The Problem with Telling or Talking

In response to inappropriate behaviors in a school ,a teacher suggested that teacher and school expectations of kids should be voiced more often and with more concern.

Telling a kid that his behavior is unacceptable or inappropriate sounds more like a cliché and pretty vague. We need to be more specific and detailed.

Kids already know that their behaviors are unacceptable but are most likely lacking the skills demanded of them  or  lack commitment to the underlying values.

Instead of telling kids your behavior is unacceptable,  it would be better to get their input at what is getting in their way or at least helping them reflect on how the behavior is impacting on others.

Telling kids or talking to them does not help much. The reason is that we are doing the talking.

The renowned educationalist Deborah Meier said that teaching is essentially listening and learning is essentially talking. The same goes for socio-moral learning.

We need to LISTEN and at most direct the conversation with dialog questions to get input from kids about what is getting their way, help them  articulate their concerns  and reflect on the impact of their behavior on others, the type of person I want to be and come up with a better plan.

The problem with telling or talking is who is doing the telling or talking ! 

Nothing will happen to me if I hit !

One kid said –' If I have a problem with a kid, I will just hit him, because I know the teacher will just talk to me and nothing will happen to me' !

The CPS approach would be to have a conversation to understand why a kid would respond in such a way. Would it not be better to solve problems by talking rather than by hitting!

The bottom line is that a CPS conversation between the teacher and kid will make sure that something does happen to him, it won't be something extrinsic like a punishment or consequence but intrinsic . Something will happen from the inside.

The question we want the kid to ask himself is what type of person do I want to be?.

Does this type of behavior give expression to my values or reflect on the type of person I want to be or the way kids should   interact in our classroom and solve problems. How can I get my needs and concerns met in an appropriate way.?

A kid who says his behavior will be determined by the possible consequences handed out by a teacher is actually giving up' control' of his behavior to the teacher. The locus of control is now outside the kid. His behavior is now dependent on how the teacher reacts and is no longer self determined, autonomous and an expression of his values.

The reason why sometimes kids like punishment is that it is the easy way out. Accountability here is just paying a price and making sure you don't get caught. You don’t have to change from the inside, come up with a better plan and engage in restitution in autonomous way.

What happens to a kid when he receives a consequence?  In my day, the tough kids took the punishment like a man and the others regretted at having being caught. Today, there is more anger and pain. But all  kids who get punished never ask themselves- is this  a reflection of the type of person I want to be ?  They only ask – what will happen to me ? In a sense , nothing has happened to him except his ' what's in it for me ' thinking has been reinforced.

What will happen to a kid with CPS. He will be uplifted,  enhanced self esteem,better relationship with his teachers and peers and more committed to his values. He will have acquired lots of communication and problem solving skills. He will have a new vision of his ' possible self ' and his future.

Test scores or student Well Being

Michael Enright speaks to Finland's education reform guru, Dr. Pasi Sahlberg, about how the country's egalitarian, low-stress model has helped Finnish students reach for the top.

Dr Pasi Sahlberg - Finnish Education  CBC interview 

THE MAIN CONCERN  of schools should be the Well- Being of kids, their happiness, ensuring that they find school and learning meaningful, enriching  and interesting, that they have friends and   relationship with teachers. This comes before academic achievement. The first question parents should ask teachers should be '  is my child happy at school  and not what are her test scores ?

Teachers should be helping kids to understand themselves, their strengths, develop and find an interest and passion, and equip them with thinking and communication skills needed for the outside world. Traditional maths, science and reading won't do the job.

DELAYING FORMAL EDUCATION.

 In Finland kids start school at the age of seven. Dr Sahlberg explains that play teaches kids to cooperate with others, develops their minds and thinking, and they learn that this gives them power etc and in order to be good at play one needs time to practice.

ASSESSMENT

  The focus on testing and especially high stakes  standardized testing leads to ' teaching to test' and the narrowing of curriculum. Focusing on a core curriculum of maths, reading, writing and science fails kids as there is no way that a core curriculum can help a kid understand who they are and what they would like to do in the future. Only a wide curriculum can help kids discover and find their own passions and talents and tackle the high ' drop-out ' rates in school.

Instead of standardized tests schools can do ' sample ' testing and have more trust in teachers and rely on them. Assessment Joe Bower reminds us is a conversation , not a spreadsheet . The real progress of kids can be assessed by  the questions they ask and no test can do that.

A Worrying Study

A  survey of a 100,000 Canadian kids between 7-12 reported that 50% of kids are worried about their futures, 2/3 of them lose sleep over this and 1/3 have cried over this. This is a direct result of high stakes standardized testing and an educational system driven by extrinsic motivators like grades. We no longer use corporal punishment and punitive discipline but kids today are subject to greater pressures and expectations to perform. Love and acceptance is now conditional on how kids behave and their test scores.

Special needs kids - He aint heavy, he's my brother

Parenting challenging or special needs kids is very tough on parents , siblings and of course the special needs kids. For most regular families parenting is like emigrating to a new country like Italy. For parents of challenging kids it is not Welcome to Italy  , but as I shared in a previous blog  - Welcome to Holland or is it Beirut ? ' 

Here is a you tube  -        The team Long Brothers _ a journey of Brotherly love  

The you tube should also inspire us to provide kids with opportunities to enjoy cooperative sport and games rather than competitive sport , being number one and beating the other kid.

Welcome to Holland  essay
          http://www.journeyofhearts.org/kirstimd/holland.htm

Welcome to Beirut essay
http://www.bbbautism.com/beginners_beirut.htm

         "Holland Schmolland"

http://www.autism-help.org/story-holland-schmolland.htm 

Motivation and self talk - Bob the builder and the Marsh Mellow test

In a CBS interview   on ' how to find meaning in the work place beyond the pay check '           

Dan Pink shares motivation advice also from Bob the builder.

People are happier and intrinsically motivated in the work place if they are given autonomy, have mastery and find purpose in their work. Bob the builder tells us that self-posed questions about a future behavior-  ' Can we fix it '  may inspire thoughts about autonomous or intrinsically motivated reasons to pursue a goal, leading a person to form corresponding intentions and ultimately perform the behavior. People are more likely to engage in a behavior when they have IM – intrinsic motivation, feeling personally responsible for the action, than when they have extrinsic motivation.

Research  by University of Illinois Professor Dolores Albarracin and her team has shown that those who ask themselves whether they will perform a task generally do better than those who tell themselves that they will.

Participants in a study were told  to either spend a minute wondering  ' whether  'they would complete a task or telling themselves' they would'. The participants showed more success on an anagram task (rearranging words to create different words) when they asked themselves  'whether ' they would complete it than when they told themselves 'they would.'

In another experiment, students were asked to write either “I Will” or “Will I,” and then work on an task. Participants did better when they wrote, “Will I” even though they had no idea that the word writing related to the anagram task.  A final experiment added the dimension of having participants complete a test designed to gauge motivation levels.  Again, the participants who wrote ' Will I ' , and then proceeded to report their intentions to exercise scored significantly higher on the motivation test.

In other words, by asking themselves a question – interrogative self –talk , people were more likely to build their own motivation than if they simply told themselves – declarative self –talk , they’d get it done.

Questions like ' will I ' or 'can I ' open up the brain and stimulate thinking on how we would go about a task. Telling our selves ' I will ' or 'I can do it ' may make usu feel good and affirm our abilities, but it shuts down the thinking brain leaving the emotional brain in control. Telling our selves ' I will ' or 'I can do it ' sounds autonomous , but in reality we are just pressurizing ourselves from the inside.

 Try it out and see how ' Will I' and ' I will' have different effects on the brain – opening up or shutting down the brain.

The research is significant because it discounts all the talk , that what kids need is self-discipline, self control grit, and be ambitious and motivated to succeed and achieve.

It supports findings of the marsh mellow test where kids were asked to delay gratification and show self control. The kids who did well were able to distract themselves from the marsh mellow and sit out the time.

It is quite possible kids asked themselves ' can I do it ' and then started thinking about ways to go about it. Those kids who pumped themselves up with ' I can do it ' shut down their thinking brains and in a short time were struggling not to eat the marsh mellow .

Self-talk that focuses on the questions instead of presupposing answers, allows our minds to build motivation around the questions and be creative.

Parents and Teachers should forget about the motivational 'hype' and inspirational posters like ' You can do it '  in trying to motivate kids , but rather just help kids frame their own questions which will help them motivate themselves.

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Deborah Meier on ' How children succeed ' - character education

In my blog post on Paul Tough's ' How children succeed'  I said that trying to promote the 'non-cognitive ' skills such self control, grit and self discipline not in the context of community and cooperative learning,, addressing needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness , using intrinsic motivation and passion to drive learning and solve problems in a collaborative way taking into account kids concerns as well , all we end up is promoting docility and compliance.

I came across Deborah Meier's response on the Dianne Ravitch's blog post on the book.  

The blog post and comments focused mainly on Paul Tough's important contribution on the education and poverty debate and ignored the issue of character education as reflected in KIPP schools. Deborah Meier's insightful comment is on character education.

'Good points re Tough. Diane. But I worry that so many, Tough too, miss the special character strengths that the poor (and stressed) often bring with them to school. Their very strengths (especially if they are males) are seen as weaknesses, including their indomitable feistiness, their independence, their networking, etc. They are seen as traits to be “broken”, and then remade in another image. Kids fight back. And in doing so they are seen as incorrigible! I saw it all the time in 4 and 5 year olds–and, of course, 14-18 year olds. . But instead of encouraging them to hold onto their self-respect, we put it down as a sign of lack of character.

It’s a big subject, and I think you are on the same trail–as has become usual for us–as I am–to see what this “grit” term means when it comes to schooling, and then–who needs to change? The kids or the way the schools (and the larger society and media) respond to them?

I learned a lot just from sitting in the park and watching kids in the sand box–of a most diverse type–and how the adults responded to them and their behavior. Ah well, more another time.'

How Children succeed - Paul Tough

     In   How children succeed - Paul Tough   argues that the qualities that matter most have more to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control and grit. Instead of focusing on cognitive academic skills , schools should focus on character.

I have just read about the book, listened to a few podcats and my first reaction was to think of Alfie Kohn. Besides the importance of attachment parenting and the negative impact of poverty on kids brains , I think Paul Tough gets it wrong on a few accounts.

He talks about self control and grit in an econtalks podcast –' And so grit was this idea that Angela Ducksworth came up with; it certainly involved a lot of self-discipline but also involved a large degree of passion. She defined it as perseverance in pursuit of a passion. So, it's somebody who has a very strong goal and does not let obstacles get in the way; does not give up; does not get distracted. And so she now feels like grit is the more important and more predictive of these non-cognitive skills.'

In the podcast the discussion ignores the crucial element of passion , a possibility of intrinsic motivation fuelling the self discipline and focuses on motivating kids on achievement and the long term pay offs of working hard and having self discipline. In a note - article ' why is self discipline over-rated ' AK says the  limitations of grit itself, as  a concept is  that it ' ignores motivational factors (that is, why people persevere), thus conflating genuine passion for a task with a desperate need to prove one’s competence, an inability to change course when appropriate, and so on. '

What comes across from what I have heard and read is that kids do not see the ' learning in itself ' as something meaningful and worthwhile , they are just focused on achievement and being successful.

So as Ak says , talk about grit, self control and self discipline is more about getting kids to meet adult expectations and be compliant. Character education is less about meeting kids needs for autonomy , competence and relatedness but about meeting adult expectations and getting kids to listen and do what they are told.

Character education has to given in the context of cooperative learning, community and a place where problems are solved in a collaborative way taking into account both adult and kids concerns. Kids should be helped to reflect on how they impact on others and at the same time get their needs met and support others.

This cannot take place in a competitive environment and where a discipline code uses rewards and consequences and ignores kids' concerns.

Paul Tough says schooling focuses on cognitive skills, whereas kids need qualities that  have more to do with character which he calls non-cognitive skills like perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control and grit.

He fails to understand that we use cognition all the time. Just like in academic learning kids need to be active in constructing meaning , kids need to be pro-active and make meaning of their socio-moral learning.

The self -control displayed by kids in the marsh mellow test was more about thinking, problem solving and finding ways to distract oneself from eating the marsh mellow than from good -old fashioned self control.

We would go along way in helping kids acquire grit etc by trying to help them develop a passion for learning and make meaning of what they are doing. Life is a process , not just achieving goals and then moving onto the next goal.

One of the reasons that Paul Tough thinks that cognitive skills are not worth much is that he and kids don't see any value in the learning itself. If there is value in the learning itself then both the cognitive and non-cognitive skills come together.

I recommend Paul Tough and all to read the following articles

What children really learn from failure - Alfie Kohn

Character education - how not to teach values - Alfie Kohn

Why is self discipline overrated - Alfie Kohn

Caring kids - the role of schools - Alfie Kohn