How to Foster Student Engagement in the Classroom

This week's article summary is The Engagement Illusion.

Young children are innately curious and intrinsically motivated to learn. Almost everything they see and experience is a learning opportunity. But research studied show that kids as early as third grade can become bored and disengaged by school.

One of Trinity’s goals is to maintain student engagement in all grades: one of my measures of school success is seeing our UED students, especially in our older grades, engaged and motivated by their schoolwork.

Yet the article advises us to not confuse engagement with compliance in the classroom.

So how can we be sure students are engaged?

As the article attests, first we need to allow plenty of classroom open discussion and collaboration. Our kids at all ages and grades need to be able to actively participate and talk about why, what, and how they’re learning and their role and responsibility in the process and demonstration of their learning. A by-product of these discussions is teachers get a better sense of what is truly relevant and meaningful for the student(s), a critical need for continued engagement.

Second, teachers need to provide an appropriate amount of student voice and choice. There are a lot of cons to high-stake standardized testing, yet perhaps the biggest is its one-size-fits-all outcome. All humans crave being celebrated for their individuality, and giving kids a greater voice about what they learn and how they will demonstrate their understanding is vital to their continued engagement. We put in our Program Pillars that we give our students opportunities to be ‘critical and creative problem solvers and thinkers.’ 

I really like how the article states that our goal as teachers should be to create students who are ‘confident learners.’ Too often I think of confidence as being about the person’s character, while in fact confidence also supports academic achievement.

As the article states, there is no ‘silver bullet’ to sustain student engagement. Rather it takes a lot of trial and error and time, an example of the true art needed to be a master teacher.

Joe

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Who doesn't like a good magic trick? Regardless of how many times you see them, it's always satisfying to watch magicians make things disappear and reappear.

Yet, once you discover how the trick works, you realize it's just an illusion—that what you thought you were seeing was wrong. And while magic tricks are often just harmless fun, other illusions are dangerous—for example, when they lead educators to settle for the appearance of student engagement as a substitute for vital learning.

We may believe we can easily identify the behavior of disengaged students—sleeping in class, playing games on a device, or disrupting the learning for others. But disengagement can be less obvious, and sometimes hidden. Students may be quiet and compliant in class, facing the teacher and occasionally nodding in agreement, but not be connecting with the learning. They may turn in all their work on time but not really understand the concept and purpose.

Consider, for example, Jaiden, a 10th-grade student. He is quiet, comes to class on time, and follows directions to clear his desk or move to a group. He is not always prepared but is polite in asking for a pencil or book when he forgets his materials. Jaiden does not see any need for most of the classes he is taking and is not sure what he wants to do after high school. Jaiden's behavior may lead his teachers to believe he is engaged, but that behavior is an illusion. It is a performance designed to satisfy his teachers, who value an orderly environment in which the teacher talks and the students listen.

Many students know how to "play school": Be quiet in class, take notes when anything is written on the board, smile, and nod now and then. The engagement illusion can also exist when students appear diligent and on task by quietly working on a digital device, but the human interaction that is essential to learning might be so minimal that it disengages the student from active learning. Layer on top of that a lesson that fails to make connections to the lives of students, and students like Jaiden can sink into a sea of boredom and distraction, even while not showing it.

This one-way communication is the opposite of the vibrant and sometimes noisy collaborative environments that reveal evidence of real learning. The science behind the impact of student engagement on learning is not new, but in the pandemic age, the importance of authentic engagement has grown dramatically.

Let's consider another case. Kari is a 3rd-grade student who is constantly being disciplined. She gets inside recess for failure to complete homework, misbehaving, talking in class, not following directions, and being off task. She loves to draw and will engage in any conversations about current events but doesn't like math or science. Her outbursts usually come during silent reading time. The students like Kari in our classrooms are routinely classified as disengaged, though they are capable of focus and engagement if we take the time to learn about their interests and how they best express their learning. Sometimes, educators create misconceptions about students like Kari rather than probe into reasons the outbursts seem to only happen during silent reading time and consider modifications to support her behavior.

Teachers must look beyond the superficialities in these cases to gain a deeper understanding of engagement. It's possible that in our rush to support our students, we classify student understanding of the material through compliant behaviors. There's an illusion that manifests through our correlation of attentive students as successful students and withdrawn students as not caring. But the power of learning occurs when lessons are created to engage each student.

Student engagement is "the energy and effort that students employ within their learning community, observable via any number of behavioral, cognitive, or affective indicators across a continuum". The research reveals two forms of student engagement: (1) the student's behaviors, emotions, and thought processes, and (2) the student's intellectual response to the challenge of the material.

How can you tell if students are engaged? First, reflect on who is doing most of the talking—the students or the teachers? Teachers sometimes are led to believe that it is their job to perform for the class. These performances frequently involve presentations in which the teacher's expertise is on full display, but there is little demonstration of student learning. In contrast to these performances, other teachers are willing to explore student understanding—and lack of it—by allowing students to talk and make fearless mistakes. These educators can transform students into confident learners.

One of the greatest challenges teachers face in improving student engagement is correcting the perception that engagement is something within the student that cannot be influenced by a teacher. In the midst of a teacher performance, Jaiden, for example, might appear to be engaged, with his eyes on the teacher and pencil poised to copy whatever notes the teacher posts on the board. This compliant demeanor shields the reality that Jaiden's mind is a million miles away, but he has learned how to behave. Kari, on the other hand, may be deeply engaged in learning as she draws what may look like doodles but are in fact creative visual representations of how the teacher's lesson fits into her broader understanding of the subject. Rather than copy the teacher's notes, Kari is constructing learning with arrows, diagrams, pictures, and quotations above characters that reveal deep understanding and questions for further learning.

Here are three major educator misperceptions that perpetuate engagement illusions, along with suggestions for how to correct them to ensure proper learning is taking place.

What I'm Interested In, They'll Be Interested In: Our experiences as teachers illuminate our own errors in understanding student engagement. One teacher often used his own frames of reference—sports, after-school activities, and family vacations—as a way to connect with students to build relationships. But they did not always reflect the interests of his students. But this teacher learned to listen to his students and let their genuine curiosity fuel an environment of mutual discovery in which he became a fellow learner and explorer with his students. Engagement can also be explored outside of the confines of the classroom. Careful listening to student conversations on the playground, lunchroom, and hallways can be illuminating. As teachers, we can only make these connections to the lives of our students when we listen to spontaneous conversations among students outside of the classroom.

Students Learn for the Sake of Learning: Teachers may have entered the profession because of a thirst and curiosity for knowledge, or for the desire to shape and mold young minds. However, we do not always understand that our students may not want to learn just for the sake of learning. They need relevance. We need to be ready to answer the frequent question, "When will I ever need to know this in life?" Listening and learning collaboratively with students and families is a never-ending journey for educators. When teachers invest time at the beginning of a unit to foster an open dialogue that gauges student understanding, misconceptions, viewpoints, questions, and interests, they can create essential questions and identify beneficial resources.

There Is One Clear Path to Learning: In folklore, the silver bullet was the key to defeating a werewolf or other supernatural creature. The imagery of the silver bullet is used today to suggest a simple tool to solve a complex problem. Yet, in most classrooms, the achievement of the perfect blend of challenge and confidence is elusive; there are no silver bullets. Skillful educators make midcourse corrections throughout the day to meet the learning needs of students and engage their interest. The perfect lesson plan, freshly downloaded from the internet, is never perfect for the real classroom. Rather, it's the messy plans, full of annotations, excisions, and marginal additions, that reflect the reality of our classrooms. For example, a lesson that allows students like Jaiden and Kari to identify a position on a current issue and construct an argument to defend their position would definitely raise their engagement level more than a lesson that just had them read an article about the issue.

Getting Beyond the Illusion: Optical illusions occur based on changes in patterns, colors, or light that mislead the brain's hardwiring. They make our brains perceive things based on past experiences or what seems logical. As educators, we can similarly be tricked into thinking that the lessons we've prepared and the planning we've done will allow for students to be engaged. Therefore, it's easy to look at students like Jaiden and Kari and make inaccurate inferences on their levels of engagement. Only by doing the work to look past these illusions—by identifying our students' interests and needs; creating meaningful, real-life connections to the work; and ensuring our lessons result in productive struggle for students—can we begin to gain insights and strategies for success for all our students.

I Left My Homework in the Hamptons

 This week's article summary is I Left My Homework in the Hamptons: What I Learned Teaching the Children of the One Percent.

I have spent my entire career working in prestigious independent schools across the country, and while I never had students on Long Island tell me they left their homework at their vacation house in the Hamptons, they like all kids had inventive excuses for not having their homework completed; we’ve moved from ‘My dog ate to my homework’ to ‘My printer jammed’ to today’s ‘It’s a supply chain issue!’

As you’ll see from the interview with the author who has taught in elite schools around New York City, just because kids come from affluent families doesn’t mean they don’t have struggles and worries and need strong guidance, support, and mentorship from teachers. Particularly when I taught 8th grade, I had many kids who needed a steady adult role model to help them navigate the ups and downs of early adolescence.

Perhaps the biggest challenge for most kids from affluent families is the pressure to succeed. The past few articles focused on rigor and that most parents equate it with a lot of school work. Add to the mix the need to have a robust GPA and a high school transcript with no ‘easy-A classes’ as the gateway to an elite college, Ivy League preferred. With the pressure to succeed, it’s not surprising that self-doubt, overwork, and anxiety often predominate the world of high schoolers.

While I don’t think external and internal pressures will subside for these students, the author below recommends that we must try to help our students focus on what last week’s article highlighted: development of ‘emotional intelligence, listening and empathy, collaboration, creativity, problem solving, generosity, and fairness.’

We need to help our high schoolers to be more well-rounded, be able to have time, as the article below points out, for ‘idea flow’, be less critical of themselves, favor intrinsic over extrinsic motivation, and enjoy the moment more.

I know that conflicts with the world today and its expectations, yet it’s what kids ultimately need to not only be successful but happy and fulfilled.

Joe

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Blythe Grossberg has a doctoral degree in psychology, worked for many years at private schools in Boston and New York. Her new book offers a window into the parenting ideas and experiences of today, and how we might all work to make things more equitable and better for our kids.

Below, Blythe shares 5 key insights from her new book, I Left My Homework in the Hamptons: What I Learned Teaching the Children of the One Percent.

Kids are way too over-scheduled: I’m really speaking about all kids, not just those in the 1% that I focus on in my book. In my book, the situations are a little more extreme, where there are kids in Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights who have squash lessons at 5:00 AM before school, and after school, and even travel around the country or the world to play squash. But all kids, and especially kids who are in the middle class or above, experience over-scheduling in less extravagant ways. Squash is one of those sports that people use as a vehicle to get into competitive colleges, so it acquires this kind of outsized importance. But squash is just one example of the way kids really don’t have time to do what they want to do.

Kids have no time for “idea flow”: Flow was an idea popularized by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a researcher and psychologist. He found that people can get into states of flow, and in those states they’re creative, but they’re also relaxed. Part of this state of flow is unconscious, or just letting your mind drift. We all know, for example, that if we’re running or taking a shower or singing, some really important ideas might come to us. They’re creative ideas, epiphanies—it’s during that time that we really grow and free-associate things in our mind. If kids are stressed out and over-scheduled, they’re not going to have time for this kind of idea flow, and they’re not going to be their full selves psychologically or intellectually. We’re losing a lot, and causing them to lose a lot, by over-scheduling them.

Affluent kids suffer from a unique set of problems: Research shows that affluent kids, in a counterintuitive way, often suffer from issues that resemble those faced by kids who do not have enough to eat or have a safe shelter. I by no means want to suggest that their lives are exactly the same as kids at the other side of the socioeconomic ladder—only that if we want to help all kids, we must acknowledge that affluent kids struggle with their own set of issues. Some of the problems that affluent kids struggle with are substance abuse, emotional issues like anxiety and depression, and the feeling of worthlessness that comes from thinking that they have nothing to offer, or that maybe their parents have done everything for them. Parents in affluent sectors of society place a lot of pressure on achievement over emotional connection, and it’s really that emotional connection that kids strive for with their parents.

There are commonalities in parenting regardless of wealth status: In the book, I discuss my own parenting of a son with autism. I realize that there are commonalities among parents no matter their socioeconomic group, and I think one of them is fear. It’s a fear that the world of tomorrow will be a zero-sum situation, one where if one person loses, another gains, and if one gains, another loses. I think that we can all relate on this level as parents, especially in a world affected by the pandemic, as well as environmental, political, and economic instability. It’s something that I think we need to not chastise ourselves for, but just recognize that a lot of what we do with our kids is motivated by this fear.

What can be done about this situation, really: I think there are several things that can be done, certainly for the kids I work with who often have the privilege of attending private schools or very good public schools. One key is they need the opportunity to reach out to other kinds of people. Because private schools are so expensive, the people who attend them are generally all from the very elite, along with a few kids who have earned scholarships. This situation deprives kids of exposure to other ways of life. Kids really grow from experiencing other people’s ways of life and helping them, though I don’t mean to imply that it’s a one-way street. I talk in my book about kids from an elite school in New York who went to a citizenship center nearby and helped people from all different countries learn the information needed to pass their citizenship tests. The kids felt really, really good about themselves that day. Several of them realized talents that they’d never had before. One kid, who was at the bottom of his class, realized that he was a very skilled teacher. Another girl who wanted to drop out of Spanish realized that she had beautiful Spanish and could communicate with a Spanish-speaking person. So as much as the elite can offer in their communities, their communities offer a lot back to them, and I think we’ve grown too stratified. So if people, especially kids, have that opportunity to leave their schools and go out in their communities, that is wonderful. 

We also need to look at the “sports industrial complex.” Kids today in the middle and upper class are playing on travel teams, and they’re playing so many sports that it starts to erode family time, time when they need to be reading or working at other things—like just relaxing, hanging out with friends, and getting to know their community. I think there are opportunities to play sports that do not operate at that level of stress. Granted, there are some kids for whom sports are a ticket to a better life. For the kids I talk about in my book, this is not true, and though sports are very valuable, we need to dismantle the type of sports industry that makes a lot of money for the people who run it and is not valuable for kids.

Rigor in Schools

This week’s article summary is Out of the Shadows and its focus is the debate in education about rigor.

If you ask parents what they want for their children in school, most will say a ‘rigorous’ education.

The challenge for schools is that the word ‘rigor’ means different things to different people.

For most, a ‘rigorous’ education equates to a lot of work, especially homework. 

One of my kids as a high school senior took an AP American History class because he thought it would look good on his transcript. He didn’t particularly like history (his interests were more math, science, and technology) yet he thought he could handle this class. The problem for him was the course required a herculean amount of daily reading. He couldn’t keep up and didn’t have enough of a history knowledge base to help him read and digest the material more quickly. Two weeks into the class, he knew he was in over his head. 

His AP history class was clearly rigorous yet he didn’t get much out of it except a lot of frustration and a distaste for history.

The term ‘rigor’ needs to be redefined. For me, the article provides a better definition: Rigor in schools is ‘the degree to which a student is in equal parts intellectually challenged, engaged, enriched, and empowered.’

While last week’s article summary discussed the negatives of Bloom’s Taxonomy, the taxonomy at least helps a teacher avoid solely focusing on one type of thinking. AP American history for my son provided  challenge but no engagement, enrichment, or empowerment. 

The article reminds us as teachers to avoid an onerous workload for our students and to provide them with ‘provocative, stimulating, sometimes vexing challenges of grasping complex ideas that make learning meaningful and rewarding.’

We in elementary schools naturally implement the article’s definition of rigor in our classrooms to help our kids develop, as the article says, ‘emotional intelligence, listening and empathy, collaboration, creativity, problem solving, generosity, and fairness’. 

Of course, we teach a lot of content knowledge, yet we do so in a way that asks much more of our students than simply reading a ponderous textbook.

Joe

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Academic rigor has been “catnip” for many parents who associate it with favorable outcomes ranging from high standardized test scores and weighted grades to the grand prize, admission to elite colleges and universities.

But what does rigor mean in the classroom? 

The usual association is with difficulty – rigorous classes are hard – and not necessarily that they are intellectually challenging and conceptually deep. Rigor is more often associated with piled-on reading, homework, and assignments that produce anxiety, sleep deprivation, isolation, and emotional fatigue. Rigor as suffering.

This is not to suggest that academic achievement, ambition, or aspiration aren’t worthy and noble drivers, but there is an argument to be made against unnecessary, unhealthy, and inhumane academic distress – about the peril and the ethics of putting student achievement ahead of student wellness, and the fallacy that the two are competing aims. The additional layers of stress placed on young people during the pandemic have added urgency to the need to rethink rigor in middle and high schools. 

The irony is that parents who push schools to implement the hard-nosed conception of rigor are not helping their children prepare for the “best” careers. Many elite companies are looking for a different set of skills: emotional intelligence, listening and empathy, collaboration, creativity, problem-solving, generosity, and fairness. Certainly students need exposure to direct instruction, core knowledge, memorization and recall, and automaticity – and some students truly blossom when fed and watered by facts, but this is only part of what young people require to lead fulfilling lives. 

Here’s a new definition of rigor: The degree to which a student is in equal parts intellectually challenged, engaged, enriched, and empowered. The big idea is challenge, not in the sense of an onerous workload but the provocative, stimulating, sometimes vexing challenge of grasping complex ideas that make learning meaningful and rewarding (as well as empowering) to master. And this has to be tuned to students’ incoming knowledge, skills, and attitudes, so that work is at the Goldilocks level – not too difficult and not too easy. 

As schools courageously embrace a new conception of rigor that rises above merely a crushing workload, we expect to see both increased student wellness and higher levels of more-meaningful academic achievement. Even the most driven parents should be persuadable around the goal of producing graduates who are also healthy, well-adjusted, confident, and happy. 

Is Bloom's Taxonomy Still Relevant Today?

This week's article summary is It May Be Time to Dump Bloom's Taxonomy.

I vividly remember in graduate school discussing ad nauseam the classroom uses of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

You probably remember the basic idea behind the taxonomy: different kinds of teacher questions (Bloom's verbs) result in different levels of student thinking from the simplest (remembering, understanding) to the most complex (applying, analyzing, evaluating, creating). When I taught World History to 8th graders, I used Bloom’s verbs to make sure test questions challenged students with different levels of thinking.

Even though my teaching was influenced by Bloom, I was a never a total zealot to the taxonomy. As with any idea in education, I use what I think makes sense to me but rarely adopt all aspects of it. One negative of the taxonomy was the idea that thinking is one-dimensional and progressive when we all know thinking is much more multi-dimensional and complex.

I’ve seen a lot of educational fads and trends come, go, and then return again (often re-packaged with new terminology to make the old seem new): curriculum mapping, right/left brain use, class management systems, learning styles, 21st century skills, problem-based learning, design thinking, reading/writing workshop. My bookshelves are filled with educational books that promised to revolutionize the art and science of teaching; they all had kernels of good advice yet fell short of dramatically changing how we teach or how students learn.

As we know from experience, most ideas in education have some attributes while also containing some detriments. 

As educators, we all continue to further hone our teaching philosophy and skill set. We take a little from various education ideas but should always be skeptical of the promise of one perfect solution for the multitude of individuality we meet—and celebrate—in the classroom.

Joe

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Over my 40-year career in education, I have come to recognize that what I was taught back in college about being an effective teacher is not necessarily true today. 

It’s not just because times have changed (they have), students have changed (they have), or the world has changed (it has). It’s because, over the past 30 years, more research has been done on what works best in teaching and learning than in all the years before that. And the results of all of that research are startling, to say the least. One of the most astonishing findings has to do with the value of following Bloom’s Taxonomy.

The taxonomy was created in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom and some of his colleagues as a way to leave behind behaviorist theories of learning that were being used at the time (memorization, rote learning) and embrace higher-order thinking skills. They incorporated aspects of cognitive, affective, and psycho-motor domains into the taxonomy to make it more all-encompassing. It was a radical change in how educators were taught to teach. 

Bloom’s Taxonomy is easy to implement. We are all familiar with the “verb chart” that lets us select the level of thinking we want our students to work at. We pick a content standard, decide what level it is best learned at, find a verb at that level in the chart, create the learning activity, and we’re done. But is this approach still valid today?

The first reason to reconsider using Bloom’s Taxonomy in the classroom has to do with how the brain works. Thinking does not operate within hierarchies (as outlined in the taxonomy). All of these “levels” happen simultaneously in a variety of places in the brain.

The second reason to stop relying on Bloom’s is that it was created before rigorous research into its effectiveness was put in place. At more than 60 years old, the taxonomy is simply not supported by any empirical research on learning. The only piece of this hierarchical approach that is validated today is the existence of factual-conceptual knowledge, often called prior knowledge. But there is no clear research on its basic assumption that there are lower- and higher-order thinking skills. The brain doesn’t look at a problem to be solved and decide that it only needs a lower-order process.

The third reason Bloom’s may not be the approach you want to follow in your classroom has to do with new research on the social relation of persons in the creation of knowledge. The taxonomy does not consider the learner and the differences that each learner brings to the table. Motivation, their intellectual values, their past experiences with the content, their differences in cognitive processing: none of these are considered. The approach is based on the belief that all learners are at the same place in their learning, which is inherently false. In short, Bloom’s Taxonomy focuses on abstract cognitive domains and not on the individual learner. It is teacher-centered and not student-centered.

We need to put time, effort, and focus into instructional strategies and approaches that we know will work best for our students. And I believe that we must stay current with what the latest (and verified!) research says in order to do so. Be open to new ideas and new ways to help your students master the content. Question the strategies that are your “favorites” and ensure that they are based on valid, current research. And talk with your colleagues and administrators about professional learning and research on the most effective teaching methods.

The Challenges for Today's Colleges and Universities

 This week's article summary is Has Higher Education in the US Lost Its Way? and it's an apt follow-up to last week's article Happiness and Success that focused on the disconnect between what parents say they want for their kids (happiness) and the message they too often send to their kids (the better college you attend, the better job you get, the more successful you’ll be, and success leads to happiness).

This week’s summary calls this the difference between viewing college as a ‘transactional’ endeavor, i.e., ‘I go to college to get a high-paying job after graduation’ versus a ‘transformational’ one, i.e., ‘I attend college to learn how to think, better communicate, and mature physically, intellectually, and social-emotionally.’

The article below explains that as colleges today market themselves more from a transactional angle, they have fallen prey to mission sprawl in that they promise many different things to many different people. The problem with this is it dilutes a school’s reason for existing. It reminds me of the ancient Greek parable about the hedgehog (that can do one big thing) and the fox (that can do many things); often it’s best to stay true to what you can do well.

The past two articles remind me of why I so prefer working in an elementary independent school where we’re able to remain laser focused on our mission: We cherish childhood as we develop in our students a strong academic and character foundation they will use in middle school and beyond. 

Our focus is clearly transformational, not transactional.

Joe

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 For their book “The Real World of College,” Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner spent five years visiting 10 college campuses, carrying out many interviews with students, alumni, faculty, administrators, parents, trustees, and others. What they found challenged characterizations in the media: Students are not preoccupied by political correctness, free speech, or even the cost of college. They are most concerned about their GPA and their resumes; they see jobs and earning potential as more important than learning. Many say they face mental health challenges, fear that they don’t belong, and feel a deep sense of alienation.

The authors’ regretful conclusion: Many, perhaps most, U.S. colleges have lost — or lost sight of — their principal reason for being. “By virtue of the many activities available on campus, motivations for attending college, often unhelpful expectations generated in secondary school, and the myriad of mixed messages on traditional media and social media,” the authors write in the book’s introduction, “colleges are overwhelmed by mission sprawl.” They contend that to remedy this, schools must focus sharply on their core educational mission.

Below is a summary of the Q and A we had with the authors:

How did you decide to embark on this comprehensive study of the state of higher education?

For a quarter of a century, both of us have been studying the nature of good work (see thegoodproject.org). When we worked with young people, we found that they typically knew what good work was and admired it from afar. But they felt that they could not afford to do good work, because if they behaved properly, they would be scooped by peers who cut corners. Good work was “for later” in life, after success had been assured.

Of course, this disturbed us. 

What was the most unexpected thing you learned?

First, students have similar goals and concerns and even use the same words to describe their experiences. We find few, if any, differences based on background or where they currently attend school. Second, what you read about in the news is not on the minds of most students — free speech, political correctness, and even the cost of college rarely came up. Rather it was issues of mental health, and a sense of belonging or alienation. The exceptions to the point about free speech occurred right before or after a controversial speaker came to campus. We have continued to interview students after our study was completed — and it is true that at select schools, students sometimes feel silenced, afraid to say what they think. They are afraid that they will be misinterpreted, judged, and cancelled. We find that, on the whole, students are uncomfortable discussing ethical issues.

In terms of the cost of college, this rarely came up organically as a topic of concern among students (adults assume that this is more of a concern for students). The cost of college was indeed a determining factor for students in deciding where to enroll (once they received their acceptances and learned about financial assistance decisions), but once they were in college, it did not seem to come up much for them. The only exception is when some students talked about tension with students from different socioeconomic backgrounds.

Lastly: the misalignment between students and parents on the one hand, and faculty and administrators on the other. It is striking that students are mostly in agreement with the adults with whom most of them do not see on a daily basis, whereas they differ greatly from those with whom they are in contact. For example: the bulk of students are transactional (they see college as a means to an end) while almost all faculty and administrators are transformational (they see college as an opportunity to reflect, grow, and possibly change). 

Your study focuses heavily on nonvocational higher education, a sector associated with general education and the liberal arts. Why did you choose to focus on these schools, and what is the use of this type of education in the 21st century?

The genius of American education has been the college — an institution which purports to present a broad general education, giving students the knowledge and understandings that will serve them no matter what work they do. This form of education is vital for any democratic society. Alas, this form of education is in jeopardy in this country, largely because of the signals given by many parents, many teachers, and the broader society. We believe it would be tragic should this tradition be undermined. We have no objection to vocational education. However, if a student chooses a liberal arts and science school or program, they ought not to be focused simply on jobs or vocation. Note that all over the world, other countries are trying to implement liberal arts education. They admire what our country risks losing.

You propose two general approaches to improve nonvocational higher education: onboarding and intertwining. Can you describe these terms?

Onboarding is the concept we use to describe how to get all students aligned with the goal of the college or university, higher learning. From the first interaction on campus — whether this be at an admissions tour, orientation, or the first day of class, the mission of the institution needs to be clearly conveyed. Too often, students (and their parents) know more about internships, jobs after college, study abroad programs, residence and dining halls, and the gyms on campus.

What are the biggest challenges facing schools and students today?

Unfortunately, there are many challenges. For students, the two main challenges they speak about are mental health (now deemed a “crisis”) and lack of belonging. We also see other challenges for students, mainly the preoccupation with achieving “external measures of success” (grades, acceptances, jobs) over learning. In other words, students feel it is more important to get an A or to build their resume to get a particular job than it is to be exposed to new, different, or challenging content material — or even to do their own work (cheating is rampant on the college campus and by all accounts has intensified post-COVID because of online tests and exams). This “uber transactionality” has been instilled in students early on their education. Therefore, some of the biggest challenges colleges face is not with just college itself, but also with the high schools and parents where these students come from. In terms of the institution, challenges include: misalignment between faculty and administrators and the “customer,” prioritizing the mission of higher education (and not the fancy buildings or athletic departments on campus), and justifying the value of higher education to students and their parents who worry about their “return on investment” (the number of college students is declining, as is the number of male students).

 

Happiness and Success

This week's article summary is Kids Are Getting the Wrong Message About Happiness, written by William Stixrud who also wrote The Self-Driven Child.

For a number of years, Stixrud has been a strong proponent of not putting too much pressure on high school students to focus on getting accepted into the highest-rated college/university possible. 

While the majority of parents in America espouse that they want their kids to be happy above all else, most of us also want them to maximize their opportunities by applying to and ideally getting into a ‘reach’ school. Many parents see graduation from an elite college as the connection to a successful, well-paying first job professional which then lead to their child’s happiness.

The problem with this is we as adults often erroneously think that success leads to happiness while in fact happiness actually precedes success.

Additionally, when we focus too much on the future (which I am guilty of), we neglect to savor the present moment and the up-and-down journey toward our future. 

Stixrud suggests that what makes all of us the happiest are strong, deep, trusting relationships and meaning and purpose (both personal and professional). This is why family and friends are ultimately so important to most of us.

Especially since the Great Recession of 2008, there has been more pressure (overt and covert) on high schoolers to choose a college and major that provides immediately marketable skills and entry to a great job.

When most of think back to when we teenagers, we hadn’t yet found our meaning and purpose in ourselves or in a profession; in fact, most of us—definitely me--probably struggled with self-doubt. It was during those college years when most of us gradually became more independent and confident and started to figure out how we would make a difference in the world. It wasn’t until almost by happenstance that I took a job as a middle school English teacher and coach right out of college (ostensibly a gap-year before heading off to law or med school) that my professional epiphany occurred and I knew teaching was my calling. A good example of happiness preceding success: if I hadn’t found meaning, purpose, and happiness in teaching, I don’t think I would have worked hard to further learn and hone my craft.

I know we live in a more competitive world yet we adults need to help our students and children enjoy the moment more, be less focused solely on the future, and take the time to find purpose and meaning in their lives and profession.

Joe

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When we ask parents what they want for their kids’ futures, most answer: “I want them to be happy.” 

But if you ask most kids what they think their parents want for their future, the answer is usually something like “To get into a good college.” 

It seems like a disconnect, but it’s not. Many parents we meet in the course of our work with kids believe that acceptance to a good college will lead to a good job, financial security, and happiness ad infinitum. Their kids come to believe this, too. The problem is that we tend to be very poor predictors of what actually makes us happy.

Research tells that we’re happier if we prioritize having time more than things, giving more than getting, and appreciating what we have more than trying to get what we don’t. When we equate academic achievement and career success with happiness, we do so potentially at the cost of our kids’ well-being. 

While no one wishes mental health issues on their kids, some parents think that if their child is exhausted and miserable in high school in order to earn a coveted admission spot, and adolescence isn’t expected to be a happy time. 

Our response is threefold: 

First, we’ve lowered the bar too far when it comes to the adolescent and teen years, thinking of them as merely a time to endure and get through safely, rather than a time to enjoy. Even adolescents feel happiness when they act kindly, get enough sleep, are physically active, do things for others, focus on the positive things in their lives, and spend time in nature. 

Second, young brains that are stressed, tired, and unhappy all the time can get wired in a way that makes them more vulnerable to anxiety and depression and thus unable to appreciate the success they’ve worked so hard for. 

And finally, happiness begets success. So by focusing on happiness, you’re actually making it more likely that your kid achieves whatever he or she wants.

A wealth of research offers insight about what does bring happiness. And there’s broad agreement that in any happiness equation, what happens to you—which includes a letter of admission to that coveted school—matters surprisingly little. Two of the things that do matter a lot: 1) strong relationships, and 2) a sense of meaning or purpose. And yet we so seldom talk with our kids about either.

On the relationships front, a recent study found that teens are experiencing a dramatic increase of loneliness around the world. And yet we meet parents all the time who say things like, “What’s hanging out with friends going to get her?” Or, “I know she has a great friends at her current school, but this other school will put her in a more competitive stance for college.” The importance of kids’ relationships continues to be downplayed throughout college. When a friend of ours spoke on a panel offering career advice to undergraduates, she was afraid to share her most important insight—that in her early twenties, she prioritized jobs where she could be near her boyfriend, who is now her husband of almost twenty years. It’s not a message she felt was safe to express, but she went for it. “I’d tell my younger self I was right to make career decisions based on my relationship. Because the truth is that nothing has mattered as much to my happiness as the person I chose to go through life with.” Something has gone awry in our world when a statement like this feels risky. It is a problem if parents and other adults so prioritize career and the success trajectory for their kids that they leave the people part out of the conversation altogether, or when they prioritize learning advanced math but don’t teach how to resolve conflict in relationships.

The remedy is simple. Talk to your kids about the relationships in your life that have contributed to your happiness, and how you’ve made decisions around those relationships. And talk to them about how they feel around others—how their relationships contribute to their happiness. Ask questions like, “Who do you feel most close to on this planet?” “Who do you feel like you can be yourself the most with?” “What would happen if you put more time and energy into these relationships that make you feel good?”

A happy life also benefits purpose and meaning. We need to tell kids the truth: that there are many ways to contribute in this world, and many ways to be happy that do not involve making a lot of money or achieving every brass ring. We can also help our children see that what they do doesn’t have to be meaningful to everyone. While many kids find tremendous meaning through involvement in bigger movements like environmental or social activism, many find meaning in smaller communities like their church or school clubs. Or to think even smaller, for most kids, meaning is tied to a few people—their friends, or in volunteering at an animal shelter or helping their elderly grandparents.

In the end, the most important rule of thumb for talking to kids about happiness is to talk about happiness. But these conversations aren’t explicit nearly as often as you would think. It just doesn’t come up, and so kids form their impressions about happiness from listening to their parents emphasize the importance of grades and building a résumé for college. They supplement this with messages from their peers, teachers, or from the culture around them, which, by and large, increasingly promotes competition and materialism. So if you do nothing else, break these dangerous assumptions down, one conversation at a time. If we truly want our kids to grow into happy, fulfilled adults, we have to tell them the truth.

What to Say to Your Kids Instead of 'Good Job'

This week's article is What to Say to Your Kids Instead of 'Good Job'.

Whether at school with our students or at home with our kids, most teachers and parents are prone to overuse the compliment ‘good job.’ I’ve caught myself saying ‘good job’ over and over to my granddaughters for simple things like pouring milk into a glass without any spillage just like I did with my boys when they asked me to watch them practice diving (mostly cannon balls) into a pool.

We’re way past Christmas, so I’m not going to be the Grinch (like Alfie Kohn below) and recommend we adults completely stop using the term ‘good job’ with our students and children. Yet just like last week’s article summary on how embracing a growth mindset can support student writing, the same holds true for limiting our praise to our kids for expected behaviors and actions. (I was somewhat stunned by the University of Florida research below that shows too much praise for expected behavior in the classroom can lead to less student academic risk-taking.)

The more we can help our kids be more self-reflective and evaluative of their efforts, the more they will embrace a growth mindset and strive to be better at what they’re doing.

The alternatives below to the generic ‘good job’ are great ways for us adults to help kids continue to learn and grow and, most important, improve.

Joe

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We’ve all said it. When our child climbs a rock wall for the first time, does a cartwheel, or brings home some less-than-stellar art, it’s almost instinct to toss out an enthusiastic, “Good job!” And while it seems like we’re doing the right thing—offering encouragement and positive reinforcement—parenting experts caution that over time, a litany of knee-jerk, non-specific “good job” comments can do more harm than good.

Parenting author and lecturer Alfie Kohn states: Rather than bolstering a child’s self-esteem, praise may increase kids’ dependence on us. The more we say, “I like the way you….” or “Good job,” the more kids come to rely on our evaluations, our decisions about what’s good and bad, rather than learning to form their own judgments. It leads them to measure their worth in terms of what will lead us to smile and dole out some more approval.

Kohn points out that the phrase, while well-intentioned, can unwittingly be used to control our kids’ behavior, exploit their desire for approval, and eventually help create praise junkies who perform tasks only for accolades. In the long run, this reliance on external motivation and approval can dilute their joy and cause them to lose interest in activities they previously enjoyed.

Mary Budd Rowe, a researcher at the University of Florida, also found that students who received lavish praise from their teachers responded more cautiously and presented their answers in a questioning tone of voice. Fearing failure, they did not share their ideas or persist with difficult assignments as readily.

Kohn concludes, “In short, ‘Good job!’ doesn’t reassure children; ultimately, it makes them feel less secure.” 

So what can we say instead? Here are some alternatives.

Describe what you see: While it may feel awkward at first (we are so used to praising, after all), try a simple statement free from any evaluation or judgment. Phrases like, “You brushed your teeth by yourself!” or “You did it!” let your child know you noticed their achievement and invite them to take their own pride in it.

State the features of their work: When a child shows you their art, comment on the colors they used or any dominant features. “That sun is wearing sunglasses!” or “Wow, I see you used a lot of blue today.”

Ask questions: While a genuine “I love this! It’s so beautiful,” is certainly not going to scar our kids for life, it’s beneficial to incorporate questions as well. “What was the hardest part of making this Lego structure?” or “How did you choose this color for the house?”

Praise effort, not results: Praising results can lead a child to believe the only thing that matters is the outcome of their work. Offering acknowledgement of their effort, however, leads to what Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck calls a “growth mindset;” the belief that persistence and practice will allow them to do hard things. Observations like, “You are really concentrating” or “You ran so hard to score that goal” both fall under that umbrella.

Point out their effect on other people: If your child does something kind-hearted for another person, rather than emphasizing how we feel about it (“I’m so happy you did that”), shift their attention to the effect their caring act had on someone else. “Wow, Max looks so happy you shared with him!” This leads them to notice and appreciate how their actions positively impact others.

A short list of additional phrases:

• You worked so hard on that
• You are getting really good at...
• That is so creative / That took a lot of imagination
• I noticed your bed was made so neatly today
• You look excited
• What is your favorite part of what you made?
• Thank you for being so patient
• That was very thoughtful/brave
• That took a lot of strength
• I can see you are really trying to make a good choice
• You put so much effort into this
• I couldn’t have done this without you
• You did that all by yourself

It’s important to keep in mind, of course, that a few “good jobs” aren’t going to permanently damage our kids. We don’t need to approach our children like emotionless androids, either. But if we focus on their effort, personal qualities, and making non-evaluative observations of things they do, they may be better equipped to feel independent, secure, and confident in their talents, whether they gain approval or not.