Schools these days seem to becoming focused on closing the
‘achievement gap’ by means of tests centred around literacy and numeracy ‘but what’, Paul Tough asks,’ if we’re wrong?’
‘How Children Succeed’ introduces us to a new generation of educators
and researchers who are finding that links between childhood stress and success and
provides new insights into the best way to help children growing up in poverty.
It is a provocative and profoundly optimistic book which, if
implemented, will change the way about raising and educating disadvantaged
children. For teachers with a creative bent it provides an antidote from
current directions to help such students based on improving cognitive skills in
literacy and numeracy.
What matters, current research is saying, is that
children’s success depends on whether we we are able to help them develop a set
of qualities that include persistence, self-control, curiosity,
conscientiousness grit and self-confidence.
.Minds are changed by trauma and stress |
These qualities include such things as being able to persist, the
ability to delay gratification and the ability to follow a plan; it is the
development of such ‘soft skills’ that need to be developed rather than obsessing on literacy and numeracy testing.
The book focuses on how to help students ‘trapped in poverty’ by exploring how childhood experiences make
young people the adults they become for better or worse. What is it that
children who are able to transcend harsh beginning have? Why do some children
thrive?
How does poverty affect children’s ability to learn? The
correlation between poverty and negative learning outcomes is powerful. A consensus in the past decades has shown
that stress in early childhood cause damage to children’s brains. Overloading
of stress in early childhood produces all kinds of serious and long-lasting
effects.
Such stress is a feature of those trapped in poverty. ‘As a result
children who grow up in stressful environments find it harder to concentrate,
harder to sit still, harder to rebound from disappointment and harder to follow
directions. And that has a direct effect on their performance in school’.
The
biggest problem of such children (the one in five failing) is not poor maths
and reading it is that they ‘don’t know how to manage their tempers or calm
themselves down after a provocation’. It is improving their ‘executive
functions’ that now seem the most promising vehicle for narrowing the
achievement gap between poor kids and middle-class kids’.
The book explores that it is not poverty that is the issue it
is the stress that goes along with it.
The exciting thing is that these
‘executive functions’ to develop positive behaviours to learn can be taught.
The first area to help young learners develop positive
attitudes is in the home. Nurturing relationships with parents or caregivers
fosters resilience that can protect the young from the worst effects of a harsh
early environment.
The effect of good parenting is biochemical. Effects in
mothering styles create huge behavioural differences. Mothers who are
responsive to their young create a buffer for their children – good parenting
makes a real difference. The trouble is that many parents trying to survive in
poverty are just too stressed to provide their young with the nurturing time
they need. The book covers a variety of
interventions that successfully help mothers.
.Minds chemically changed by experiences |
The most effective vehicle for improving children’s outcomes
is not the school, it is the family or, if necessary, creation of substitutes.
Many American schools have become involved with character education
to help the at risk students. An earlier emphasis on improving academic success
through a push on tests has been shown not to persists when student leave the
school environment.
Successful students it was found possess other qualities such as
‘optimism, resilience and social agility’. These have been identified as
‘character strengths’ and once again research has shown that are learnable.
Character can mean different things to different people but they have been
defined as a set of abilities or strengths that are very much changeable – skills
you can learn – skills you can teach. An important realisation is that studentsonly achieve such qualities if the ‘child knows what he or she wants’. Engaging
learners is a key challenge for all teachers but vital for students coming from
difficult home circumstances.
With engagement students develop persistence,
work harder and show at is called ‘grit’. Encouraging findings for creative
teachers! When learners find something they’re passionate about this provides
the motivation for applying effort to prove themselves. And part of this is
being able to learn from failure, to persist and show ‘grit’.
This reminds me of a quote from educationalists Jerome
Bruner who said that ‘teaching is the canny art of intellectual temptation.’
All this is in opposition to the excessive pressure for schools to show success
through comparative test results so loved by populist politicians.
The character qualities relate to research on meta cognition
- thinking about one’s own thinking. William James, the American psychologist
wrote that ‘habits and character are the same things’. Some kids have good
habits and some have bad habits those with bad habits need to learn that bad
habits can be changed. All students can succeed and have their gifts and
abilities developed ‘as long as there’s a teacher out there who can make
succeeding in school attractive to the learner.
Tough also refers to Carol Dwecks research where she writes
that students do much better if they believe intelligence is malleable. Dweck
divides students into two types – those who have a fixed mind-set and those who
have a growth mind-set – the latter believe that intelligence can be changed.
Mind-sets can be changed.
Successful learners have both ‘cognitive flexibility’ and
‘cognitive self-control’. The first allows learners to think outside the box
and see alternatives and the second is to resist habitual responses and
substitute a more successful ones. By this means students begin to learn
through their mistakes – focusing new learning to improve on errors .Part of
this is not rushing in but to go slowly to consider options.
Teachers need to help their students to help them think
through their actions encouraging them to think more deeply, to try new ideas
but most all by taking them seriously, believe in their abilities, and
challenge them to improve themselves- to teach them grit.
I particularly liked the idea that true learning has an
aesthetic dimension – an ‘opportunity to create ourselves through our
actions…celebrating freedom above utility’. About wonder and joy. Students who achieve at the highest level have
been shown to put in the time and practice. In his book ‘Outliers’ Malcolm
Gladwell brought to our attention that it takes 10000 hours to achieve mastery
– real self-discipline in pursuit of a goal. Teachers need to involve their
students in authentic in-depth studies - doing fewer things well.
I have skipped over many important ideas in Tough’s book but
the essential message is that the so called ‘achievement gap’ can be bridged by
good nurturing and teaching. Students’ brains are chemically shaped by their
experiences for better or worse but he makes the point ‘chemistry is not
destiny’. To achieve this we need to protect children from serious trauma and
chronic stress. Parents, caregivers and teachers need help to create positive
learning environments. The idea- the importance of learning how to deal with
and learn from your own failure – runs through the book.
It was interesting to read that in recent decades the
conversation about poverty has changed. More children now live in poverty (the
one in five failing school) but today but today it is all about the
‘achievement gap – that children who grow up in poor families do badly at
school. The focus (wrongly according to Tough) is on the schools to solve the
problem. The achievement gap between the rich and the poor is widening – and
schools are now seen by politicians as solving the problem!
So far there is no evidence to show schools can solve the
problem. Schools do well with the most able low income children and don’t work
very well with the least able (the one in five)
What Tough’s book shows is that for children growing up in
the most stressed poor income homes it is only by improving the nurturing relationships
within the home that buffets the effects of stress and trauma.
In classrooms such students need help in developing non
cognitive qualities required to ensure success. By providing challenging programmes and by deliberately teaching the mind-sets to cope with learning –
the habits of mind – grit, resilience, perseverance and optimism, those
children will learn.
Tough points out that we now know enough to influence the
development of all children; we know enough about the kinds of interventions
that will help children develop those strengths and skills, starting at birth
and going all the way through schooling.
But only, it seems, if we change our own minds first.
4 comments:
Wonderful blog - what a great message. Thank you for sharing the book.
Excellent, Bruce. Politicians interested in the common good, as opposed to fostering business opportunities, should read this. I've included this in my next Educational Readings, due to go out tomorrow.
YES! YES! YES! This is exactly what is needed for a stable and sane life, for security and adaptability, and for meeting the challenges of life. My son is naturally very impatient as am I - it has impacted my life greatly (negatively, as you would imagine). I did not want this for mu child, so I started researching. All the research told me the best thing I could ever do for him is to teach him persistence, self reflection, and so on, and although he is only 4 it is already working so well. As always you share sensible, useful and honest information for parents and teachers. Thank you.
Thanks Allan and Diane. Appreciate your feedback
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