Preschoolers Care about Their Social Reputations

This week’s article summary is Preschool and Kindergarten Kids Care About Their Reputations.

As the bulk of my teaching experience has been with upper elementary and middle schoolers, I’ve always been in awe of preschool teachers. I know what makes emerging adolescents tick and have always connected and related to them, but am intimidated by a class of preschoolers. From psychology courses and from years listening in faculty meetings, I had come to believe that preschool and kindergarten students are at such a egocentric developmental stage that they are more often than not oblivious to others and others’ feelings and needs. Teachers devote as much attention to social-emotional development as cognitive development, yet for our youngest students lessons about sharing and empathy take inordinate time, reinforcement, and practice to become habits I take for granted in older students.

Yet the article below is making me see that my view is perhaps too narrow as it highlights emerging research that preschool kids are in fact more keenly aware of social dynamics and how others—particularly authority figures—view them.

A few weeks ago I listened to a report on NPR that explained while human babies are prone to sharing and fairness, baby monkeys are not. The hypothesized reason is that humans learned to survive and thrive as a species by working together while monkeys—although social animals too—are much more hierarchical, meaning the alpha monkey gets—and to other monkeys deserves—more food and resources. To a monkey, a strong alpha is a comfort. To a human, fairness and equity are the way to success and happiness.

As humans have an innate predilection to share, we like to be commended for these behaviors and constantly assess place and value in our community. Yes, selfishness might ironically be at the heart of cooperation, but our genes from birth direct us to share and seek safety from our community. It logically follows that our youngest students are cognizant of social interactions and the ever-changing social dynamics in the classroom.

In preschool and kindergarten classrooms we still see much egocentrism and parallel play, but research is revealing that our young students not as unaware of social relationships and reputations as others—like me--have thought.

Joe

Five-year-old kids entering preschool care about their reputations and kindergarteners may even take adult-like pains to maintain a public image.

Young children will vary their behavior based on who is watching, and they will pass judgment on the reputational behaviors of others.

Until recently, it was unclear whether small children cared about their reputations at all. Two decades ago, it was accepted that complex reputational behavior could not emerge in children until age 9.

But a recent study found that five-year-old children are more generous when they know they’re being watched, and this effect is even stronger when they’re observed by potential reciprocators. Other studies have shown that, once children acquire a positive reputation, they’ll fight to keep it—preschoolers who are told they have a good reputation are less likely to behave dishonestly. And small children appear to recognize reputation for the social capital that it is. Five-year-olds offer positive evaluations of classmates to improve their friends’ social standings. By age six, children are suspicious of peers who harm others’ reputations.

Much of the research includes children being put in situations where reputation is relevant, and shows that children vary their behavior in surprising and sometimes deceptive or strategic ways. But it’s unclear whether children are actively being deceptive. Are preschoolers smooth operators who fake generosity to get ahead, or are they simply more open about their inherent kindness when there’s something to be gained by showing off?

Future studies will examine how parents and teachers can leverage the fact that preschoolers do care about their social reputations to encourage good behavior.

Until then, there are a few takeaways for moms and dads. When interacting with your preschoolers and kindergarteners, keep in mind that they probably care quite a bit about how others view them—and that they’re constantly taking cues from you. If you tell them they have a good reputation, they’ll fight to maintain it. And if you maintain your own reputation by bragging obnoxiously, odds are they’ll do it too.

The Self-Handicapping Student

This week’s article summary is The Unexpected Reason Some Students Procrastinate.

I have two kids, both grown now.

As students they were like day and night.

My older one was the ideal student in every way: self-starter, well organized, bright but not top-of-the-class bright, knew when he needed help and where to get it, saw the connection between effort and progress. He earned pretty high grades and always received excellent narrative comments in progress reports.

My other son was much stronger cognitively. Neither one ever took an IQ test, but I’m confident my second son’s IQ exceeds my other son’s, my wife’s, and mine. Yet he struggled as a student: left assignments and projects to the last minute, rarely was prepared for class, if he studied for tests is was a night-before cram session, never took notes, even bragged about being able to ‘wing it’ in classes. Not surprisingly neither his grades nor teacher comments were very good.

As you’ll see in the article, I’m pretty sure he was a self-handicapper: by not putting in effort in school, his low grades and mediocre comments from teachers to him were not a reflection of his lack of achievement but lack of interest.

As I read the article I thought of many students I had through the years who like my one son struggled in school and were also self-handicappers.

What made things worse was as a parent and teacher I didn’t help my son and other students overcome their tendency to self-handicap. Rather I further galvanized their fixed mindset by telling them things like, “I see so much potential in you” or “I know how smart you are” or “I need to see your performance equal your abilities.”

While helping kids develop a growth mindset is one strategy in the article, there are others as well teachers can use to help kids overcome this common reality of masking feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy behind a façade of bravado.

Joe

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There's a student that's familiar to many teachers: He's the one who stumbles into class with sleep in his eyes after staying up late from writing his paper at the last minute. He probably avoids studying for tests, too. And maybe his backpack is a jumbled mess of crumpled papers and unorganized notes.

And there's also a common explanation for his bad habits: He probably doesn't particularly care how he does in school. But psychologists say that, for some students, that's a totally inaccurate assumption.

Some students engage in so-called self-handicapping behaviors not because they don't care. Rather, those students care a great deal about success and they are trying to protect themselves from the negative emotions they might feel if they fail at an academic task. So they put off studying for the big test, giving themselves an excuse in advance for a low score. And they might not always realize why they are doing it.

Self-handicapping is kind of release valve for the anxiety some students associate with academics.

Research on self-handicapping has been around for decades, but the findings take on fresh relevance when coupled with a growing understanding of how students' self perception and understanding of the learning process affects their academic success. For these individuals, how others perceive them is more important to them than what they do for themselves. They think, 'If I can engage in some behavior that sort of dupes other people, then those other people can think, well, he's not dumb, he's just really busy or whatever.'

But students aren't just focused on fooling their peers; they also want to fool themselves. Some researchers have found students self-handicap in secret, with behaviors that might not be evident to classmates or teachers.

Students are more likely to self-handicap if they perceive an outcome as certain when it's actually uncertain. The combination of a low sense of control (inability to do well on a test) over a situation and a high regard for the outcome (wanting a high score) can lead to a fear of failure.

One possible response is teaching students that they have more control over their academic success than they think. Rather than focusing their energy on giving themselves an excuse for possible failure, they could try to avoid failure all together through smarter studying strategies and goal setting exercises. Some schools have worked with students to plan ahead for how they will study for a test, to anticipate distractions and challenges, and to prepare to work through them.

Another related response is to help students confront their fear of failure. Carol Dweck's popular research on growth mindsets emphasizes teaching students how to learn through failure. Students with a growth mindset believe that skill and academic strength can be developed through effort and practice. That's contrasted with students with a fixed mindset, who believe their intelligence and skill sets are as unchangeable as the color of their eyes. Students with fixed mindsets may be more likely to fear failure because they believe it reflects on their own value. 

Some schools have built on that research, working to "normalize failure" by framing it as an opportunity to learn. Those schools give students more chances to revise their work so they can learn new strategies to solving problems and answering questions.

It's also possible that some students aren't totally aware of the mental and emotional games they're playing to buffer themselves from a fear of failure. One teacher told me her first approach when she suspects a student is self-handicapping is to simply sit them down and tell them about the behaviors she's observed. Then she makes an effort to follow up in the future.

Building Students' Non-Cognitive Skills

This week’s article summary is Building Students' Non-Cognitive Skills.

As I began to read this article, I was at first a little surprised that author categorized various techniques to develop social emotional skills as novel and innovative.

He writes about learning progressions, reflective journaling, student-led conference, cooperative learning—all of which are now deeply embedded in a Trinity education—as new.

While commonplace at Trinity, these are novel ideas for other more traditional schools where there’s a preponderance of teacher-directed instruction, one-size-fits-all assessment, and little student empowerment and voice and choice.

By the end of the article I couldn’t help but be very proud to be part of Trinity where what’s novel and ideal for other schools is the norm and the real for us!

Joe

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The emergence of smartphones and their apps has created a new world of personalization, instant results, and the ability to connect with others without actually making contact, but some of the basic foundational skills—perseverance, social skills, and more—that were once developed naturally have gone by the wayside.

Below are non-cognitive factors commonly lacking in today’s students and ways to address how to develop these skills through specific (and easy to implement) instruction.

ACADEMIC PERSEVERANCE: This skill is best explained as the ability a student has to stick with a task, even when it is not a quick or easy one. One way to build this skill is to use learning scales, which are a convenient way to help students monitor their progress toward proficiency and eventually mastery of standards. Learning scales can be created by setting the standard you’re teaching at the proficiency mark (typically called level 3), then writing more simplified versions of the standard for levels 1 and 2, and a more intense version of the standard for level 4 (mastery). Another way to build academic perseverance is to use reflective journals with your students. Have them write about their level of understanding or points of confusion. You can incorporate this at the beginning of a lesson, several times throughout the lesson, and at the conclusion of the lesson. Allow students to read through their reflections at least once a week to see the progress they made simply by continuing to do their best.

LEARNING STRATEGIES: These skills are just what the term says: strategies we use in order to learn. While your students are familiar with strategies you regularly use in your classroom, they are likely not aware of why you’re using those strategies. Be explicit about the why. For example, when you introduce a new lesson with an activating strategy, tell your students about it: “We’re doing this because we need to connect what you already know to this new topic.” What you’re doing by being explicit is teaching students how to monitor their metacognition. Help them to keep tabs on their learning by asking them to be aware of how much they are paying attention to what they are hearing, or reading, or writing. Asking your students to pay attention to their cognitive engagement can yield big returns.

SOCIAL SKILLS: These foundational skills influence a student’s ability to communicate and work effectively with others. While this seems like something all students have mastered, it is often a skill set they need direct instruction in order to develop. A good place to start is with setting norms for speaking and listening in your classroom. Ideally, you should involve your students in the norm-setting process, but some non-negotiables should be: When someone speaks, provide them with your full attention; only one person should speak at a time; and leave three seconds of quiet between when one person stops talking and the next person starts talking. Often, students fall into the trap of halfheartedly listening to what others are saying because they’re busy planning their own response. Have them practice listening and replying to a partner with the opening line, “What I hear you saying is _____. I agree or disagree because _____.” This exercise is best done in pairs so that each student has a direct responsibility to a partner and there’s not an opportunity to not participate.

ACADEMIC MINDSET: The work of Carol Dweck, the leading researcher on academic mindset, is readily available and provides excellent guidelines for helping students and teacher achieve an academic mindset. Creating a classroom environment where students see the relevance of learning, and where they feel a sense of belonging, is an excellent way to foster an academic mindset in them. You may also consider having students lead their own student-parent conferences. This provides students with a sense of ownership and the ability to identify their strengths and opportunities for growth.