Category Education

Feb 24 2010

Self-esteem

Parents and teachers want to know what they can do to promote a child’s self-esteem.  What advice would you give them and why?

According to Bee and Boyd (2007), self-esteem is a function of two factors.

First, children hold a vision of what they should be.  As they move out of childhood into adolescence, they increasingly compare their beliefs about who they really are against who they think they ought to be.  “When the discrepancy is large—when the child sees himself as failing to live up to his own goals or values—self-esteem is much lower” (Bee & Boyd, 2007, p. 287).  

There are at least three obvious actions parents and teachers can take to close this gap.  First, they can work with children to have realistic expectations of their “ideal self.”  By working with children to be fully in touch with their humanity, that ideal can be lowered and the gap reduced.  Second, children all have different areas of strength and weakness.  Typically, the ideals to which children compare themselves are in areas selected by peer group and environment.  This is particularly true in adolescence as the peer group assumes greater significance.  Still, parents can help children shift their comparisons to areas of relative competence.  Finally, children often do a poor job of evaluating themselves.  Frequently, children allow their peer group to define them.  All too often, they place far too little emphasis on their own true strengths and goals.  Parents and teachers can make sure that children see all their capabilities clearly and emphasize their areas of relative excellence.  By doing these three things, the gap between ideal and perceived reality can be reduced dramatically.

Second, self-esteem is dependent on “the overall sense of support the child feels from the important people around her, particularly parents and peers (Franco & Levitt, 1998)” (Bee & Boyd, 2007, p. 287).  In childhood and even in adolescence, children need the love and support of the significant adults in their lives.  Children need to know that they are held to standards, but they need to know that those standards are about the child achieving their own possibility.  They need to know that they are expected to strive and work for the very best they can achieve.  In addition, they need to know that failure is a part of being human, of learning, of evolving.  Mostly, children need to know that they are loved and appreciated.

It is easy to forget, especially with adolescents, but children look to their significant adults to find strength, courage, and direction.  It is up to those adults to provide those things with love and appreciation for all the challenges of youth.

Feb 23 2010

Comparisons

“The best way to damage a child’s self-esteem is to compare him or her to another child”

That’s really interesting. I have written a number of essays around the idea that “success” should be internally judged. However, I never made the obvious jump to your simple rule! As the male figure in our home, I give myself more license to challenge my daughter than if I were the primary source of nurturance. One of the ways I let this occur is by comparisons. I rarely, if ever, compare her negatively to somebody else (as in “You need to try harder, like Sally”). I can see how that’s not healthy at any level. I do occasionally compare her rare extreme behaviors to her more notorious friends’ behaviors (as in “Is this Annie we invited to dinner? Somebody is sure behaving like Annie!”). My daughter FLIPS when I do that. I’ve never understood why it provokes such a strong reaction so you’ve given me a lot to ponder. In any event, I think your rule is solid and will incorporate it into my ruleset.

Having said that, I do think we can teach children to learn from others. “Isn’t it great how Debbie keeps her desk so neat?” or “Why do you think Jessie looks so comfortable on stage?” Or to the negative, “What did you think of Susan’s behavior at recess? Why do you think she did that? Is there anything we can learn from it?” As part of those lessons, it’s also good to remind all concerned that everybody has their stronger and weaker moments. The challenge is to know the difference and fight for the best we have to give.

Feb 23 2010

Discipline, Part Three

I’m intrigued by your idea of having children who act out write you an apology letter on the spot. I write this speaking as a former boy who spent a lot of time in trouble in school for “disruptive behavior.” If statistics hold true, roughly 3/4’s of your discipline will likely be directed at boys. Your average boy will be far more physically active than your average girl (hence the discipline ratio) and, at least in the lower grades, less capable of both the fine motor skills and verbal skills necessary to easily write you an apology. It was humiliating enough to be in trouble for reasons I only dimly understood. To then be tortured by having to write, of all things, an apology letter would be doubly bad. Obviously, you’re free to do whatever you think is best in the classroom, but I’d like to suggest a slight variation. Perhaps you could allow the disciplined children to choose the media in which they expresses their apology. Letter, artwork, poem, even a song or dance might resonate better and have a stronger effect on long term behavior. I’ve never tried this and I wonder what some of the implications of an ‘apology dance’ might be, but I can tell you I was gritting my teeth at age fifty-one just thinking about being one of those kids. It’s worth a try, I’d say.

As long as I’m advocating for boys, I’d like to add a couple of quotes:

“Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child’s soul.” – Friedrich Froebel (Froebel Web, 1998-2009, para. 2)

“Boys get unfairly labeled as morally defective, hyperactive, undisciplined, or ‘problem children,’ when quite often the problem is not with the boys but with the families, extended families, or social environments, which do not understand their specific needs as human beings and as boys“  – Michael Gurian (Gurian, 1999).

References

Froebel Web. (1998-2009). Friedrich Froebel created Kindergarten. Retrieved February 22, 2010, from http://www.froebelweb.org/

Gurian, M. (1999). The good son: A complete parenting plan. East Rutherford, NJ: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam.

Feb 22 2010

Nudges and Sparks…

“Lives of great significance begin with a spark, a nudge, a gesture.  Let us touch as many as we can, while we can.”

John Furlong

February 12, 2010

Olympic Opening Ceremony Speech

Feb 21 2010

Peer Pressure

For me, peer pressure comes in two forms.

The first is the one we generally think of as peer pressure. Children who are not in compliance with the current standard of ‘cool’ are excluded, teased or harassed. This could be pressure to have sex, to take drugs or other anti-social behaviors. Or it could be as simple as pressure to dress a certain way, look a certain way or like certain songs of celebrities. 

The other form of peer pressure is the pressure children feel from inside themselves to be accepted. I see it even in my 1st grade daughter. Children are constantly scanning their environment to find what’s ‘cool’, how they should act and dress. Coincidentally enough, I was showing my wife a Facebook picture of my very first major crush. The caption to the picture of her and two other girls from 1972 said, “Believe it or not this was who we scoped for what to wear the next day.” Many adolescents feel insecure and ‘not enough’ and they look to others they see as being ‘enough.’ By emulating their behavior, dress and even language, they hope to become ‘enough’ themselves. Ironically, even the ‘popular’ children generally feel exactly as confused, they just happen to be confused and popular.

The first kind of pressure is comparatively easy to combat. In my classroom there would be a crystal clear rule about respect for others. Anything designed to diminish a classmate would not be allowed within range of my sense (or my disciplinary reach, to the extent it is brought to my attention). The second is harder to combat. The message must be communicated that all adolescents struggle with identity, feelings of inadequacy, and not fitting in. Accepting those feelings as normal, developmental, and hormonal (as opposed to ‘real’) would be a small step towards reducing their power. A second step would be passing the message that each person is enough in themselves. The trick for each individual is to find and accept who they are and why they are here. Accepting “Who I am and who I’m not” is a huge step towards silencing internal and external peer group pressure.

Feb 20 2010

Success in the Classroom

For me, my success in the classroom will be in two parts.

First, I would like to leave every student with a love of education and a solid grasp of how learning and life interconnect. I would like to teach some of the timeless literature to illustrate the human condition; its choices and challenges. I’d like to teach the arts to give texture and color and sound and rhythm and rhyme to their understanding of being human. I would like to give them a sense of history and how we have come to this place. I would particularly like to leave them literate and fluent in math and science. We are living in a hard science world and to know the gentle parts of life and that hard science is a powerful combination.

At the same time, I am determined to leave my students competent in the standards and capable of demonstrating this in assessments. To do this, my intent is to out ‘essentialist’ the essentialists. If competence is defined as answering questions correctly on an exam then, by golly, that’s exactly, precisely what I will teach them to do. Teach the standard, assess, teach what’s not retained, repeat. No doubt, this will take more time than I have, especially folded on top of top of the progressive/perennial education described above. I think education is important enough to be generous with my time before and after school and to expect students in need of extra help to be generous with their own time as well. With luck, sacrifice and cooperation, we’ll fit it all in and leave the students more than ready for the next step of their life.

Feb 19 2010

Discipline, Part Two

I am looking forward to learning more about classroom discipline. It seems like an essential part of maintaining an optimal learning environment. It also seems like a far more subtle art than it sometimes appears to be. 

So far, I have seen two systems in action. One, in kindergarten, involved turning the Childrens’ behavior cards from green to yellow to orange to red over successive behavior violations. The second, in 1st grade, involves a lot of positive reinforcement for positive behavior and occasional expressions of disappointment and disapproval for disruptive behaviors.

There are clear developmental differences between first graders and kindergartners. Also, both teachers are caring and experienced, suggesting that they have wisely chosen their discipline strategies. It may well be, most likely is, that different developmental stages require very different tactics.

The card system probably succeeded in damping down unwanted behavior. However, in functioned it more like speeding tickets in effectiveness. This is to say, it restrained behavior but didn’t intervene much in the desire to repeat the behavior. The more cognitive positive reinforcement strategy probably effects the child’s core behavior more profoundly. It does, however, lack the crispness of a good stiff threat.

I have also noticed in both systems that some children on some days seem bent on maximizing their punishment. I don’t mean that they have particularly unruly days. I mean there is a clear sense that they’re pursuing some self-destructive agenda by deliberately racking up the violations. I’m sure it’s some psychological tick I haven’t yet read about, but it’s there from time to time and unpleasant to watch. The rules are there to set boundaries on behavior, not to become the rocks the children break themselves upon.

One final note related to my prior post on gender, the vast, overwhelming majority of infractions belong to boys. Probably eight of ten girls in kindergarten never once got on yellow. Two or three of the boys probably never had a day where they didn’t get to yellow and only getting to yellow was a very good day indeed for them.

Feb 19 2010

Boys, Part One

There is a problem with boys in our educational system.

Among other disturbing statistics, males enrolled in college as a percentage of the total has dropped steadily from 70% to 42% between 1949 and 2006 (Sax, 2007), boys receive 70 percent of the D’s and F’s on report cards (Kauchak & Eggen, 2005, p. 97), 73.4% of children diagnosed with a learning disability are boys (I Teach I Learn, n.d.), and boys make up 80% of discipline problems (Gurian & Stevens, 2005, p. 22). In the state of California, from 2003 to 2009, consistently across all grades and years, 8% fewer boys than girls scored proficient or better on their California Standards Test English Language Arts exam (California Department of Education, 2010).

Michael Gurian said it very well, “Boys get unfairly labeled as morally defective, hyperactive, undisciplined, or ‘problem children,’ when quite often the problem is not with the boys but with the families, extended families, or social environments, which do not understand their specific needs as human beings and as boys” (Gurian, 1999).

What are those specific needs? That is a subject much larger than the scope of this post. However, in general, boys have more need for physical movement and are interested in different subject matter than girls. Developmentally, they tend to be slower and/or different in many regards, especially as it relates to lateralization and language and emotional processing.

We cannot and should not change our learning expectations. There is much room, however, to change the classroom environment and add new teaching tools to our inventory to better accommodate the way boys learn.

References

California Department of Education. (2010). Standardized testing and reporting (STAR) results. Retrieved February 19, 2010, from http://star.cde.ca.gov/

Gurian, M. (1999). The good son: A complete parenting plan. East Rutherford, NJ: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam.

Gurian, M., & Stevens, K. (2005). The Minds of Boys. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

I Teach I Learn. (n.d.). Gender as a factor in special education eligibility, services, and results . Retrieved February 19, 2010, from http://www.iteachilearn.com/uh/meisgeier/statsgov20gender.htm

Kauchak, P., & Eggen, P. (2005). Introduction to teaching: Becoming a professional  (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Sax, L. (2007). Boys adrift: The five factors driving the growing epidemic of unmotivated boys and underachieving young men . New York, NY: Basic Books.

Feb 17 2010

IQ and Tiering Classes

Intelligence quotient (IQ) tests produce highly variable results. Do you think it is reasonable to base the placement of children in special classes, such as for the gifted, on the single score? Support your opinion.

Almost without exception, I do not support differentiating people based on any single measure. Human beings are simply too complex and measures of human attributes too unreliable to make such single factor decision making prudent. 

Having said that, there are definitely areas where IQ scores could reasonably be used as a significant factor in decision-making. To the extent that tiering students by ability in school is a goal (ignoring the question of whether such tiering is itself a good idea), IQ is most likely a useful tool. In the first place, it was designed to predict academic success and studies indicate that it does this reasonably well. As Bee & Boyd (2007) say, “Children with high IQ scores are more likely than their peers with average and low scores to be among the high achievers in school” (p. 191). Therefore, it should be clear that for this purpose, IQ scores are “valid.” Further, if IQ scores were to be used in this fashion, they would need to be “reliable,” which is to say that individuals’ results must be stable over time. According to Bee & Boyd, “IQ scores are, in fact, very stable” (p. 189). Finally, I would have ethical qualms if IQ were somehow misrepresenting predictive outcomes across social or ethnic groups. Not so, say Bee & Boyd: “These predictive relationships hold within each social class and ethnic group in the United States” (p. 192). Therefore, to the extent that faculty is attempting to differentiate students by likely educational performance, IQ can morally and practically be reasonably used as one consideration.

However, it is important to understand what IQ scores are not. They are not the sole determinant of likely success. Many factors influence educational outcomes, from culture to heredity to birth order to early childhood environment. As Bee & Boyd (2007) say, “Some children with high IQ scores don’t shine in school while some children with lower scores do” (p. 191). A much strong tool to use in placing students in gifted class would be actual prior educational outcomes, particularly those in the subject in question. IQ tests are also predictors of very specific measures of performance, academic performance. So depending on the type of class, IQ could be very misleading. For example, it would be unwise to use them to populate varsity sports team or the honors drama classes.

Finally, there are troubling correlations between IQ scores, ethnicity, and social class, among others. It is true that these factors correlate across the entire gamut of student achievement. However, given this, I would much prefer direct measures of capability (i.e. grades in prior similar classes) to be the main determinant in tiering classes.

Reference 

Bee, H., & Boyd, B. (2007). The developing child (11th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Feb 13 2010

Technology in the Classroom, Part I

I have a very elaborate vision of how a technology centered classroom might work. This is one of part of the vision.

Imagine that the students have individual wireless buzzers like on a game show. These buzzers would be linked to special software running on a SMARTboard. To answer a question, students buzz. The software randomly selects a student to answer from those who buzzed in. This eliminates unconscious gender bias and favoritism (two oft proven pitfalls of calling on students). The software would keep track of who’s buzzed in to speak in a day and who’s actually spoken. Every child needs their chance to speak so the teacher has a choice of options to address this. The software could select children to answer some questions (or all questions) randomly. Or each student might be required to buzz in a specified number of times (perhaps linked to the total opportunities in a given day). As the day goes on, pressure to speak mounts and the students learn to make wise choices in how they choose to buzz in.

Other aspects of the Q&A could be tracked. Possibly the teacher could set it to track whether students’ answers were correct. Essentialists would love that, though I would reserve that option for special situations. If the buzzer had several buttons, it could be used for impromptu quizzes. There are many possibilities.

I’m kind of a geek. It’d be fascinating for me to have this as a tool to see where it’d lead. Unfortunately, I don’t see any simply way to jury rig one and I haven’t heard of anything like it on the market. But I’m sure it’ll be available one day as technology grinds it’s way inexorably forward.