Not my best parenting moment

Here's a blog posting by Scott Dannemiller, "The one question every parent should stop asking."


He goes on to say, "As parents, we focus 100 percent of our energy asking the wrong question...Bottom line: we parents need to chill out and change our questions. Here are two (questions) that can help us all gain some perspective and start finding more genuine joy in our lives."

Want to know the two questions Dannemiller suggests we ask?  Follow the link.  It's a good read.

alligators and soft skills

We wrestle with alligators.

Education is one of those alligators.  William Morris said, "man is a learning animal."  Google that phrase and  it auto-corrects to "man is NOT a learning animal."  Wrestling.
With alligators.

We don't agree on the purpose of education.  Does it prepare citizens for life in a democratic society? Keep us economically competetive? Or enable the individual to lead an examined life?

We don't agree on what to teach.  The wisdom of our civilization?  If so, whose list of great literature do we use?  Or is this true:  "Since we cannot know what knowledge will be needed in the future, it is senseless to try to teach it in advance."

We don't agree on how to teach. Direct instruction?(sounds boring, right?  You'll want to check this out!) Computer assisted learning?  Montessori method?

And we certainly don't agree on what to assess and how. "Imagining a new college entrance exam," a blog entry written by Scott Barry Kaufman in Scientific American, got me thinking.

Here's my quick list of notes as I thought about education and assessment:

convergent vs divergent thinking
analytical vs creative thinking (see Ken Robinson)
intelligence vs effort mindset (see Carol Dweck)
pessimist vs optimist mindset (see Martin Seligman)
knower vs learner mindset (check the table of contents to find it!)
IQ vs EQ
intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation (see Dan Pink)
hard vs soft skills:  this one is so much fun, I included two bits trolled from Mr. Google:

Investopedia's Definition of 'Hard Skills'

Specific, teachable abilities that can be defined and measured. By contrast, soft skills are less tangible and harder to quantify. Examples of hard skills include job skills like typing, writing, math, reading and the ability to use software programs; soft skills are personality-driven skills like etiquette, getting along with others, listening and engaging in small talk.

BeMyCareerCoach blog on the difference between hard skills and soft skills:

• Hard skills can be learned in school and from books.  There are usually designated level of competency and a direct path as to how to excel with each hard skill.  For example, accounting is a hard skill.  You can take basic accounting and then advanced accounting courses.  You can then work to get experience and then take an exam and be certified as a CPA, etc..  In contrast, there is no simple path to learn soft skills.  Most soft skills are not taught well in school and have to be learned on the job by trial and error. 

Soft skills are not taught well in school?  Here's a group that is trying.

And the soft skill du jour?  Grit. "Can grit be taught?"  

Here's my take on this whole constellation of ideas: 

if grit -- or creativity or ethics or curiosity -- are simply added as CONTENT to conventional education and taught explicitly, it will fail because the motivational system is still external, extrinsic, teacher-driven.  Students will be evaluated on 'grit' as well as on reading and math.  We'll still be stuck in an 'intelligence mindset.' Grit will simply become a new kind of intelligence. You've got it or you don't.  How do you work harder on grit?  Grit may very well be the key to success, but does that mean it should become a new school subject?  Reminds me of the period twenty years ago when we decided that schools weren't teaching students how to think so 'thinking skills' became a new subject.  And a whole new cottage industry was born.

No, learning grit and creativity and teamwork and resilience and intrinsic motivation must be embedded in the curriculum and in the language and culture of the school.  A school that consistently tells children what to do and then rewards them for doing it and punishes them for not doing it will always be actively working to suppress and destroy intrinsic motivation. 

Want to promote the growth of intrinsic motivation?  Create a school where children are invited to make choices of what they will work on and when.  Allow them to choose how to demonstrate mastery and accomplishment.

And when they choose work that interests them, and that interest blossoms and their projects grow in scope and scale, they'll develop perseverence.  

And when they make a six-foot tall drawing of a baby giraffe with a six-foot long report to match, because that is how tall a baby giraffe actually is, you're watching creativity at work.

And if you want them to develop teamwork, encourage them to work together.  And when there is friction, and the team isn't working so well together, help them to sort out what went wrong, and what they can do differently next time.  Allow them to do this as the norm.  Not during teamwork time on Tuesday afternoon.

Children learn these skills by doing them; and get better at them by practicing all day long every day under the direction of trained adults who take the time at teachable-moments to talk about  what's working and what's not and what will you do differently next time?

Rewards

"My Biggest Regret as a Teacher."  Check out David Ginsburg's blog.  We sometimes hear from parents who think we should "push" their kids.  Or who wonder why we don't give grades.  Or who believe that Montessori education is against competition and that competition is a good thing:  it is the way the world works.  All of these are forms of manipulation--and can work in the short run with certain children--but only until the reward is withdrawn.

And by the way, Montessori children are competitive.  We just don't using grading, class ranking and rewards as a means to "motivate" (ie, manipulate) them.  We don't have to.  They are already motivated.  Self-motivated.

Or as one of our 8th grade students said several years ago, "We motivate each other to be self-motivated."

the best Halloween costume

“Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of destruction begin with toddlers – a prize for the best Halloween costume, grades in school, gold stars – and up through university. On the job, people, teams, and divisions are ranked, reward for the top, punishment for the bottom. Management by Objectives, quotas, incentive pay, business plans, put together separately, division by division, cause further loss, unknown and unknowable.”

“We will never transform the prevailing system of management without transforming the prevailing system of education. They are the same system."

– W. Edwards Deming, pioneer of the quality management revolution, in correspondence to Peter Senge. 

(Thanks to Post Oak parent Lana Rigsby for sending this to me.)

despite their schooling--not because of it

How to develop innovators. That's the tag line of Tony Wagner's recent article in the Wall Street Journal.

Samples:
"Learning in most conventional education settings is a passive experience: The students listen. But at the most innovative schools, classes are "hands-on," and students are creators, not mere consumers."

"In most high-school and college classes, failure is penalized. But without trial and error, there is no innovation."

"In conventional schools, students learn so that they can get good grades. My most important research finding is that young innovators are intrinsically motivated. The culture of learning in programs that excel at educating for innovation emphasize what I call the three P's—play, passion and purpose. The play is discovery-based learning that leads young people to find and pursue a passion, which evolves, over time, into a deeper sense of purpose."

A note to Mario (Is Montessori education better?)(Prove it!)

Mario:
There is some research comparing Montessori education to conventional education. The Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) may be the best laboratory for such comparisons for several reasons: (1) its Montessori program has been in continuous operation for almost 40 years; (2) it is of high quality – in the AMI tradition; (3) MPS has kept good longitudinal records of students; and (4) students are randomly selected for the program by lottery. This creates a perfect “control” group: students who applied for the Montessori program but were not selected vs those who were selected.

In one study of MPS students, (another article, same study) this is the summary result:
“A significant finding in this study is the association between a Montessori education and superior performance on the Math and Science scales of the ACT and WKCE. In essence, attending a Montessori program from the approximate ages of three to eleven predicts significantly higher mathematics and science standardized test scores in high school.”

In another study of MPS students reported in Science magazine (a rare venue for school research), this was the summary finding for 11-year olds:
“At the end of elementary school,Montessori children wrote more creative essays with more complex sentence structures, selected more positive responses to social dilemmas, and reported feeling more of a sense of community at their school.”

And although the Montessori program did not have the “test culture” of conventional schools, the 11-year old Montessori students’ test scores were equal to or better than those of students in the conventional schools. Equal to or better than. Not the resounding “Montessori students blew them out of the water,” which would have unequivocally demonstrated superiority. This finding is consistent with Post Oak students’ performance on the annual CTP-4 achievement test. On the national norms, our average student scores at the 90th percentile. However, the private school norms are more of an apples to apples comparison, and on that measure, the average Post Oak student performs as well as or better than the average student in private independent schools across the country – despite the fact that we are playing on their home court: multiple choice standardized tests.

Steve Hughes, President of the American Academy of Pediatric Neuropsychology, is an advocate for Montessori education. He spoke at the recent AMI conference in Ft. Worth and told the audience that we need to collect data to demonstrate how Montessori education impacts personal development – in addition to academic test scores. We tell parents this, and he observes it. But we have not collected the data to tell the story more persuasively.

Here’s his hypothesis: Montessori schools can demonstrate that their students develop more advanced social skills, creativity, self-control, intrinsic motivation, executive functioning and moral reasoning than do their counterparts in conventional schools – without sacrificing academic performance.

Background: Unlike conventional schools, Montessori schools care about more than test results. Yes, Montessori schools do care about cognitive development and academic learning; but their first aim is to create positive learning communities in order to develop creative, self-motivated young people who are kind and compassionate, who demonstrate high levels of self-control and self-management, and who work well with others. Just like academic achievement, growth in these areas can be measured. The instruments are out there and are used all the time by neuropsychologists, developmental psychologists, cognitive psychologists, educational psychologists, and educational researchers.

Dr. Hughes is launching a national research project to collect this data over the next five years.

Here are some examples of norm-referenced assessments of social skills, creativity (or this alternative), internal vs external motivation (locus of control), executive functioning, and moral judgment. These are examples of the skills that Dr. Hughes suggests we test over the next 5 years in order to confirm what we know: that Montessori students do better in these areas than students in conventional schools. That is why parents often say, “Montessori kids are different.” This will tell us HOW they are different…and measure it in ways that can be described.


If you want to view Dr. Hughes’ presentation at the AMI conference, you can find it here (“Montessori outcomes in preparation for adulthood”).

John