Building Agency in Students

 This week's summary is Giving Kids Some Autonomy Has Surprising Results, and it carries on the theme of developing student independence and autonomy in last week’s summary 

One of our goals as a school is to support the development of agency in our students. 

The formal definition of agency is as follows: The sense of control you feel in your life, your capacity to influence your own thoughts and behavior, and belief in your ability to handle a wide range of tasks and situations -- agency helps you be psychologically stable yet flexible in the face of conflict or change.

It’s an apt description of a well-functioning and regulated adult, which is what we hope our students become.

At admissions events, I express a simpler definition of for prospective parents: we develop in our students a strong, confident sense of self.

The article below reminds us through examples that agency in our students needs to be cultivate and developed with scaffolding, direction, and intentionality.

The last paragraph of the article was particularly impactful for me: Let kids do for themselves what they can already do, guide and encourage them to do things they can almost do, and teach and model for them the things they can’t do yet.

 Joe

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Many young adults feel woefully unprepared for life in the work force.

Employers agree, saying that new hires from GenZ lack initiative, communication skills, problem-solving abilities, and resilience. 

The reason? It’s not just social media and the pandemic. It’s also because parents and schools aren’t building enough agency into childrearing and schooling. 

Giving kids agency doesn’t mean letting them do whatever they want. It doesn’t mean lowering expectations, turning education into entertainment, or allowing children to choose their own adventure. It involves orchestrating the development of three important life skills:

• Identifying and pursuing goals that are meaningful to young people
• Building strategies and skills to reach those goals
• Assessing progress and making course corrections

The problem is that very few students have these experiences, which may be why the percent of kids who say they love school goes from 74 percent in third grade to only 26 percent in tenth grade. 

Studies around the world show that building in goal-setting, strategy development, and self-monitoring has a significant positive impact on classroom engagement, grades, peer-to-peer comity, and happiness .

Some specific examples:

At the start of a lesson on the solar system, instead of giving a step-by-step outline, the teacher asks students what they’re curious about, what they’re interested in and care about, and what they want to know.

Instead of using controlling language – You need to read this article by Friday – taking a reasoning approach – I’m assigning this article because I want you to understand how photosynthesis can be useful in trying to invent new climate change technology. Reasoning language lowers the shield and kids open up. 

Instead of saying, Here is an example of a good essay. Please go write one, a teacher says, Here is an example of a good essay. What is your goal for your first draft? and then monitors and coaches as students write.

A Dallas, Texas elementary teacher has her students set learning goals in every class and reports that students chase her down in the hallway to report on their progress, proud of what they’ve accomplished. 

Rather than ordering a resistant child to do homework, a parent says, I know you hate doing homework. I felt that way too when I was a kid. But homework can make a big difference in helping you master a new skill. We could work for 15 minutes and then take a break, or would you rather take a break now and start in an hour?

In the words of psychologist Aliza Pressman: “Let kids do for themselves what they can already do, guide them and encourage them to do things they can almost do, and then teach and model for them the things that they can’t do.”