It’s Their Fault!

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What’s Wrong With Our Schools?

Are you concerned about the quality of our schools? Improving education is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY, whether you are a parent, teacher, student or an elected official. A felt sense of personal responsibility is the key to educational improvement.

placing Blame vs. taking Responsibility

When a player starts blaming the referee, does he begin to play worse? When the coach starts in on the blaming, does the whole team play worse? Test the theory for yourself while you watch college basketball on television or Little League baseball in the neighborhood. When you perceive that an uncontrollable outside force is in control, you not only feel helpless to effect change, you also have a ready-made excuse for not giving it your all.

Does this idea apply to the efforts made to educate our children? It has been well publicized that on most measures of achievement, American students seriously lag behind their foreign peers. Equally well documented is the assignment of blame in all directions for this “failing grade”.

“It’s the teacher’s unions”

“It’s the parents”

“It’s the poverty and drugs”

“It’s the kids who no longer care”

“It’s the culture (of video games, tv, and Internet) that doesn’t value education.”

How many variations and directions can blame take when it comes to failing schools and low academic achievement? We need to recognize that the act of blaming is an excuse for not having taken personal responsibility for the outcome. Regardless of who is reading this next sentence, I firmly believe it applies to you: “Education is your responsibility”.

Are you a parent?

A parent who blames his child’s poor progress on bad teachers and teacher’s unions that prevent the firing of bad teachers fails to recognize that children are capable of learning despite the quality of the teacher. It is a parent’s responsibility to know what a child needs to learn and if necessary help them learn it themselves. Even if your child is taking Calculus, sit down at the kitchen table every night and learn it together, example-by-example. If the child can learn it, you can as well. If you are working two jobs, find somebody who can tutor. (Ask to see course goals and assessments. If the teacher is as bad as advertised, be relentless at getting your child switched to another class. Eventually, administrators give in just to shut you up.) After-the-fact-finger-pointing and blaming is merely assuaging your own guilt. Just like a good parent knows where their child is, who they are with and what they are doing – so does she know what subjects her child is taking, what she needs to learn and how well she is learning it.

Take math for example. Do you know what math operations your child has mastered? Can your child apply those math skills to everyday problems, not just problems on a worksheet? “How would I assess these skills? I’m not a trained teacher,” you argue? (start the Calypso music) “Google it, dear Henry, dear Henry … just Google it!” Let me give you a head start with math. Go to jumpmath.org and explore the site. You can order workbooks and teaching aids for math through the eighth grade. Every single math operation is laid out in detail. Success in math is not a function of good genes. It is the result of systematically mastering each building block skill before moving to the next. Done in this fashion, math need not be a difficult subject, for anyone. Not convinced? Check out A Better Way To Teach Math from the New York Times. In his book, The Myth of Ability: Nurturing Mathematical Talent in Every Child, John Mighton makes a convincing argument for why every child can learn math. But what is probably the most convincing part of the book is the second half where he takes you step by step through the process of teaching fractions, multiplication and division, ratios and percents, and coordinate systems, as well as logic and systematic search.

(more Calypso music) “It ends with eighth grade, Dear Liza, Dear Liza … It ends with eighth grade!” “Then go to Khan Academy, Dear Henry, Dear Henry …” Have you ever heard of Khan Academy? Check it out. It’s a completely new way to view education. At this site, you have access to lectures on EVERY math course you can imagine, from the most basic principles of grade school math, to Calculus and Linear Algebra. Each necessary building block is presented in order. “Just math?” you ask. GO to the site. Courses in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Statistics, Finance … and SAT preparation. Khanacademy.org

My message is simple. You have a wealth of resources available to you to assess your child’s mastery of math and science, as well as the tools to help learn those skills. You truly can take personal responsibility for your child’s education.

Are you a teacher?

The teacher who blames the parents for their students’ failings does not belong in teaching. The idea that parents just don’t care about their children’s education is an urban myth at best, a lame excuse for sure. Find me a parent who does not want what is best for their child. Find me a parent who does not want their child to succeed in school. Feel free to canvas the prisons and the crack houses. ALL parents want their children to succeed. Another myth is that students don’t care. If they are in your classroom, they still care and they still have hope for succeeding. Otherwise, they would be elsewhere. Forced to be there you say? Try forcing a teenager to do anything they don’t want to do.

Children, regardless of age, invest in school when there is a goal they want and they believe it is achievable. The formula is simple:

INVESTMENT = (I CAN) x (I WANT)

Regardless of what is going on outside the classroom, a teacher can create or discover goals that every child wants and can achieve. If you cannot find desirable, achievable goals, then you are not adequately invested in teaching.

Discipline is out of control and prevents learning? Discipline is not a problem when a child truly believes that a teacher cares about him, respects him, and is offering him a way to succeed. This process starts by sitting down, one-on-one, and listening with genuine interest to the child. The formula for this is also simple: “You join him in his world and gradually draw him into your world.” If you care about your kids, they will respect you. If you are passionate about your subject, they will begin to share your passion.

Take a look at the website for Teaching As Leadership by Steve Farr if you have held some of these beliefs about the difficulty of overcoming family and community barriers to achievement. Convinced you have unmanageable students? Check out Teach Like A Champion by Doug Lemov or take a look at the You Tube video examples of this technique. The data from Teach For America classrooms is demonstrating that careful attention to skill assessment, ongoing monitoring of progress, high expectations, and mastery based instruction can produce rapid narrowing of the achievement gap for low income students at all levels in reading, math and science achievement.

Are you a student?

Students say, “School sucks”, “Teachers don’t care”, “Nobody even knows if I am there”, and “Friends are more important than school”. Look around. How many people have succeeded in life without being a serious student? So, names come to mind of those who never got degrees? Athletes? Musicians? Small business owners? Each of them has succeeded by virtue of being a serious student of their chosen profession. They succeed because they knew what they wanted and went after it with a passion. The most successful ones go after it because they want it, not because someone told them to want it or that they needed to learn it. It is your responsibility, as a student, to figure out what you are passionate about and then learn everything you can about it. School and teachers do not stand in the way of you doing that. If you are passively waiting for a good teacher to motivate you or teach you, then your future is only as good as the good people in your life who pull you along. They are good to have, but ambition comes from inside you.

Your friends devalue school and shame you if you take it seriously? It is hard to go your own way? Friends do come first. But if they are true friends, they will respect what is important for you. If you can’t tell them that, or they will not accept that, then you have some stuff to figure out, because that road is leading to a set of very unsatisfying relationships and some missed opportunities – ones you will remember while sitting in a bar when you are forty something, remembering the “good time”. Do you know one or two guys headed that way?

Are you an elected official?

What is your responsibility? Don’t blame the teacher’s union for looking out for its members. Don’t blame voters for not wanting higher taxes. Don’t blame poverty, crime and drugs. Good schools can spring up and flourish in the poorest of neighborhoods. Honoring and rewarding excellence, providing for choice and competition, and raising the status and rewards for good teaching are all factors under your control. There are many examples of success in our country and abroad. The wheel does not need reinventing – but it may need replacing. Creating an atmosphere where innovation and personal development are encouraged; allowing for incompetence and failure to be exchanged for something better; inspiring eager young college graduates to enter teaching and making it worthwhile to stay; as well as making education accessible to all ages and incomes are all conditions that have been successfully created in communities. Great teachers can produce great results. How do you attract them and retain them? Take a look at what works right in Finland, a country where “teaching is considered one of the most highly esteemed professions”. Check out, Finland, what’s the secret to its success? at the PBS site on Where We Stand, America’s Schools in the 21st Century.

Link to resources:

The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore is an interesting book about the two paths taken by two boys from impoverished, crime ridden communities. Structure, responsibilities, close monitoring, high expectations, and a strong and determined mother are some of the factors that contributed to the author’s success as a military officer, business leader and youth advocate. Whereas the absence of these factors contributed to the other Wes Moore’s eventual incarceration.

Link to the website for Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck. All parents and teachers should read this book before passing GO. Expectations that all children are capable of growth, regardless of where they begin is essential first step to then taking responsibility for promoting that growth.

My apologies. This essay is more of a sermon than a thought piece. When it comes to the importance of taking Personal Responsibility, my evangelism reveals itself. Many years ago, I conducted research related to father involvement with their first born children. If I could make one simple recommendation regarding father involvement, it would be this: make sure there are regular times when the father is solely responsible for the child. There is no better source of motivation than sole responsibility for someone else. Ask any mother.

Key terms: personal responsibility; internal discipline; ambition

The Limits for Growth

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Healthy limits promote developmental growth

Working within limits promotes the development of self-regulation in children. Limits on spending, bedtime, and television/computer are described. With a clothing allowance, a child must make choices, plan ahead and save for what is most important. At bedtime, a child knows that dawdling limits the amount of time for stories. And with a limit on electronics, a child takes care of homework and responsibilities and then makes good use of the time remaining.

Have you heard of the famous environmental essay by Garrett Hardin entitled, The Tragedy of the Commons? He used the metaphor where each farmer personally gains by adding one more cow to the village commons. However, at some point adding too many cows leads to overgrazing and ruining the common pasture. Never heard of it? How about this? Each of your kids knows that if she asks you for money, she will benefit. But if each kid asks for money for everything they want, you end up with a tragedy in some form of overindulgence, conflict, or both. There’s nothing worse than an overgrazed parent!

How do the farmers solve the problem? Fences, taxes or private property¹ – in other words, some form of limits. How does the parent avoid a tragedy? By appealing to the child’s sense of morality and conscience? Get real! By fences, taxes and private property, of course.

The Clothing Allowance

As soon as children know that money can buy things, they should also learn that money is a limited resource. Children should also learn how to manage that resource, responsibly. What better way to motivate them than to make it their money they are limiting. They are far less motivated to limit the use of your money. They are young, but not stupid.

With developmental capability in mind, a child should be given a weekly allowance. (Provision for earning additional money is a good idea, but a small allowance allows for this process of working within limits.) For example, at some point, depending on the child, the money needed to pay for clothing can be determined and given in the form of a weekly allowance*. (Winter coats and shoes for school or formal occasions are still done the old fashioned way – shopping with Mom or Dad). When the child comes to you saying, “I reeeeeeally need this sweater”, you are able to say, “Wow, that really is a nice sweater. I hope you find a way to make that work (given your budget)”. You are free to appreciate their interests and tastes, but the conflict about affording it – deciding what is most important and what has to be sacrificed – is a bind that resides in the child, where it belongs, not in you or between the two of you. You can be the supportive coach, cheering from the sidelines, ready to give advice, but not money. When the children know that the allowance is the limit, they learn to work within it. They can make a case periodically for cost of living increases and those should be listened to and reasoned through together, but those decisions are based on logic and reason. Finally, the limit should also be set with the logical extension being: “If you really need more money, you can find a way to earn it”.

My daughter embraced the clothing allowance as if it was a great life challenge. Since clothes and appearance were important to her, she learned to search for bargains at TJMax and second hand stores. “You know, Dad, nobody knows whether I bought this top new or used”. My son, on the other hand, could care less about fashion. He willingly wore old T-shirts and saved his clothing money to buy new video games – at least until he got a girl friend.

Limits and responsibility are essentials for promoting healthy development. Pushing up against limits forces children to take on more responsibility. Essentially the message to a child is this, “If you want more freedom or more privileges, then take on the (self-regulation) responsibility so the (parental) limits are not necessary”. The message to you, the parent, is this: “Keep the conflict in the child, not in you.” That is what promotes the internal growth in the child. It is self regulation s/he must master, not a battle with parent that must be won.

Bedtime Limits

The tragedy of the commons concept also applies to time. If children graze away the hours of the day, making decisions of how to use their time based on what they feel in the moment, then bedtime arrives with homework undone and conflict over staying up later a nightly ritual.

Bedtime is an arena in which many of life’s lessons can be learned. From the earliest years, children need to get themselves ready for bed, doing the self-care tasks they are developmentally capable of. Bedtime is also a time for parent and child to snuggle and have some loving time together. Reading or telling stories when they are young, can progress to mutually told stories, and then eventually “how was your day” when they are older. With a set bedtime, when the parent says, “Goodnight”, the child has a strong incentive to get completely ready for bed, because the sooner she does, the more story time she gets.

Instead of nagging the child about every little step, the parent is free to say, “I can’t wait to finish our book (which the parent is secretly reading to himself)”. Similarly, the ten-year-old who lobbies for a later bedtime because all his friends have it can hear the message, “If you can get yourself up in the morning on your own (for a week) and ready for the bus on time without my (nagging) help, then you can move your bedtime a half hour later.” ** With the end of bedtime as a set time, the child has to fit everything (bathing, putting away clothes, and story time) into the time budget.

Limits on electronics

Healthy limits also convey the message that taking responsibility leads to greater control and freedom. The sooner the post dinner clean-up is done, the more time is left for family fun. The sooner the homework is done, the more time is left for television or computer. On weekends, a set limit on television time forces the child to plan ahead, record his favorite shows and make decisions about what he values the most. Similarly, a limit on computer time forces planning and decision making, minimizing wasted grazing and surfing. It takes a potentially passive process and makes it a far more active one due to the responsibility of working within limits.

In summary, the absence of limits leads to a tragedy of the commons; while the inclusion of developmentally appropriate limits promotes growth.

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-The use of a Visa Buxx cash card (with parental controls and monitoring) is a good way for kids to learn money management. The parent puts the designated amount into the child’s Visa Buxx account. The child cannot spend more than what is in the account. A record of what the card has been used for is easily accessible on line. Plus the parent has the ability to add to or suspend the card at any time. Therefore, the card promotes responsibility with transparency.

-Privileges or the relaxing of external (parental) limits are earned by the assumption of responsibility or internal control on the part of the child. It also follows that when that responsibility wanes, more external control is required. In the example above, the child can prove a readiness for a later bedtime. He can also show a need for returning to an earlier bedtime if he cannot get himself up and ready for school independently. Limits should be dynamic and based on developmental readiness and proven responsibility.

Key words: internal discipline; limits; responsibility; internal vs. external control; parental limits

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¹ These are Western Civilization solutions. Other cultures have found communal ways to manage this threat through cooperation, agreements, and/or traditions. Ultimately, in healthy families respect and a felt sense of shared responsibility often take the place of arbitrary “fences”.

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Link to Visa Buxx site for an introduction to the use of this prepaid card. Visa has marketed the card for use with teenagers and I have found it very helpful in transferring the conflict of managing money to the child rather than it being a conflict between parent and child. The child is responsible for this area of their life (clothes and entertainment, for instance). This is the money they have to work with. They are free to make the decisions, but not free to ask for more money. Immediately you begin to see skills such as budgeting you never knew possible.

Don’t Eat The Marshmallow!

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Delay of gratification, willpower, impulse control, self-control, or internal discipline are terms that describe an ability to wait to be rewarded. Although some children are temperamentally less impulsive, the ability to self-soothe, distract, or reason about an urge to act can be learned and improved. The ability to delay gratification (develop internal discipline) is an important ingredient for gaining competence in all areas of a child’s life (socially, emotionally and intellectually).

An Ability to Delay Gratification Predicts Success in Life

 Are you familiar with the classic delay of gratification studies conducted by Walter Mischel at Stanford in the late 1960′s and early 1970′s? The what? Have you seen the YouTube video of four-year-olds trying to resist eating the marshmallow in front of them? If I had asked you, have you ever heard of the MarshmallowTest, you would have known exactly what I was talking about. Give it up for YouTube, where gratification need never be delayed. I still have not jogged your memory? Then go to YouTube right now for a reenactment of the classic study, where four-year-old children are left alone in a room with a marshmallow (or a cookie, or candy) with the promise of a second marshmallow if they do not eat this one before the experimenter returns (in 15 minutes). Only thirty percent of the children were able to wait. Not surprising, is it?

Mischel discovered that by the end of high school, the kids who were able to wait seemed better adjusted psychologically and were higher achievers, with significantly higher SAT scores (>200 pts higher) and better grades. Those who could not wait more than thirty seconds had trouble paying attention in school, coping with stress, and maintaining friendships. More recently, Angela Lee Duckworth at the University of Pennsylvania offered eighth graders one dollar now or two if they could wait a week. Those who could wait fared much better academically. In fact, this measure of self-control was a better predictor of academic achievement than IQ.

As you might guess, these kids who can delay gratification grow up to be the ones who invest for retirement, wait for the best pitch to hit, and don’t say, “yes” to the first bad idea. They are able to wait to play their video games until after the homework is done.

So, are these delayers born with something special? Are their brains wired differently from birth? Are some kids just naturally more impulsive while others are more cautious and deliberate? You can be sure that the fMRI machines are cranking away in search of these answers. We can also be certain that a search for a genetic linkage will also be part of the next wave of research.

So what does that mean for us sticky fingered failures? Are we doomed to a second-class future, swinging at everything we are thrown, eating everything we see? Interestingly, Mischel found that he could provide children with techniques for resisting temptation. He said kids who continue to focus on the “hot stimulus” were doomed. But the ones who could distract themselves, were able to resist. Providing kids with techniques for taking their thoughts elsewhere, or transforming the meaning of the situation could be very helpful. In other words, self-control can be taught. Mischel also pointed out that a group of the kids who “failed to wait” grew up to be quite skilled in self-control as adults. Somehow, they found ways to teach themselves the self-regulation that came more naturally to the “delayers”.

Children are temperamentally inclined in one direction or another. At one extreme are the kids who are impulsive and labeled as Attention Deficit, Hyperactive. At the other extreme are the kids who come to be labeled as Obsessive Compulsive. Most kids are somewhere in between. Even though biology or temperament inclines a child in one direction or another, that does not mean they cannot grow in terms of self-control (or spontaneity).

Environments can be structured to help with focus and attention. Children can be taught techniques for self-control and self-soothing. Mischel explained that children can be taught habits of self-control in the family through rituals that force kids to wait on a daily basis, showing them that they can develop that self-control, and having them learn the benefits for that delay. Examples of that are limits such as no television or video games until homework is done, no snacks before dinner, save money for a desired purchase and wait until your birthday for a wished for gift. When children must work within limits (a clothing allowance for instance) they learn the benefits of self-control and the hazards of impulsivity.