Life Skills, Education and Success

There was a very salient piece in the Huff Post recently.  The author addressed the topic of what she called “life skills”, then later “executive functions”.  I’ve written significantly about these in this space.  They are the “be all and end all” of education as far as I’m concerned.  Without these you cannot live your life successfully.  Full stop.

Why is this so evident to me? Because life requires you to take command of YOUR life, which requires self-control, efficacy, emotional regulation, communication skills, and the like.  This tangent is what will make it or break it for most.  You can have all the academic smarts possible, but if you haven’t developed the above then life will not be a fulfilling and joyful experience.  I think we all know this.  This is not controversial.

The fact that there is research supporting the long-term effects and benefits of early development of these skills (executive functions, self-regulation) surely will help to get some attention, but the fact that they are essential skills should not be questionable.

So where does this leave us?  We need to get serious with retooling education, that’s where.  There are small glimmers of change here and there, but we can fast-forward very effectively and implement a highly successful model now rather than stumble forward ever so slowly and maybe make a bunch of missteps along the way.  We can do this if we look carefully at Montessori schools.  The Montessori model has an integrated approach to developing these essential life skills along with all the academics you could imagine.

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The New Innovators

The crisis is still with us.  Grads look for jobs and don’t find them.  People call for a rescue to save them and others.  There’s despair and longing and a sense of hopelessness.  But not everywhere.  For some there’s a better way.  Necessity is the mother of invention.  The ones you will see rise up today are the ones who can tap into what made this country what it is: intrinsic motivation, perseverance, inventiveness, confidence, curiosity, boldness, independence and courage.

Watch  this music video and what do  you see?  I see two young people ” just doing what needs to be done”.  They put themselves out there.  They are making something of value because they can, and maybe they have to.  Hand-outs are not ever an answer.  Hand-outs train people to wait for help.  It trains them to “rely on” and become DEpendent.    That’s no future.  Maybe it’s just me but the passion and confidence I see in these two is what will carry them.  Never mind the particular song if you don’t care for it – see the souls of these two, their spirit.  I’m not worried about them.

The world is spinning out and we need young people to understand what will get them ahead.  The ones who are capable of rising themselves up will be the ones to make the future, to carry the world forward.  We need education to play a role in nurturing these young people, to show them that this is possible. We don’t need schools that  train them to sit and wait, to follow the rules, to be lead and to just  do what they are told.  Maybe too many generations of that is taking its toll today.

Education needs a reality check today.  It needs to be able to show all students  (i) that they have something inside themselves that they can contribute, (ii) that they can develop the skills to make that contribution.  But that skill development is not what’s on offer in most schools today.  There’s no path there for the innovators and creators.  Half of them are “tamed” with medication to help them “focus” and be calm and controlled.  That’s a shame because the taming also suppresses that which actually makes them tick, that which would unlock their contribution.

So, “cheers” to those who are striking out on their own, who have discovered their contribution.

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“Good teachers” and Real education

A recent NY Times book review (of Steven Brill’s Class Warfare) discusses the author’s claim that “truly effective teaching… can overcome student indifference, parental disengagement and poverty” – because these things have been shown to act against student achievement in conventional schools.  Making the case that “good teachers” can overcome these would be a good argument for having more of these quality teachers as well as pointing to a possible solution other than the more complicated solution of fixing those things in our culture that leads to these kinds of things in the first place.

All very interesting, but completely beside the point.  What the author, Brill, is looking at is test scores as a measure of student achievement and how “effective teaching” can overcome some of the very obstacles that many teachers argue stand in their way of making progress.  What Brill is missing is the fact that (i) it’s not effective teaching that will solve these problems, it’s a NEW APPROACH to education, and (ii) test scores don’t measure “learning”.

Simply getting better test results in a “content delivery system” model is a low goal, and one that truly lacks an understanding of what an education is supposed to do for a person.  A new approach, a new paradigm, that fully recasts what education is and how it takes place is what can address ALL of the kinds of issues that Brill raises.  The results are in and it’s demonstrable  that a better fundamental approach can correct for all of the factors that Brill identifies.  AND, it doesn’t require parents to become super-parents.

Have a look at the results that have been logged at the East Dallas Community School.  They adopted a new education paradigm – not some window dressing new reading program, not longer school days, not more technology – they  simply  sis one thing: throw away the conventional content delivery model and adopt one that actually works on all levels… they became a Montessori school.

 

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real education change, please

Recently it was brought to my attention that a new charter high  school in Chicago was being shaped by an innovative idea: allowing students to engage in meaning-making activities, based largely on game-theory.  This is intended to produce students who can think critically.

Meaning-making is indeed one of the necessary core outcomes of a true education, one which has generally failed to exist in the conventional model.  But, the  people behind this new charter program fail to grasp a key point: to direct students in their meaning-making cancels out the very thing you desire to achieve.

The subtle issue here is that of “idea generation”.  The person generating the idea is the one reaping the benefit.  Having others act upon the idea may have some value, if the idea is worthy, but what will not be developed is the ability to generate ideas- to be a critical  thinker, or a thinker at all.  It’s the genesis point that matters.

This new school calls what they’re doing “digital learning” and they explicitly talk about “getting kids hooked on learning” by making learning feel like a video game.  They talk about exploring things actively, with large video screens and tools that are wii-like, to demonstrate principles of physics, for example.

But, if you step back from all the tech jargon you see that it’s simply the latest smoke and mirrors attempt to deliver “content”, much the way conventional education always has.  It’s just the latest “use of technology”, after a long line of technological saviors of education (radio, television, computes, the internet).

In the end, the program description here contains all the misguided principles of old: it’s adult-directed, geared towards covering the curriculum and while the idea that students aren’t sitting in their seats all day long is good (let’s see in practice how it actually works out….) it’s not enough to make a fundamental difference.

Understanding what fundamental change in education looks like just seems to be so challenging, I’m coming to believe.  I guess that’s why paradigm changes are just that.

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What is Edn FOR?

There’s been a lot written in this space about the role, purpose and goal of education, especially in the 21st century – today!

In a guest lecturer spot at Oregon State University last month I addressed this issue again.

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Angry Parents Storm State Capitol Buildings

Now that’s a headline I’d like to read, if the next line was “over the chaos that is public education, read government schools“.

With the unrest and demand for democracy in the Middle East it seems to me that parents in the US should be clamoring for their own “say” – a say in how their children are being educated.  Parents pay the tax dollars that fun the schools they send their children to.  Parents who send their children to independent/private schools are paying twice for their children’s education.  Why is it that no one is storming the capitol buildings?!  Why are we so passive, so accepting?

Conventional education has made so many promises about reform and “now we’ve got it figured out” and they fail to deliver over and over again.  Einstein was right, wasn’t he, when he said that the definition of insanity was “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result” – isn’t that us?  Isn’t that the legacy of public/conventional education?

It’s time to walk up those stairs and DEMAND something better for our children.  Demand that the schools stop being “schools” in any conventional sense.  Demand that education set as its goal the preparation of people to go off and live their lives, that it be set up to follow natural patterns of development, that it take children on a powerful journey of self-discovery.  Why can’t we have this?  Why aren’t we demanding it?  Since when are Americans willing to put up with something mediocre or worse, and not take matters into their own hands with a little ingenuity and simply come up with a better way? Since when?  What’s happened that the revolution is happening elsewhere and we sit back placidly watching it?

Has freedom lulled us into complacency?

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US Education Policy is Confused

And now, a re-post from a brilliant education scholar who understands what matters in education and what needs to be changed.  Yong Zhao recently moved to Oregon to become the Presidential Chair and Associate Dean for Global Education, College of Education at the University of Oregon, Eugene.

You can read his recent post here.

His recent book Catching Up is also a gem.

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China – education to emulate?

If we’d like a culture of poorly motivated and critically-thinking impaired people then- sure, let’s emulate China’s education system.

Wait!  Don’t they “perform” really well by international standards?  Aren’t they the ones we’re chasing on math and science tests?  Don’t they win most of the competitions in US schools and always “do well”.. why wouldn’t we want to emulate the system that gave rise to this?  Because our world will fail if we do.

To begin, regular readers of this blog do not need a reminder of why “doing well on tests” doesn’t matter (you can search for that content on this blog).  “Performing” is not living, and no indicator that you’re ready to live or succeed in the world.  But the biggest reason why Chinese education should be shunned is because it kills creativity and stifles innovation – the motors of development and growth.  That’s why even the Chinese are making serious efforts to  change their education system.  Chinese author Yong Zhao has written about this very subject in his book Catching Up.  He describes China’s desire to undo the damages of testing and standardization; and he accurately notes that “Innovative people cannot come from schools that force students to memorize correct answers on standardized tests or reward students  who excel at regurgitating dictated spoon-fed knowledge”.

American “reformers” who think that the ANSWERS to our current “testing” crisis lie within the model of Chinese/Asian education are just plain mistaken.  Well, let’s correct  that.  The answer to our testing crisis may very well be in that model – the problem is that our crisis in NOT one of testing – it’s much worse, much more fundamental.

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Education and Parenting

Some parents do a very good job of messing up their children’s lives.

Some fail to prepare their children for their futures. Some think they are preparing them and are in fact doing harmful and destructive things.  In the latter category you can squarely place the recently published law prof-cum-author Amy Chua.  Her recent memoir, as she presents it, tells of her successful efforts to see to it that her two daughters turn out to be perfect, or just shy of it.  That’s right, she wants to “see to it” (my words) that her daughters turn out “just so”.   She will stop at nothing to get her girls to reach perfection: only As, top of all their classes, top musical performances, and so on.  She resorts to threats, punishments, insults – all are fair tools in Chua’s mind to get her girls to turn out as she has planned.  You can read the N.Y. Times article.

Is this what parenting is?  Are children clay in the hands of parents, to mold as they see fit?  I thought parenting was about child-rearing: fostering independence and health and preparing children to live in the world.  Is it the role or responsibility of parents to shape their children’s lives? to select careers? Do parents  have this right even?  Is it a crazy new-age, “soft” idea to allow children to “discover themselves” or make of their lives what they would like? Chua’s approach is controlling and totalitarian: she sees her children as tools for her to manipulate for her own ends. Like a benevolent dictator she claims to know what’s best and they’ll become that, like it or not.

Chua doesn’t allow sleep-overs, parties, or after school activities. “No time”, she says, must practice!. They need 2-4 hours a day to practice piano and violin.   And she stands over them, literally, seeing that they put their all into it.

What are these children learning in the process?  To not love learning or making an effort.  To not care about things. To feel like your life is not yours to direct. How is that going to help them in life?  It’s the very opposite outcome that we’d want.  We want children to become able thinkers who enjoy putting forth all the effort that it takes to work hard, practice and persevere.  When you force people to do this they do not learn how to do it, i.e. make the effort, for themselves because you’re the one doing the doing. Just as traditional schools do too much for students- scheduling their time, controlling when they do their work, focusing on remembering instead of understanding, this approach of forcing children to “work hard” will not teach them to work hard but to hate work.

Has Chua been successful?  If by this we mean “did she achieve what she set out to do?”, then yes.  Her girls have performed beautifully in all areas.  So what?  Who are they as people?  Are they happy? Will they contribute to the world anything meaningful?  Or will they be two more frustrated adults who don’t know what they want and don’t have a sense of personal accomplishment?

The end does not justify the means. Punishing children is highly effective to get them to do what you want – just keep increasing the punishment as they get older and they’ll acquiesce.  It works as a form of discipline.  But it’s wrong. It’s a horrible way to treat children- all people for that matter.  Punishment works in the short-term, but in the long term the recipient has not learned how to be self-disciplined because someone else, the one holding the punishment over their head, did the doing.  You only learn to be self-disciplined when you have to control yourself- make the effort.  This is a huge area in developmental psychology these days (often called self-regulation or executive functions).

Parenting plays a HUGE role in how and what children learn.  If we’re sending them off to school every day fearful of the next test score and stressed out about always having to “be the best”, what are we doing to them? What are we saying life is about? Has Amy Chua not seen the recent film Race to Nowhere?

Here’s a quote from Chua about her own experience as a student in law school, where she didn’t really care, she admits, about the rights of criminals and never wanted to be called on in class: “I also wasn’t naturally skeptical or questioning: I just wanted to write down everything the professor said and memorize it”.  There you go, nothing’s hidden.  All that mattered to her was “pass the test”.  Learn something?  Care about what you’re learning or doing?  Who has time to care?  This is who she’d like to populate the world with.  You want to live in that world?

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Education for Work

In The Social Network then-Harvard President, Larry Summers, tells the twin students who are complaining about having their million-dollar idea stolen: “every Harvard undergrad thinks that he’ll make his own job, not get one – so come up with another idea”.

This echoes what Dan Pink relates in A Whole New Mind – that today, and tomorrow, the “successful” in life will be those who can make something for themselves.  This is why Pink focuses so much on creativity as divergent thinking and on being able to take charge of your self, your  life (esp in his follow-up book Drive – about intrinsic motivation).

How is it the students are to be prepared for this?  They need it today and most have been failed by the system of traditional education which has not developed in them intrinsic motivation (by turning them  into “grade-chasers” and test takers…. which are extrinsic “rewards”).  They also have no idea.. well, that’s it.  No idea(s) about how to do much, how to figure, solve problems, innovate, etc.  You can’t “think of a new idea”, let alone have the perseverance and determination to see it through, if you haven’t been prepared.

As someone commented on a recent post here, I paraphrase, “how do you account for the fact that there ARE innovators in our midst and what about the fact that not everyone can be “great” or “in the top percentile” of idea-generation?”  There are two answers here.  On the last question, it’s true that not every one of us has the potential to be “the best” or the most creative, etc.  Not all are visionaries.  I get that.  BUT, if we have an educational experience that develops is each of us the full potential that we have, we raise the bar (or bell curve) for all.  Imagine a culture where today’s “8″ is tomorrow’s “5″- meaning that what we receive today from the “8s” (out of  10) amongst us we then receive from all the “5s”…. what will the 8s give us then?  That’s a culture I wish to live  in.

The first question has two parts to the answer: sure, there will always be those who rise up, who naturally find a way to create, to find themselves, to  propel humanity forward- there always have been.  But do we wish to rely on these?  This takes us to the answer to the second question, above.  Also, I’ve been paying attention to information that shows a trend amongst some innovators (here and here) and successful entrepreneurs (Harvard Bus Review story here here, other links here and here and here) who share a similar education background in alternative independent schools which they attribute to their success because those experiences allowed them to “problem-solve” and “self-direct” by not being “fed” information but rather were provide with opportunities to explore, discover – think.

This quote from Roger Levin sums it up “too  often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve”.

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