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

------

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.

 

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

--

“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. 

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

------

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.