Helping Chidren Learn Self-Awareness and Self-Reliance

Kids don't get very many chances to find out about themselves or choose for themselves at school. They wake up and get put on a bus at the ass-crack of dawn, often spending more than an hour commuting to school. When they arrive, they sit in assigned seats in carefully arraigned rows to prevent them from interacting overmuch with their friends. They are shuttled silently and in a line from a class on one subject to another, with a mental costume change expected promptly, and no idle chitchat in transit.

If they're lucky, they get to choose their own seats at lunch. For some kids today, even their recess has become a dirge of walking on a track like a donkey in a smithy. At the end of the day, they ride in assigned seats on the bus home. Rich kids then get paraded about to all sorts of classes, lessons, or clubs, finally arriving home to waffle down some dinner and do an hour or two of homework that may or may not be useful in academic, social, or developmental ways.

No matter what we teach in schools, and whether or not it directly relates to the life our children go on to live and the adults they become, this system is bad, wrong, and broken.

I had the opportunity to go to an alternative style elementary school in Philadelphia called Project Learn (PL). While PL had many flaws, and I would not suggest it as a viable model for large-scale use, there were several aspects of it that gave me an opportunity that every child deserves. We should do our best as a society to create the kind of environment that PL did so that every child can have these opportunities:

At PL, while everyone "knew" what grade people were in, classes were referred to based on the teacher's name rather than the grade level. Instead of an impersonal fact like date of birth determining  grade, a combination of age, maturity, and acumen were used. Because most of the homerooms had children from more than one year, and quite a few students stayed in the same homeroom for two years before moving on, it was impossible for the bullies to tell if a student was matched with a homeroom teacher because of symbiotic temperament or academic proficiency.

Likewise with academic classes. Math classes happened at the same time school-wide, and students were placed in a class based on their abilities. This was an incredible choice that allowed PL to teach all classes at much higher levels than in a typical school. They did this with language arts as well.

As a school teacher (and this was at the current 6th ranked school in the country mind you) I found that in each 22-child sections of science I would have huge disparities in ability. A teacher is forced to either let the smart kids get bored, or let the dumb kids not learn. What ends up happening is a lame reduction to the mean where teachers hope most kids get it, stress about the ones who don't, and try to give extra challenges to the smart ones without turning them into pariahs.

A final choice that PL made, and one that I believe would make the most difference if adopted by more elementary, middle, and high schools, was an elective course structure. Starting in 3rd grade, students got to choose several elective classes based on their interest (and the teacher's offerings). The whole school did electives at the same time, and many (but not all) of the elective classes involved students of different ages. There is so much going on here that is beneficial, but here are a few highlights:

Children getting to choose a class increases their buy-in and agency, giving them invaluable practice making decisions and sticking to them for a semester. Working in a class with students of other ages lets younger ones model their behavior based on peers who have matured, and lets older students pretend to be adults and practice leadership.

Teachers love electives. Electives give teachers a chance to share their passions with students, explore new ideas and topics, and design new curriculum. This keeps their lessons in their other areas fresher, and constantly broadens their knowledge base; allowing teachers to model the process of learning for their students. Job satisfaction is also increased because teachers often get stuck in a rut. Many elementary schools are feudal. Career teachers slowly accumulate gravitas and authority as they build political factions around them and compete in a zero-sum game with other tenured teachers. Electives uproot this by encouraging change, adaptation, and giving teachers a constantly random set of students to teach.

Electives also give more legitimacy and accountability to pursuits that would often be placed in "clubs" at the middle school and high school level. I personally participated in and loved the school newspaper elective.

A school administrator could also develop an electives slate that catered to a regional or local need. I can imagine an incredibly effective course offering in a blue-collar town that helped prepare middle and high school students for vocational jobs by giving them a chance to learn what options they were most passionate about. Likewise, in a school district with high teen pregnancy there could be electives focused on things like childcare or parenting.

In order to become more self-aware and self-reliant (both values that I ascribe to and believe to be an integral part of the American Dream), we need to do a better job helping our children learn and practice those skills. If a student never gets to make a choice, and is often held back/left behind in regimented classes, they won't learn to dream.

A Story of Growth

Sometimes it takes a life-changing event to realize something that was always in front of us.

Yesterday I listened to a man in his 40's tell a story to an elderly lady while eating lunch at a diner. In his mid 20's he had gone on a skiing trip with his then girlfriend and a few other friends. After a day of frustration helping out his timid girlfriend, he decided to go on one last run with a friend who was very talented at skiing.

After taking the lift to the top of the mountain (for the first time all day) and banking into a few sharp turns and steep downhills while following his friend, he decided to try to do one of the trick jumps his friend was doing. He mistimed and misaligned the jump and instead of landing the perfect back-flip he saw in his minds-eye, he went flying head-over-heels and ended up sliding off a 40ft drop.

Ribs cracked, lungs punctured, hips and pelvis broken, he recounted going in and out of consciousness as they tried to stuff a breathing tube down his throat on the helicopter. Without the ability to speak, he finally coughed sideways and saw the teeth that had been lodged in his throat fly out the helicopter window.

He woke up again once before his induced coma - long enough to recognize a doctor in the ER as the shortstop, Pedro, from his middle-school baseball team. Pedro didn't recognize him because of the gore, but saved his life with numerous surgeries.

After talking in detail about his reckless decision and the debilitating aftermath, the man concluded with a simple observation - "I had been so reckless with my life up to that point because I thought no one was watching and no one cared. It was only when I woke up after weeks in a coma to see my friends and family gathered around that I realized people had been there the whole time."

By our very nature, we to slip into solipsism. We feel isolated and scared to face our inner wildman. But the truth is, people are watching, they do care, and what we do every day can help and effect those around us for the better.

Conflict and Growth

People grow through conflict and discomfort. I was reminded of this recently by a Facebook post showing a lobster shedding its shell only when it grew too big and the pressure too high.

I spent a lot of time thinking about conflict while developing training modules for administrative and counselor training weeks at camp, and I have never come to a satisfactory conclusion about how to teach conflict.

When conducting exit interviews several months after the summer, each year one of the most cited examples of "staff issues" would involve a seminal argument in the staff lounge. I can't identify why it is that these conflicts hold so much power over people's perceptions, though I think there are several connected explanations:

First I think these arguments serve as a shorthand for other issues those people are already having. It's not that disagreeing about feminism (or change, or racism, or politics...) is all encompassing, it's that it embodies the laundry list of faults and unresolved disagreements each person sees in the other. When we don't like or get along perfectly with a person, we can use a public display of disagreement to justify those feelings even long afterwards.

Secondly I think people like things to be resolved. We like there to winners and losers, facts and liars, heroes and villains. When we can cast ourselves as heroically defending truth against some other, we feel good about ourselves. Many of the arguments that got cited were about topics that have no easy resolution, so to feel complete, we retreat to our well-worn opinions.

Thirdly I surmise that most people are bad at the process of conflict, and thus tend to see the argument at irreconcilably far from resolution when it is mostly a matter of viewpoint. I am reminded here of an example in a physics class I took in college that discussed string theory:

https://brilliant.org/wiki/string-theory/

Imagine an ant on a power line that can travel along the wire or around it. For the ant those are two distinct dimensions. If we zoom out to street level, we can only observe the ant moving along the wire one way or the other.

Conflict is often zoomed way too far out. If we started in close by using conflict resolution skills like agreeing on what we agree on (usually arguments surround small fractions of things while the core principles are agreed upon), we would tend to see that there are many dimensions of agreement despite the one or two ways we disagree.

"I've Never Been Promoted; I've Promoted Myself Several Times Though"

Pushing employees to be their best involves making sure they realize when their decision making and ability to take on responsibility is greater than what they currently do.  It's not hard to tell when people are smart or talented enough for more of a challenge, what is hard is making sure that they create opportunities to take charge of things.

Fear of stepping on your boss' toes might make you hesitate to push for more responsibility. However, once you establish a role, you will be expected to do that next time. Your boss isn't going to be upset when they have less work to do, so stop being afraid to take on something.

Recently a Baby Boomer told me a story about an employee of hers (who she doesn't directly manage) who is talented but plateauing. When she asked that employee who would be giving lower level staff performance reviews, the employee said she assumed it would be her boss, even though she directly managed those people. The Baby Boomer told her to just put together materials for the reviews and then when the moment came up, she would be ready to tell her boss "I'll handle this." Then the next time she'll be assumed to be in charge of it.

The Baby Boomer concluded with the powerful thought: "I've never been promoted, I've promoted myself several times though."  As a manager it is your job to help your employees with talent and smartsmanship take those moments and grab more responsibility.

Wordsmithing for Evil or for Good?

William Shakespeare was the consummate wordsmith. I always loved reading his plays in school, and given my penchant for passionate exterpolation, I have never limited myself to preexisting language when expressing myself. A good word play, portmanteau, or entendre can bring a moment from banal to blingin' in a sentence.

But there is danger in creating language too. What we say and how we say it to each other isn't just good fun. I have struggled with finding the hidden misogyny in my language since college (did you notice toughies like sportsMANship? Sometimes hidden misogyny is a manwich, sometimes it's manspread, but misogyny is everywhere man).

Richard B. Spencer is a dangerous man, and a dangerous wordsmith. As the progenitor of the phrase "Alt-Right," and leading voice in the white nationalist and neo-nazi movement, he has committed his life to hate in a way that damages the fabric of our nation. This Chrome ad on has just been created to help you out in correcting the linguistic damage currently being done by Spencer's abhorrent wordsmithing.

If this kind of nomenclature interests you (and you like movies like Pulp Fiction or have read some Sci Fi), I highly suggest you pick up the book Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny. The main character has some incredible moments with regard to how we speak and what we call things - I will leave you with a quote from the book that I believe sums up the danger and the power of words:

No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words.

Maybe Two Popular Vote Victories (and Electoral Losses) Means We Need to HELP Each Other...

For the last several days, my news feed has been filled with a combination of self-righteous anger and genuine shock at the ascendancy of a "serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S." (most of Huffington Post's editor's note that has accompanied any story about Donald for the last six months or so).  I believe in the electoral college and why we have it. I think it is important that we not stifle anyone's voices, no matter how much I disagree with what they are saying.

I agree with the people who are protesting in that I think they have a right to express that their choice for president did not win. But I think that there is a severe lesson to be learned for the democratic and progressive people living in Cali, DC, and NY (and the other urbanites who voted heavily for Hillary). There are millions of people in this country who have not been helped by Barack Obama's administration. Those people have a right to the same degree of self respect, self sufficiency, and employment as people fortunate enough to attend college (or some of it). 8.4 million jobs have been added to our economy during Obama's administration - for those with a college degree - while those who have only a high school degree have received nothing.

As a student at Lehigh university from 2005-2009, I ran a program at my house called Thursday Night Dinners where we invited local community leaders to come speak to us about issues important to them. The most important series we held involved local community leaders, Sands Casino representatives, and Lehigh professors speaking about the prospects of building a casino in the old steel mill. For the most part, it seems like our impressions were proved true, by 2012 - residents have "wore out the phrase ‘neutral’ to describe the overall affect of the complex at 77 Sands Blvd".

Hundreds of towns and communities all throughout PA and other rust belt states have floundered as industry has moved away and technology has reduced what used to be impressive factory towns into meth-havens ignored by Democrats. Most of those communities have not been as lucky as Bethlehem (and I do not consider Bethlehem to be lucky).

Our country has much to be proud of, and it is our diversity and cultural diffusion that makes us strong. I chafe at claims by high-tower elites who cite asymmetrical facts to deride our performance in categories like education or literacy. Our country has far less corruption than one of the only other comparable democracies, India, and our economy is stronger than any in the history of the world. Relatively speaking, we have shrunk to only the size of the best empires in history, rather than continuing to dominate half of the world's trade.

What this election is showing me, more than anything else, is that we need to take a serious and rationed look at how to improve the lives and opportunities of those left behind in the recovery. I refuse to believe that many of the old, white voters who supported Trump are as terrible and reprehinsible as Hillary claimed or as the liberal elites want us to believe right now. If you went to a school or lived in a town where you have never met a Muslim or lived with a LGBT person or had an interaction with a Jew, than your expression of beliefs in support of Donald Trump's vision is less deplorable than it is ignorant.

It is my job as a member of the landed elite or liberal coastal citizens to educate, inform, and help out our fellow Americans. In the all important words of Pope Francis, "Who am I to Judge?"

Feedback and Criticism

For our middle of the summer professional development (every summer we send the kids home for 24 hours right in the middle of the season so we can clean everything thoroughly and have a little in-service training) one thing we did was hand around a general feedback sheet for each person. As a group, we all passed our sheets around and filled out a few comments for each other person in the list.

There were a few interesting psychological observations I had during the process - first it was interesting that as a few comments accumulated for each person, I found (and others agreed about this pressure when we discussed it later) that I wanted to learn what others had said about that person before formulating my own opinion. Since we were giving only 40-60 seconds to write a few lines of feedback for each person, I found that it was mentally draining to try to formulate a full picture of the person and then write a comment, and instead I would read quickly over the list and add one or two comments to sections that seemed like they were under-filled, or I felt were too one-sided. Interestingly I didn't feel the need to balance ones that were one-sided if I felt like the person really needed the feedback in that direction, though if I disagreed with most of the comments in a one-sided area, I would definitely comment to try to balance it out. There was also an interesting curiosity and lopsidedness to the information that everyone had. Since you were commenting and passing around all 35 other people's sheets, you got to see what was accumulating for their comments gradually and feel the tone of the whole group's comments develop even though you had no idea what people were saying about you. I found that odd assortment of information/blankness to be stressful.

Afterwards, we collected all of the sheets, photocopied them, and then returned the originals to people the next day. For the most part people seemed to take the criticism and praise well, and really only the most emotionally immature people were outwardly upset that they received negative feedback. While there were a few mean-spirited comments, it was overall a very productive and considerate process, and even the people whose reviews were the harshest were filled with positive comments. It seemed like the people who got upset were having trouble more with the fact that they had negative comments at all than with the actual content of the negative reviews. I think this is an interesting potential negative externality of the "participation" awards and removal of grading from many elementary schools / academics. Some of the people who responded poorly seem like people who have likely had a family/educational environment that stressed inclusion and feelings over collectivism and results, so while they are caring individuals, they lack the grit to hear something negative. Also interestingly enough, several of the people who responded the most poorly to negative feedback are people who I would most strongly identify with having a fixed mindset and not a growth mindset.

I will have to check back with my Assistant Director sometime next week to hear how all of the counselors have responded in their check ins with him as he has worked through those lists with people and helped them turn constructive criticism and praise into goals for the final weeks of the summer.