Sunday Morning Shout Out

A few weekends ago “The New York Times” re ran a great column in their “Motherlode” feature.  In Lisa Hefferman’s column “Our Push for ‘Passion’, and Why It Harms Kids,” Hefferman discusses one of today’s parenting trends, finding your child’s passion.  While best intentions may drive this and it may seem innocent, this modern parenting quest has many potential negative consequences.

Are parents charged with finding their child’s passion?  The best intentioned parent wants their child to find things they are good at and enjoy.  From cheer and hockey, to soccer and dance, we all like seeing our kids do things they enjoy.  We feel pride over their routines, goals, recitals, etc.  This is all so very good and normal.  Yet like many things in childhood and society today, this normal event has become supercharged.  While childhood is a time of exploration, many of today’s parents are looking for a hobby, an instrument, a sport to define their child and give both their child and them purpose, status, etc.  It seems this goes right with the adult sense of being overly busy, as the definition of normal, purposeful, and routine.

As adults, it seem like our “crazy busy” is lamentable, but a crutch that makes us okay in our peers eyes.  If our children aren’t into 25 activities and are allowed to enjoy a slow childhood at home, they are more the exception and sadly the oddball for many.  It also seems like we are often hoping to help our children through their childhood, by defining a piece of who they are early in life.  There’s no doubt that a sense of self, talent, efficacy helps one thrive, but are we the ones who should define this or should it be our children?  While society at large may drive this force, there’s no doubt that visions of college applications years down the road are also part of this phenomenon.  We are told colleges accept students with “passion”.  If they begin at four years-old, we may think we are helping them and ourselves with their collegiate future.

The columnist’s stance and mine are that this is harmful more than helpful for several reasons.  When children work at their “passion” six days a week after school, what about other interests that go undiscovered?  If we have decide soccer is it for them, what about their natural curiosity in bugs, guitar, designing costumes, doing art, etc. etc?  Their time is spoken for because of their “passion,” leaving little room or time for what may be other interests and life’s truer passions.  This drive for passion is expensive and consumes time.  Children naturally have interest in many different things.  If we are to get all the equipment, pay for all the lessons, send them to all the camps for their “passion,” we spend whole lot money on things that can be better spent.  How about saving for college, their future, and our future with some of this money?

There is the other side of the time piece.  Not only are they losing time to find out what truly interests them, they may be losing their childhood.  Children today are overscheduled, overcommitted, and over involved.  There are so many great things that come from unstructured play and more peaceful family time.  As parents, let’s help our children explore their interests.  Yes, passion may come from some of these interests.  But let’s let it be defined by them, instead of us.  Money, time, and childhood are at stake……

Increased Expectations = Increased Achievement

Source: http://www.youthworkers.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/blog.tagview/tagID/49

Last week we wrote an entry titled ‘The Power of Failure’ and focused on a book titled ‘How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character’ by Paul Tough.  In the book it is suggested, and supported by some studies, that part of the problem with education today is that it does not embrace and prepare students better for failure.  Mr Tough also points out that what he is finding is that certain personality characteristic have an ability to predict success in school and in life.  He lists these characteristics as persistence, perseverance, stick-to-itiveness, self-control, passion and grit.

Listening to NPR this morning a story came on that I feel suggests these intrinsic personality characteristics can be supported by extrinsic variables. Titled ‘Teachers’ Expectations Can Influence How Students Perform‘ it was interesting to hear how a study from 1964 is starting to help raise awareness that we need to expect more from our students and children. As stated in the NPR report:

As Rosenthal did more research, he found that expectations affect teachers’ moment-to-moment interactions with the children they teach in a thousand almost invisible ways. Teachers give the students that they expect to succeed more time to answer questions, more specific feedback, and more approval: They consistently touch, nod and smile at those kids more. “It’s not magic, it’s not mental telepathy,” Rosenthal says. “It’s very likely these thousands of different ways of treating people in small ways every day.”

The NPR story highlights how difficult it is for a teacher to understand the behaviors they may need to personally change or develop if they are to promote higher motivation and support for their students increased achievement. It is not an easy task for any parent or teacher to increase expectations in a manner that balances nurturing and supportive with pushing to challenging goals that a student can achieve. The NPR report asked the educational researcher, Robert Pianta for suggestions that would help teachers who want to change their behavior toward problem students. He provided the following seven suggestions:

1. Watch how each student interacts. How do they prefer to engage? What do they seem to like to do? Observe so you can understand all they are capable of.
2. Listen. Try to understand what motivates them, what their goals are and how they view you, their classmates and the activities you assign them.
3. Engage. Talk with students about their individual interests. Don’t offer advice or opinions – just listen.
4. Experiment: Change how you react to challenging behaviors. Rather than responding quickly in the moment, take a breath. Realize that their behavior might just be a way of reaching out to you.
5. Meet: Each week, spend time with students outside of your role as “teacher.” Let the students choose a game or other nonacademic activity they’d like to do with you. Your job is to NOT teach but watch, listen and narrate what you see, focusing on students’ interests and what they do well. This type of activity is really important for students with whom you often feel in conflict or who you avoid.
6. Reach out: Know what your students like to do outside of school. Make it a project for them to tell you about it using some medium in which they feel comfortable: music, video, writing, etc. Find both individual and group time for them to share this with you. Watch and listen to how skilled, motivated and interested they can be. Now think about school through their eyes.
7. Reflect: Think back on your own best and worst teachers, bosses or supervisors. List five words for each that describe how you felt in your interactions with them. How did the best and the worst make you feel? What specifically did they do or say that made you feel that way? Now think about how your students would describe you. Jot down how they might describe you and why. How do your expectations or beliefs shape how they look at you? Are there parallels in your beliefs and their responses to you?

Certainly a great deal for any teacher (and parents) to do, but it seems to be something most of us life-long learners are already working at and continually raising our own bar ahead of societies expectations … or perhaps it is in spite of societies lack of expectations?

The Power of Failure

The character building pillars of the Gilman boys school (K-12) in Baltimore, MD focus on Honor. Image Source: http://www.gilman.edu/why/character-development/index.aspx

Just got back from my first couple of days away since our ‘Great Recession’ started and came across an article/interview in the Canadian national newspaper, The Globe and Mail. The interview titled ‘Why kids need to fail to succeed in school’ by Margaret Wente is with the author of a book titled ‘How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character’. In the interview with the books author Paul Tough, it is suggested that part of the problem with education today is that it does not embrace and prepare students better for failure.

An additional part of failure is learning from it and being able to resist giving up. As I have learned in my work in the creativity and innovation field failure is perspective.  Thomas Edison was asked what it felt like to fail 50,000 times before he made the lightbulb.  His answer was that he never failed, because he now knows 50,000 ways not to make a lightbulb.

Mr Tough points out that what he is finding is that certain personality characteristic have an ability to predict success in school and in life.  He lists these characteristics as persistence, perseverance, stick-to-itiveness, self-control, passion and grit. The interview goes on to explore the authors belief that another part of what is missing in todays education is character development. In the interview he states:

        I think there is a real difference between developing self-esteem and developing character, and in the past few decades we’ve become confused about that. Yes, if you want to develop kids’ self-esteem, the best way to do it is to praise everything they do and make excuses for their failures.
       But if you want to develop their character, you do almost the opposite: You let them fail and don’t hide their failures from them or from anybody else – not to make them feel lousy about themselves, but to give them the tools to succeed next time.
       I think in some ways we know this, because lots of us have had that experience with a teacher or a coach or a music tutor; the ones that we remember are the ones who were tough on us, not mean or belittling, but the ones who said, “No, this isn’t good enough. You can do better.” That’s an incredibly powerful message for a kid to hear. It’s not wounding. Just looking at my own three-year-old and remembering my own experiences, when kids feel like they’ve got a teacher or a parent really on their side, then I think they’re very much willing to hear some very tough messages.

All in all an interesting interview and perspective. I have bought the book now and will probably write a bit more about Mr Tough’s work in the future.