough feelings when they lose, deal with a cheater, and negotiate rules. They also preserve culture — many have been passed from big kids to little kids for hundreds of years.


Around the world, nations are committed to giving children space to play. The U.N’s Child’s Rights Treaty, which lists play as a right, is one of the most ratified human rights treaties in history. Just three U.N. nations have yet to ratify it: Somalia, South Sudan, and the United States. Here, we offer up an argument for this right through images and tales of play around the world that show play to be both infectious and essential — something we all should advocate for in our children’s schools.


While some of us may take recess for granted in the United States, there are no national guidelines requiring breaks during the school day. Only 10 states have signed laws that require schools to provide recess to elementary school children. Georgia is the latest state to guarantee recess, with a bill signed into law this summer that not only demands recess but prohibits teachers from withholding recess as punishment. “It’s still about time and minutes, not about quality,” says Massey of the new state standards, “but it’s a step forward.” In most states, there are no set requirements, and recess is in constant peril of being cut from the school day wholesale — or cut as punishment. 


As a result, some schools do recess well, and others don’t do it at all.





Friday, September 16, 2022

Calm, Clear, and Kind

This week's article summary is Calm, Clear, and Kind: What Students Want From Their Teachers.

The past two summaries have centered on the importance of teachers developing a strong, supportive, trusting relationship with their students.

This week’s summary asked students exactly what they want and need from their teachers: Calmness (specifically their teachers always appropriately regulating their emotions regardless of the stress of the moment), Clarity (with instructions and explanations), and Kindness (being fair, understanding, and compassionate).

I particularly enjoyed the actual words students used to provide examples of calmness, clarity, and kindness.

We all know that kids are always watching adults and learn much from observing adults in action—in and out of school. As such, “remaining calm, being clear in our communications, and treating others with kindness and consideration” is a simple but effective mantra for all of us to guide our lives, not only our classrooms.

Joe

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Years of research in the field of social-emotional learning (SEL) has demonstrated that when students have supportive relationships with their teachers, they experience better well-being and success in school. 

What does it mean to be a caring, supportive teacher? 

I recently published a study in the Journal of Adolescent Research in which I asked students what makes a caring teacher. Their responses aligned with education research: that the most authentic, wholehearted educators are calm, clear, and kind. 

Be calm: This refers to a teacher’s ability to remain calm and regulate their own stress in the face of the challenges inherent in teaching. In doing so, teachers are less reactive and better able to support students with their own emotion regulation. Students describe a caring teacher as one who “does stuff calmly like not yelling” and “takes time to explain the work” and “creates a calming environment to work in.” Some other comments from students were “be patient when someone doesn’t understand the material,” “they don’t yell,” and “they help you calm down.”

Be clear: This is a teacher’s capacity to remain present with their students and to stay curious and in tune with their needs. It also emphasizes the importance of teachers listening and maintaining clear, democratic communication with their students. For students being clear means “They explain the work well”, “They listen to your ideas”, “They listen with their eyes”, “Notice your feelings even if other people don’t”, and “Resolve a problem before it gets big”. 

Be kind:  This encompasses more than just having a nice personality. It includes practicing non-judgment and expressing warmth and connection, cultivating trust and respect, and attending to the needs of students. Student responses:  “They say hi to you in the morning”, “They understand how you are feeling”, “They help you when you’re sad”, “Helps me when it looks like I don’t understand”, “Helps with friends”.

It is not always easy to be calm, clear, and kind in every moment. Particularly when we ourselves are stressed or busy. Fortunately for teachers, there is an inextricable link between being calm, clear, and kind and your own well-being.

In essence, what students say they need from their teachers may in fact be exactly what teachers need, as well. So, what can teachers do to show they care?

Ask students directly for what they need. Much can be learned by listening to students’ own voices—in research and practice.

Feel empowered in what you are already doing. So many teachers naturally show up in the ways their students need, in part by knowing the importance of truly listening to them. Students did not identify complicated teaching strategies or skills. Instead, they admit to needing their teachers to be present, warm, kind, and helpful, and to listen to them. So many teachers already put this at the forefront of their teaching and should feel empowered that they are already doing exactly what their students need.

Be kind to yourself. It is not easy to be calm, clear, or kind all the time. It is OK to not get it right all the time.

In the end…try to do your best to be calm, clear, and kind with your students and yourself. For many, this may just mean committing to be more intentional about trying to be mindful throughout the day. Or it could mean seeking out additional training or resources to help you build and strengthen your mindfulness muscles!

Friday, September 9, 2022

Perspective Taking in the Classroom

This week's article summary is article summary, a follow up on last week’s summary about classroom management, is about how teachers can use ‘perspective taking’ in dealing with students who act up in class.

Similar to a recent article summary in which I contrasted the teaching styles of my 6th grade and junior history teachers, classroom management systems similarly run the gamut from strict, no nonsense discipline to more collaborative, flexible classroom practices.

As with most things, effective classroom management involves bits and pieces of different techniques and strategies with the ‘firm-but-fair’ style being the most effective.

The recent study from Johns Hopkins discussed below grounds classroom management in classroom relationships, specifically between the teacher and his/her students. When this relationship is strong and trusting, classroom management and student behavior are better. 

Perspective taking is an additional tool where the teacher empathetically thinks about why a misbehaving child acts up and how he/she may feel about the way in which the teacher dealt with him/her. Viewing misbehavior and consequences/punishments through the eyes of the child can help a teacher better understand a wayward student, further enhance that relationship, and ideally improve the child’s behavior.

I have always subscribed to the Positive Discipline tenet that everyone wants to behave, fit in, and get along well with others. Yet even though we all want to behave, there are sundry reasons why people act out, push boundaries, throw tantrums, and mistreat others. (I’m currently dealing with this with my 3 and 5 year old granddaughters.) There have certainly been a few students I’ve had through the years that seemed innately obstinate, yet most of the troublesome ones simply needed me to better understand and relate to them. (You like me may have had similar experiences with colleagues.)

It’s not always easy for a teacher to see an incident through a child’s lens, as there are often strong emotions (exasperation, anger, etc.) involved. Still, as the article concludes, perspective taking is one classroom tool we can use to strengthen our relationship with that child, which in turn leads to better classroom management and student behavior.

Joe

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One of the most vexing dilemmas for teachers is finding the best way to respond to students who misbehave. Experts argue over whether the best classroom-management approach is a consistent, strict discipline or a more forgiving response where students discuss their grievances with an adult’s guidance, a process called restorative justice. Who can blame  teachers for feeling confused and ill-prepared to manage classroom disruptions?

In this column, I’m going to explain an idea that steals a page from marriage counseling: perspective taking. Its advocates advise teachers to put themselves in the shoes of their most perplexing, misbehaving students and simply imagine what they are thinking and feeling. 

It might seem far-fetched that a simple, imaginative exercise inside the mind of the person who isn’t misbehaving – the teacher – would make any difference to the classroom atmosphere. But a Johns Hopkins study found that students of teachers who were so trained reported better relationships with their teachers and earned higher grades. “We know, unequivocally, one of the best things that anyone can do for classroom management and for teachers to be effective at their jobs across a whole array of outcomes, is to improve teacher-student relationships.”

The theory is that students’ need or desire to misbehave might be reduced if they feel a positive connection with the teacher at the front of the classroom. 

In the Johns Hopkins study, kindergarten through ninth grade teachers received a 90-minute workshop. The session resembled a theater workshop. Teachers sat in pairs and were instructed to begin by thinking about their most frustrating student with whom they often had conflicts. “There’s some child who takes up like 70, 80, 90 percent of your emotional bandwidth.”

Teachers were then told to think of a particularly puzzling behavior or an incident with the student and tell her workshop partner about it. Then, the teacher was asked to retell the story from the child’s perspective. If I were a teacher in this workshop, playing the role of the student, I might say, “Mrs. Barshay always picks on me. I think it’s because she doesn’t like me. She’s out to get me. I think she’s just mean.”

For many teachers the juxtaposition of the two perspectives got them to internalize. “This is more of a two-way street. And I’ve gotten sort of sucked into my own perspective, a little too much.”

A couple of months later, teachers who had taken the workshop reported more positive relationships with their students than teachers who hadn’t taken it. Students in their classrooms, similarly, reported more positive relationships with their teachers.

A 90-minute session on understanding someone else’s perspective will never be a complete answer to student discipline.  And, more broadly, all of these preventive discipline ideas are not a substitute for the need to react to student disruptions in the moment. But it’s an interesting theory that appears to do no harm, and this thought experiment might be a helpful addition to the teacher’s toolbox.

Friday, September 2, 2022

Gentle Parenting

This week's article summary is What is Gentle Parenting?

As you’ll see in the article, while the term ‘gentle parenting’ is relatively new—and in my opinion poorly named —it advocates the age-old parenting (and classroom management) technique of being ‘firm but fair’.

Whether in regards to parenting or teaching, firmness means being consistent with behavioral expectations/limits and structure/routines. Kids actually crave firmness with clear expectations and guidelines, yet they inevitably will still stumble and misbehave. It’s in their nature to push up against limits and see what happens when they exceed expected boundaries.

As authority figures, parents/teachers often struggle with how to deal with a misbehaving child. 

This is where fairness comes in. 

The article below—like the philosophy of Positive Discipline, Responsive Classroom, etc.—begins with the premise that all kids want to belong and do the right thing. Punishment for misbehavior can temporarily stop the infraction, yet unless the parent/teacher tries to identify the reason behind the misbehavior, it will more than likely continue.

The article, Positive Discipline techniques, and our discussions during preplanning all recommend that supporting children in their social-emotional growth (both their sense of self and care and concern for others) means having them gradually learn to recognize and name the panoply of emotions they feel, and then over time learn not to instinctively react to those feelings and emotions--which often result in exceeding expected rules and boundaries--but to thoughtfully respond in a manner that is within the expected norm.

Re-read that previous paragraph: it’s a tall order, but being able to control emotions and deal with obstacles is the key to a successful life. 

When I taught 8th grade, it seemed all I did was help young adolescents deal with their emotions, frustrations, feelings of inadequacy, etc. Yes, I taught history and coached soccer, basketball, and baseball, yet I was really guiding my students through one of the most tumultuous years of their lives. It took a lot of repeating, modeling, coaching, counseling, and consequence/punishment follow through, but more often than not I developed strong, trusting relationships with them and saw much growth and progress within them.

And as we all know, EQ ultimately is more important than IQ.

Joe

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In the past decade, the concept of “gentle” or “respectful” parenting has gained considerable traction. 

The foundation of the idea is in being a parent who is emotionally attuned to their child, and tries to understand the reasons behind their behavior.

There is great value in this, but it is not the whole story. Children also need their carers to set clear limits.

A common theme of gentle parenting is that parents should not rush in and immediately condemn their children if they don’t like what they’re doing. Instead, they should stop and listen to their child, then validate their feelings. For example, they might say, “So you are shouting because you think your brother was being unfair when he took your toy, and that upset you.”

Gentle parenting suggests that when a parent shows understanding of the child’s emotional state, it will help the child to calm down. Only after doing this should the parent decide what to do. This approach also has the longer-term aim of promoting emotional intelligence. The idea is that as children grow older they will learn to identify their own emotions more thoughtfully and act more appropriately.

But we also know that, when it comes to the parent-child relationship, how the parent responds to their child is crucial. After listening and clarifying what the child is feeling, the parent then needs to build on this to help the child think calmly and positively about the problem and find a good solution.

Parents who do this are, in the language of child development, “responding sensitively” to their children, both when the child is upset and when they are happy. Research shows that children whose parents responded sensitively in their first three years of life had better social skills at age 15 and also performed better academically.

In addition to the warm, close relationship created by sensitive responses to a child, boundaries need to be set as well. Children need to be able to live in the world with other people and get on with other children and adults. They need to learn how to fit in with externally imposed rules and that there are consequences if they do not. Children need both love and limits.

The trick is to set limits calmly and not be angry or explosive as a parent. A frustrated reaction is often unconscious and related to the way the parents themselves were brought up; they may not know any other way.

The good news is that parents can learn calm, effective discipline. If parents pay lots of attention when children are misbehaving, they are more likely to continue to behave badly. The drive for children to feel connected to their parents is so strong that, especially in a background where there is not much attention to go round, they will prefer negative attention to none. They soon learn that they need to play up to connect, so misbehaving becomes more frequent.

The solution is to briefly withdraw attention when children are misbehaving, followed by engaging with them warmly when they are behaving better. At this point, emotional feelings can be aired and an appropriate response should be set. Such an apparently simple regime takes a bit of learning, but usually has a striking effect on improving behavior. 

Also, crucially, if children are encouraged and paid warm attention when they are behaving well, they will do more of it.

There is good evidence that listening to your child and showing that you have understood them can be helpful, so long as the next step is to respond sensitively and if necessary set a calm limit. All this needs to be in the context of a positive relationship where the parent takes the time to have fun with their child