Grit

It seems that every few years in education there's a buzz about something new and innovative whether it's new research, a new idea, or even an tried and true idea rediscovered.

For the past few years there's been much talk among educators about the importance of a student's attitude towards learning--and life in general--in determining his/her future success.

There was a report on NPR sharing research that of the three most important factors shaping a child's success (IQ, parents' socioeconomic level, and ability to self-discipline and self-regulate), the ability to self-control was the most variable and hence most significant.

There was Carol Dweck's book Mindset that posited that a growth rather than fixed mindset toward learning is crucial in a child's success.

There was the New York Times article "What if the Secret to Success is Failure" where author Paul Tough interviewed the KIPP school president and the head of school at Riverdale Country School in their quest to identify and quantify student study and work habits.

Recently, a close friend of mine, Tom Hoerr (head of school of New City School in St. Louis) wrote an article for ASCD entitled Got Grit? where he proposes that student success is predicated on learning to respond to failure.  He reduces this to one qulaity: grit.

For Tom, grit "entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress."

Engineering student failure and frustration is not something parents and teachers come to naturally, especially in a place like Orchard that celebrates the uniqueness of each child.

For most of us, helping a child develop self-confidence and assurance is a step-by-step process. Every child--especially in upper elementary and middle school--often has a fragile ego and more often that not we teachers strive to help every child find success.

While it's important to get to know every child as an individual, we also need to make sure they have opportunities to be frustrated and to learn to persevere. I often say one of Orchard's qualities is that is puts equal emphasis on the process and product of learning. In the case of learning to overcome adversity, the process is paramount.

A number of years ago I was coaching middle school soccer for a school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We had traveled to Dallas to play an all-boys school that had a long home winning-streak. With just a few minutes left in the game and the score tied at 2, we scored the apparent wining goal, but the referee disallowed it for a reason known only to him. Our parents, who had driven down from Tulsa, were incensed and began yelling and protesting that the referee was clearly a "homer" and only disallowed the goal because he wanted to protect the home team's winning streak. One of our parents even had videotaped the end of the game and offered to show it to the referee.

For me, this was a great teachable moment.

I called my players to the bench, told them how hard they had played, how proud I was of their effort, and that sometimes forces beyond their control could lead to an unfair outcome. I told them to hold their heads up, shake hands with the other team, and not to say anything derogatory to anyone. In other words, exhibit good sportsmanship.

The next week back at school, the Dallas school contacted our head of school and lauded the behavior of our players in a situation that clearly was unfair. He thanked them for being such great sports and for exhibiting such self-control. The head of school later came to a middle school assembly and publicly praised our team for dealing so maturely and calmly in such a difficult situation.

I've coached many teams through the years being elated with exciting victories and crushed by tough tough losses, but this game and how my players dealt with adversity is the game I remember the most.

They displayed grit and grace that day, and I was proud of them not just as athletes but as young men who I knew would be able to face and deal with future disappointment and even failure but had the grit and perseverance to overcome.

Enjoy Spring Break!

Seven Myths about How Students Learn

A recent Washington Post article identified a number enduring educational myths and misperceptions that continue to adversely influence American education.

Myth 1: Basic Facts Come Before Deep Learning

This one is a little tricky because cognitive science has proved that a) new learning does build on what already is in the brain and b) deeper cognitive thought occurs around stored knowledge. However, in schools this myth often translates into "boring stuff that must be memorized" precedes fun, active learning. The truth here is that all learning--even student development of essential knowledge--can and should be presented and learned through active engagement, not static, boring lessons.

Myth 2: Rigorous Education Means a Teacher Talking

In 1997 a University of Texas study showed the following:
     -We remember 10% of what we read
     -We remember 20% of what we hear
     -We remember 30% of what we see
     -We remember 50% of what we see and hear
     -We remember 70% of what we say
     -We remember 90% of what we do and say

While teacher lecture remains a popular form of teaching, it clearly does not lead lead to enhanced student learning or performance. (A future blog will focus on the recent Harvard Magazine article about physics professor Eric Mazur who advocates for peer instruction over teacher lecture.)

Myth 3: Covering It Means Teaching It

This seems to so obviously wrong, yet in this standards-based era of increased content, many teachers have been forced to superficially cover a topic in class in order to fulfill the curriculum. There's an obvious connection to Myth 2 in that just because a teacher covers a topic, it does not mean the students have understood let alone mastered it.

Myth 4: Teaching to Student Interest Means Dumbing It Down

It's important for teachers to understand cognitive development and to teach in an age-appropriate manner. However, if a teacher sets high expectations for students, they typically rise to the challenge. Way back in 1968 there was a study referred to as "Pygmalion in the Classroom" (just Google those words) which supports the idea that students will rise to challenges (as well as plunge in a classroom of low expectations).

Myth 5: Acceleration Means Rigor

This connects with Myth 3 as well as the idea that breadth of content is preferable to depth. All teachers are familiar with Bloom's Taxonomy of thinking skills: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. Recently I cam across a revision of Bloom's Taxonomy that explained that greater difficulty operates within each of those thinking skills while greater complexity inlvoves having students think more deeply. Too often today, classroom assessment focus too much on lower level thinking. More homework that only requires lower-level thinking does not help a student learn more.

Myth 6: A Quiet Classroom Means Good Learning

To me this myth grew from expectation of proper student behavior in the classroom. However, the goal of a classroom needs to be student engagement through project-based learning; appropriate student input, voice, and decision-making; appropriate differentiation, i.e., variety in terms of the content, process, and product of what's being learned; and a healthy combination of individual and group collaborative work. A loud classroom does not necessarily equate to poor student behavior or a teacher who has poor classroom management skills.

Myth 7: Traditional Schooling Prepares Student for Life

In many ways the previous 6 myths describe a more traditional way of teaching, and the con of each myth describes the attributes of a more progressive, child-centered way of teaching--the way in which Orchard has approached education since its founding in 1922.

I continue to marvel at the courage of the founding mother of Orchard when these myths were even more deep-seated in the opinion of good teaching.

A Whole Child Education

ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) in a recent op-ed in the Washington Post asked people in the United States to join its We the People initiative and sign a petition to make “a whole child approach” to educational reform a national priority.

In previous blogs I’ve highlighted on core tenets and distinguishing features of progressive schools like Orchard. A whole-child focus is a vital quality of progressive schools, but it has been neglected in many other schools, particularly in the past ten years.

“A whole child approach to education enhances learning by addressing each student’s social, emotional, physical, and academic needs through the shared contributions of schools, families, communities, and policymakers. It is a move away from education policy that far too narrowly focuses on student standardized test scores as the key school accountability measure and that has resulted in the narrowing of curriculum as well as rigid teaching and learning environments.”

Many schools have moved away from programs and pedagogy that don’t help to raise student scores on standardized tests. Recently I read an article describing a new teacher evaluation system in Tennessee that holds all teachers equally accountable to how students perform on reading and math tests regardless of the discipline the taught by the teacher; as a result, PE teachers in some Tennessee schools devote their class to reading lessons rather than physical education.

“The true measure of student success is much more than a test score, and ensuring that young people achieve in and out of school requires support well beyond effective academic instruction. The demands of the 21st century require a new approach to education to fully prepare our nation’s youth for college, career, and citizenship.”

As I mentioned in previous blogs, there seems to be a mounting backlash against the testing emphasis of the past ten years that has not resulted in enhanced student learning and had often led to less student engagement and classroom relevance in student lives. A great read about the missteps of the No Child Left Behind era is Diane Ravitch’s The Death and Life of the Great American School System where Ravitch, who once championed high-stakes testing, now is a strong opponent of these tests.

“No one would argue that we need a relevant, personalized and meaningful education system. But we won’t get there with a short-term focus on proficiency in reading and math. Instead we need to address the broad array of factors influencing long-term success required of students after high school graduation.”

The longer I am at Orchard, the more I value the wisdom of the founding school mothers and their deep belief in the values and tenets of a progressive, child-centered, active learning school environment.

Summative V. Formative Tests

A recent Education Week article referenced a survey where 85% parents and 80% teachers saw formative testing as more valuable than summative.

Summative tests measure what students have learned at the end of the year. Formative tests measure how well students are learning material as it is being taught.

Most standardized tests are used as summative measures, and they have become more prevalent in this era of No Child Left Behind. These summative assessments are called high-stakes tests because a public school’s funding and autonomy are determined by the results.  

The survey results indicate a backlash against these high-stakes, summative tests.

“Parents and teaches think that summative tests don’t give them the information they consider most valuable, and yet the pendulum has swung so far in that direction that there is a risk to other kinds of tests that actually help children learn.”

In the survey, parents and teachers also indicated that tests should monitor student progress more broadly, e.g., critical thinking, problem solving, creativity and even collaboration, which are all lauded as vital characteristics needed for success in the 21st century. Too often, standardized test questions focus on a breadth of content and skills and do not ask students to think in the higher domains of analysis, synthesis, evaluation.

Current high-stakes, summative tests typically are only in math and reading, yet the survey showed that parents and teachers see the benefit of a well-rounded education and want schools to make room for areas like the arts and physical eduction, which have been lessened, if not eliminated, in many school because of the emphasis on end-of-course assessments.

While I was not surprised that a majority of teachers saw the value of formative over summative assesments, I was pleased that parents understand their child's education is a process and not simply measured by a score on one test. Parents have been bombarded over the past ten years that tougher standardized tests were the key to improving American education. Clearly, the magic, nuance, and subtleties of education are much more complicated than a one-size-fits-all test.

I was also pleased that parents value the benefits of whole-child (cognitive, social-emotional, physical) and a well-rouned education (academics arts, physical education)--areas that Orchard has always included in its program and curriculum. 

Lessons Through Failure

In a recent Education Week article, a college admission director wrote about how he tries to dig deeper into applicant files "to find out who the students really are outside of their trophies, medals, and test scores."

He particularly likes when applicants describe a significant failure and how they dealt with it.

"It's so rare to hear stories of defeat and triumph that when we do, we cheer. If their perspectives are of lessons learned or challenges overcome, these applicants tend to jump to the top of the heap at highly selective collesge. We believe an error in high school should not define the rest of your life, but how you respond could shape you forever...Failure is about growth, learning, overcoming, and moving on. Let's allow young people to fail."

Let's allow young people to fail is not a part of any school's mission statement, but perhaps it should be.

Now that my kids are 24 and 21, I see the important lessons they've learned dealt more with adversity and challenge than with successes.

I have said many times that a parent is only as old as their oldest child. As your eldest child is growing up, it's tough to resist coming to your his/her rescue whenever he/she hits a bump in the road, no matter how small. We want the best for our children and with our oldest we are experiencing these rites of passage for the first time; we may have experienced them personally as children but that's different from the vicarious experience as parents.

I remember how nervous my wife and I were when my oldest was a high school senior and applying to college. While he was a solid student, we irrationally worried if he would even get into college.  We encouraged him to apply to more colleges than any reasonable person should. Two years later when our younger one was a high school senior, we were more relaxed and left the college selection and application process up to him, and he only applied to a few colleges.

In addition to being more involved in your oldest child's life, parents also worry that our kids' development as a student and as a person should be a smooth, continuous ascent. We worry that any hiccup might be an sign that our child is headed for trouble and has permanently deviated from the path of success. When one of my kids was in 6th grade, he failed a math test and my wife, a high school math teacher, was sure this was the beginning of the end for our son. The reality was he was beginning to test limits--as all adolescents do; he wondered if he needed to study for this test, tested his hypothesis by not studying, and--based on the result--learned an important lesson: for him, studying for a test was important.

Our kids' development will come from many disappointments:  not making a sports team, not being a straight A student, not getting the lead in the school play, not understanding a concept in class, not being in the right social group. I know it's difficult for parents to resist coming to their child's rescue--and there are certainly times when they'll need to--yet parents should be cautious about getting overly-involved with issues and disappointments that will actually help their child grow, problem-solve, and gain self-confidence--and even provide them with a great topic for their college application essay.

Beyond IQ

I teach a section of 8th grade language arts at Orchard. My wife is also a teacher at a local high school where many Orchard's graduates matriculate.

Through the years we've taught some of the same students. 

When we both began teaching, we tended to view a student's cognitive ability as the most important determinant in a student's success in our classrooms. We naively felt that students who were bright should naturally perform well in our classes and students who had less cognitive ablity should logically struggle in our classes. 

In talking about kids we've both taught, we found that, while cognitive ability is a determinant in a student's success in a classroom, a student's work ethic and attitude toward learning are far more reliable indicators. 

A recent article in Education Week Click for article and the Harvard Education Letter Click for article point out that schools, particularly public schools, are just beginning to recognize (and are efforting to measure) skills and competencies beyond cognitive ability as they are more important in preparing children for high school, college, and beyond.

In an era of high-stakes testing, some public schools have recognized that their program does not allow for creativity and innovative thinking in their students. Teaching to the test is not inherently bad: after all, Grant Wiggins has encouraged teachers for the past twenty years to be more upfront with students about how they will be asked to demonstrate their understanding of the content presented. However, too often high-stakes tests focus on broad and superficial content. Student opportunities to be creative and innovative have been forgotten in many schools because they are not skills measured in high-stakes tests. 

While I'm not sure a creativity index (as detailed in the Education Week article) is the answer, I am encouraged that schools are once again embracing the value of the arts, project-based learning, and student independent research.

The Harvard Education Letter article traces the roots of future leadership in individuals to habits and skills like embracing novel experiences and having what Carol Dweck calls a growth rather than a fixed mindset. 

What research is showing us and what teachers need to look for and develop in the classroom extends beyond a student's innate cognitive ability. In a previous blog, I referenced Tony Wagner's book, The Global Achievement Gap, where he challenges schools to emphasize the following competencies needed for success in today's world: critical thinking, problem solving, working collaboratively, taking initiative, communicating effectively, being curious and imaginative.

My wife and I now use a student's persistence, motivation, and resilience as more logical indicators of classroom success than cognitive ability.

Progressive Heads Meeting

At the recent ISACS heads of school conference in Chicago, I helped facilitate a conclave of heads from progressive schools. Out of the 200 or so ISACS schools, about 20 schools categorize themselves as progressive.

The specific question discussed was "Are progressive schools finding themselves in a more or less marketable position in a down economy and with increased global competition?"

There was an overall feeling of optimism throughout the hour-long discussion. A number of heads felt that a backlash was beginning against high-stakes testing and rigor, i.e., more homework, more content, faster pace, and more student stress. More and more parents are looking for greater balance at home and at school in their children's lives.

To most of these heads, progressive schools provide students with a competitive advantage by emphasizing the development of skills and competencies needed for success in a competitive world: critical thinking, problem solving, initiative, curiosity, imagination, collaboration, and effective communication.

Heads related stories of students who had transferred to their schools from highly traditional ones. These students, who often had become overly stressed and anxious at their previous school, quickly regained their confidence and enthusiasm and began producing exemplary work in a more child-centered, nurturing school environment.

Even with these testimonials, there was an undercurrent of doubt among some heads that parents, worried for their children in a uncertain and more competitive world, would continue to question progressive tenets that often elude quantitative measures. Nevertheless, one head asked prospective parents at an open house to write on a 3 by 5 card what outcome they most wanted for their children from school. The overwhelming answer was "self-confidence."

We ended the meeting by identifying how schools could better illustrate the benefits and outcomes of a progressive educaiton. Some of the ideas were as follows: alumni testimonials of how a progressive education provided a foundation for success in high school, college, and beyond; have students be more front and center in open houses, school assemblies, and other community events; include more videos on school websites capturing progressive classrooms in action; more clearly explain to parents that a progressive education is different from a traditional one and that, yes, there will be an inevitable transition to high school but, since their children have developed a sense of resilience and persistence, they will adjust quickly to new challenges.

The meeting included a number of heads from traditional schools who later confided to me about the "hollowness and one-dimensionality" of their schools. They did not feel their students were engaged at school and were not learning to think critically or creatively.

Like most of the heads in this meeting, I am optimistic that more and more parents will see the benefits of a progressive education in a competitive world.