White Bears and Blue Dolphins

The final article summary of the year is about Giannis Antetokounmpo, a superstar in the NBA. His team, the Milwaukee Bucks, won the title last year yet lost in the second round of the playoffs two weeks ago.

The article written by a psychologist focuses on how Giannis responded to reporters right after his team’s disappointing seventh game loss.

As you’ll see, Giannis doesn’t dwell on negativity (what the author calls ‘white bears’); rather, he chooses to focus on positives (‘blues dolphins’).

I’m lucky that my personality naturally has me think of  blue dolphins, not white bears. No matter what disappointments or hardships I’ve faced professionally and personally, I’ve always chosen to view them as learning opportunities. Since I was very young, life for me has always been about the process: deal with whatever happens by being thankful for the good and learning from the bad.

As we reach the end of the 2021-22 school year, there were—like any school year—inevitable peaks and valleys. Over the last two plus years the persistent irritant of Covid has tested the positivity of even the most optimistic. Nevertheless, I’ve remained continuously proud of how we individually and collectively dealt with these challenges and am thankful for the immense good we did for our students, one another, and ourselves. 

At graduation rehearsal a few days ago as I listened to 6th graders (who were in 4th grade when Covid began in March 2020) they acknowledged the struggles and difficulties they faced in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade, yet their memories of their school experiences were positive and they are deeply appreciative for all their teachers did for them. They were all about the blue dolphins!

I feel so fortunate to have discovered education as my career, particularly because the end of every school year and summer break afford me the opportunity to reflect on the year—the good, bad, and ugly—and set new goals (both short and long-term) for the upcoming school year and beyond. Certainly there were unusually big hurdles and obstacles over the past two years, yet throughout, like our 6th graders and Giannis, I made sure the blue dolphins overshadowed any whites bears. 

Thanks to all of you for everything you’ve done the past two years—as Jackie Gleason used to say at the end of every Honeymooners episode, “You’re the greatest!” I wouldn’t want to be in any other school with any other group of colleagues!

Enjoy the summer. I hope you dream of countless blue dolphins and slay those pesky white bears!

Joe

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There sat Giannis Antetokounmpo, patiently waiting for the first questions to trickle in from reporters. His team, the Milwaukee Bucks, had just lost game seven of a gritty, hard-fought playoff series with the Boston Celtics.

Antetokounmpo was a bit more somber than usual, a bit less joyful. But you couldn't describe him as heartbroken. He certainly wasn't depressed, or distressed, or even unhappy.

And although his team had just been defeated, Antetokounmpo wasn't defeated.

"At the end of the day, we were playing sports and there's a winner, there's a loser," said Antetokounmpo.

"This is the learning curve. Nobody promised you're going to get to the second round of the playoffs. There's people that have never been in the second round; there's people that have never been in the NBA finals. So, I'm not viewing it as, 'I lost.'"

"It was a learning experience, so hopefully, this moment, instead of thinking that we lost something, we can gain and learn in order for us to put ourselves in a position to win another championship."

There is a lot of wisdom in those words, which are rich in lessons for all of us chasing their version of success. This interview was a master class in emotional intelligence--because it gives a firsthand demonstration on how to use principles of psychology to control negative thinking and emotions, using something I like to refer to as the blue dolphin rule.

What's the blue dolphin rule? And how can it help you understand and manage your emotions, putting you one step closer to achieving your goals in life?

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to understand and manage emotional behavior. This ability allows you to keep your thoughts, emotions, and feelings in balance, so they aid you to successfully reach your goals, instead of hinder you from achieving them. This is why I like to describe EQ as making emotions work for you, instead of against you.

Consider Antetokounmpo's interview. How does an extremely accomplished NBA superstar deal with the failure of not winning a championship, and what can you learn from that?

When you work hard to achieve a specific goal, it's easy to get swallowed up by negative emotion when that goal doesn't come into fruition. Depending on where on the spectrum your personality falls when it comes to traits like extraversion and neuroticism, you may be prone to focusing on critical thoughts when this happens.

We could describe critical thoughts like these as white bears.

In psychology, the white bear problem states that as you attempt to suppress certain thoughts, you actually increase their frequency.

So, how do you stop the white bears of self-criticism and overwhelming failure?

Enter the blue dolphin.

The blue dolphin is a replacement thought, a different point of concentration. It's a go-to, something you can immediately switch your focus to if your white bear comes to mind.

We see Antetokounmpo use the blue dolphin technique when he's faced with tough questions from reporters:

Reporter: What stands out about coming up short in this series? Is it that you didn't shoot enough three point shots?

Antetokounmpo: Obviously, we didn't make enough threes. On the other hand, I couldn't be more proud of the guys and the effort they gave.

Reporter: Giannis, how do you digest the finality of the season? Do you watch the film, let that sink in

Antetokounmpo: Nah, it's over with. It's over with. No film for me. Just got to go back, get some break, and get on the court, start getting better, try to improve parts of my game. Hopefully I can come back healthy, in a good place, keep enjoying basketball.

See how it works?

You can do the same thing when you encounter negative thoughts about your own perceived failures in your life.

White bear: You're so behind. You should be months ahead of where you are right now. You're never going to make it.

Blue dolphin: Look back at what you've accomplished over the past six months. You're so much further ahead of where you were. Keep up the great work; good things will happen.

The next time you encounter what first feels like dismal failure, remember this little psychological trick--and the NBA superstar who showed you how to apply it.

Treat every failure, not as a loss, but as a gain--a learning experience that puts you one step closer to achieving your goal.

 

 

Old School Parenting

This week's article summary is Old School Parenting. It connects to a summary I sent out last year about how America in the 1950s transitioned from the long-standing parenting style of ‘kids should be seen and not heard’ to today’s ‘child-centered parenting.’

I’ve never been a fan of glorifying the good old days; we tend to over-exaggerate how good things were years ago. I’m more interested in how this article highlights parenting techniques that will support a child’s growth into a well-adjusted adult who, as our mission states, will ‘achieve his/her unique potential as a responsible, productive, and compassionate member of the greater community.’ 

The old school parenting reminders below give kids the opportunity to be imaginative, self-reliant, humble, selfless, respectful, gracious, well-rounded (developing both their IQ and EQ), responsible, and empowered without becoming entitled.

To me that’s not old school but good school!

Joe

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Parenting is vastly different than it was 30 plus years ago. We have come a long way in parenting philosophies, including health and safety. Raising children is a completely different game than it was back then. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take some of our parents’ expertise and put it into practice. Vintage parenting might be just what this generation needs. Here are 10 things our parents did that parents today should bring back.

Put Each Other First: Back when our parents were young, it wasn’t uncommon for marriage to be the most important relationship in the family. But somewhere over the last 30 plus years, parents have started to treat their children as the center of the universe. Keeping your spouse a priority can be hard, but it’s essential to have a healthy and happy family. When my children interrupt me while I’m talking to my husband, I tell them they will have to wait (unless it’s an emergency). Children need to learn that everything does not revolve around them.

Made Kids Play Outside: Most of my childhood memories are playing outside, using my imagination. My friends and I would be outside as soon as we got home from school. We would come in for dinner and then go back out until dark. I enjoyed watching TV here and there, but we always preferred to be outside. Today’s Kids ages 8-18 spend an average of 7.5 hours every day in front of a screen for entertainment. That does not include homework or educational purposes. On the flip side, children spend only 4-7 minutes a day engaged in unstructured outdoor play on average. Kids don’t need a sports court or a swimming pool to be entertained outside. All they need is their imagination.

Trusted Their Children: I’m sure most of us (especially if you are old like me) can remember spending most of our free time riding bikes with our friends miles away from home, building snow forts for hours, staying out until dark, all without our parents knowing exactly where we were. You may call this “free-range parenting” or even think it’s dangerous. The truth is, children are twice as likely to die in a plane crash than get kidnapped by a stranger. 

Didn’t Push Academics: Before 1980, the main focus of the early elementary years was creativity and social skills. Children did not know how to read upon entering kindergarten and many didn’t even know their alphabet. They were taught to be respectful, to share, and to make friends. Culturally, our children are obligated to compete academically at these early ages which magnifies, if not causes, anxiety and stress in our children.

Taught Manners: I am always amazed at the lack of manners I see in many children and teens today. My husband and I spent a week cooking for 300 teens a few years ago. We would spend the entire day cooking, doing dishes, and literally serving food onto their empty plates for them. We were shocked at the amount of “thank-you’s” we received: 2 out of 300. That’s a simple example. I could make lists of others who demand snacks or toys when they play at my house, or that take without asking, etc. It is refreshing when I come across those who have been taught well.

Ate Dinner As a Family: This is so important and so easily overlooked. Parents today tend to sacrifice family dinners for extra-curricular activities. Children who participate in regular family meals are less likely to have anxiety and depression. They have less delinquency, greater academic achievement, and improved psychological well-being. Don’t schedule meals around your activities, schedule your activities around meal-time.

Made Their Kids Do Chores: When I was growing up, every Saturday was reserved for doing chores. We couldn’t play with friends or any other activities until we had cleaned our bedrooms and done a few other of our assigned chores. I cleaned bathrooms, vacuumed, dusted, mopped, and more. Today children are asked to take on only the most trivial of responsibilities. You might be surprised at how much your kids are capable of.

Disciplined Each Other’s Kids: What would you do if your child’s friend threw a tantrum or even hit your child? Ask them nicely if they would like to stop? Would we even dare bring it up to their parent? With our parents, there was an unspoken rule that if another child acted out, they would discipline them the same way as their own kids.

Held Birthday Parties at Home: The birthday parties our parents would throw included cake, ice cream, and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. They didn’t give every guest a basket filled with personalized party favors. They didn’t rent out the local trampoline park or hire a professional photographer or caterer. Yet we still had fun! It was a guilt-free party zone.

Kept Things Simple: The best part of the “good old days” was how simple it was. As kids, we weren’t rushed from soccer to piano to dance. Our parents didn’t take us to Disneyland every summer or buy each child their own tablets. We got bored. We used our imaginations. And we thrived in the simple life.

Our children will end up fine–even better than we did. They don’t need to be handed everything on a silver platter. They don’t need to be the best at everything, or even at one thing. It’s okay if they fall and get hurt or get their heart broken. It’s how they learn and grow. And it will teach them compassion and kindness and love.

Is There a Right and Wrong in History?

This week's article summary is Shifting Out of Neutral and it focuses on the challenges middle and high school history teachers face when trying to remain objective in class. 

While I am a champion of guiding students to be open minded, reserve judgment, and think with multiple perspectives, the article’s author rightly wonders if too much teacher objectivity may lead to students not thinking there are moral and ethical rights and wrongs in life.

I liked how the author defines the purpose behind studying history: “Studying the past offers a venue for reflecting on the human condition and developing a sense of right and wrong.”

Viewing all opinions and perspectives equally may result in students looking at the world and how we treat one another through an overly relativistic lens when in fact we want our students to develop an ethical and moral compass to guide them into and throughout adulthood. 

It’s hard to teach history in these polarized and politicized times, yet, as we have emphasized this year in our all-school meetings, if we keep the words of our mission and program pillars as the basis for what and how we teach, we will be doing well for our students.

Joe

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I ask a lot of open-ended questions in my history classes, the kinds of questions to which there are no right answers, only good answers (logical, well-supported and so on). 

A few years ago I started asking myself such a question: “Am I damaging my students?”

Here’s the context. In the past I hesitated to share my own opinions about the questions we addressed in class. My hesitation came from a desire to maintain some level of objectivity and my understanding that this is what was expected of me as a teacher. 

But my attempt to strike a neutral pose began to feel like a major ethical and philosophical quandary: Is neutrality possible or even desirable.

I have come to the conclusion that objectivity is practically impossible. What’s more, it can hinder our students’ moral development. And cultivating morality is uniquely essential to the project of teaching history. Studying the past offers a venue for reflecting on the human condition and developing a sense of right and wrong. We study who we were so that we can figure out who we want to be.

Today’s students often view moral claims as mere opinions that are not true or are true only relative to a culture. In other words, today’s students have an overdeveloped sense of relativism. All opinions or perspectives are considered equal. My students tolerate all views while dismissing none.

A student once gave me a note on the last day of school that read, much to my alarm, “Thank you for a great course. I learned that if you look at perspectives that are different, then you will see that everyone is right for different reasons.” I was dismayed because, of course, everyone is decidedly not right for different reasons. Some people are quite wrong about a lot of things, and many of those people feature heavily in the U.S. and global history classes I teach.

Teachers often diversify and complicate their students’ thinking by talking about studying history from “multiple perspectives.” This approach can be an effective way to broaden students’ thinking and include voices from outside of the dominant narrative.

I have come to see, however, that the inclusion of “multiple perspectives” without sufficient attention to power, intent and privilege makes it challenging for history teachers to honor their moral imperative. 

Talking about perspectives without talking about power can imply an equivalency of viewpoints that brings with it a very real danger of erasing historical injustice. Do we consider the perspective of the slave owner and the enslaved person to be equally valid?

Instead of multiple perspectives, I use “narrative,” which we can define as “perspective + power.” Using a narrative means interrogating the story and the storyteller, shifting perspective but also opening us up to questions of authority, power and control. Narrative offers us a way to frame history as multiple stories while also allowing us to talk about right and wrong. Without it, we risk producing relativists who tolerate all views and critique and interrogate ---none.

I acknowledge the fact that I want students to think how I do, as an expert in historical thinking. I also want them to learn how to build reasoned and well-articulated arguments. So, I think it’s okay to recognize and teach from one’s own bias and preconceptions provided that a) there is room for dissension and debate and b) students are assessed on the clarity of their thinking, soundness of their arguments and judiciousness of their evidence—and not their parroting of my ideas.

As students improve their discussion and argumentation skills, they will inevitably challenge each other. At other times, students will introduce ideas and ways of thinking that do not mesh with our subjective interpretations of the issue. Preparing for these moments means knowing what types of comments we as teachers will let slide and what we will flag as unacceptable. This means thoroughly assessing our own “red lines,” those areas that we will not permit students to enter.

My goal is for my students to learn to think how I think but not necessarily what I think. Inevitably, they may reach conclusions similar to my own, but the process of developing historical thinking skills is more important than whether or not they agree with me.

The Second Born Curse

This week's article summary is The Curse of the Second Born Child is Real.

I have always been fascinated by birth order, and, as a first-born, I wonder how different I might be if I had older siblings. 

 The article below intrigued me because of its shocking statistics for second-born boys and how more often they end up in trouble in school and even in life.

To me, a significant difference in birth order is the rules and limits first borns often have versus their younger siblings. 

As a first born, I had my parents’ attention much more than my younger sister did. Every rite of passage I encountered was novel, exciting, and potentially anxiety-inducing for my parents. Going through adolescence, getting a driver’s license, going on a first date, playing varsity sports, getting a first job, etc. Applying to college for a first born is often a family affair; we took family trips to visit college campuses. 

Yet by the time my sister applied my parents had lost their enthusiasm for the college search process. Instead, they had moved on to newer interests in my life’s path: my first job, getting married, having kids.

As a first born, I not surprisingly felt that my parents were overly involved in my life; I envied the autonomy my sister had, free from my parents’ watchful eyes. My sister, on the other hand, always felt that my parents doted on me and my needs and ignored her.

The article shouldn’t make you worry that your second-born son is heading down the road to ruin, yet it should remind us as parents to provide an equal amount of love, care, and attention to all of our kids.

Joe

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 If you have a son who’s the youngest or middle child, you’re going to want to watch them like a hawk. Second-born sons are more likely to get suspended, become juvenile delinquents, and go to prison.

According to a new report, the “curse of the second-born child” might be true. The report scoured tons of data sets and found that second-born children (specifically sons) have a whopping 25% to 40% increased chance of getting in serious trouble at school or with the law when compared to the first-born in the same family.

Researchers have suggested for a while that first-borns do better in education, have higher IQs, and can earn higher wages, but this is one of the first major studies to point out that second-born children are in fact the troublemakers of the bunch. 

And this isn’t something exclusive to families here in the states. The family data sets, consisting of thousands of sets of brothers, come from both the U.S. and Europe. Now, this isn’t to say that every second-born son is going to be a handful, but the study suggests the risk is there. 

But why? What makes second-born sons so different from their older siblings? 

For one, the report hypothesizes parents of first-borns are more invested in their upbringing. By the time the second kid comes around, parents are simply less vigilant. It also has to do with the child’s role models, who are adults: “The firstborn has role models, who are adults. And the second, later-born children have role models who are slightly irrational 2-year-olds, i.e., their older siblings. Both the parental investments are different, and the sibling influences probably contribute to these differences we see in the labor market and what we find in delinquency. It’s just very difficult to separate those two things because they happen at the same time.”

It’s important to note, however, this research is painting a very broad picture. Not every family will encounter this phenomenon, and being a second-born son certainly doesn’t mean you will have a harder time in life. There are always exceptions to the rule. 

But for parents out there raising a second child, it couldn’t hurt to keep a watchful eye and stay on guard. It seems that treating them differently than your first-born will have an impact.