Reminder to Self: Self-Determination is the Goal

My youngest of four, and only daughter, turns 18 today, which I guess officially makes my wife and I “childless” and instead the proud parents of four young adults.  Like most parents we still worry about our “kids” no matter what their age. We certainly aren’t perfect parents, but I thought we have done a pretty good job of raising young people who will give back to society.  However, I am in the middle of reading “The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives.” by William Stixrud &  Ned Johnson and although we are aligned to much of what I read, there have been parts of the book that made me say, “Why didn’t I think of that when our kids were growing up?”  As a matter of fact, “The Self-Driven Child” is a great read for any parent or educator, because much of what we want to see in our kids are some of the same skills we strive to nurture with young people in our classroom.  One of the most impactful of these for our classroom as well as life outside of the four walls of school is self-determination.

So, I guess I shouldn’t have cringed  so much when we asked our daughter what she wanted for her birthday and she dead-panned, “My freedom.”  Ouch, talk about a dagger to the heart. I guess that was a loaded question for a parent to ask a teenager who has a midnight curfew she doesn’t like. My mind immediately went to a sign that I had hanging in my classroom which read:

TEENAGERS Tired of being harassed by your parents? ACT NOW! Move out, get a job, & pay your own way QUICK! While you still know everything.

The young people who read it always laughed, because it does carry with it a bit of truth.  However, if self-determination is an important skill for our young people to develop, and it is, then we should be alright with loosening the reins as educators and (reluctantly) as parents too.

In Raising Young People as Human Beings vs. Manufacturing Machines  I stressed our goal as educators should not be to raise test scores, but to help raise human beings.  Self-determination is an important part of being human and with it comes three basic needs:

+A sense of Autonomy

+A sense of competence

+A sense of relatedness

All three of these “human needs” are not only factors to consider when raising a child, but also when raising human beings in our classrooms.  Autonomy is the most important of the three for developing internal motivation in a young person, or an adult for that matter, because it promotes a sense of self control  (Stixrud & Johnson, 2018). This is part of the push for more “choice and voice” in the classroom, but it goes even further because the more we design our classroom environments with autonomy in mind, the more we will catalyze internal motivation and the less we will need to rely on external motivation in the form of sticks and carrots (Grades, as an example, fulfill both of these roles.).  “Competence is more about our feeling that we can handle a situation than it is about really being great at something” (Stixrud & Johnson, 2018, p.110). We, as educators and parents, often focus on the narrow definition of competence in the form of “competent” or performance/reaching a goal. However, that narrow focus doesn’t address the importance of the journey to reach that goal of high performance which is fueled by internal motivation through growth and therefore the development of competence..  The last basic need, relatedness, address the sense of being connected. In our classrooms, we often refer to having a good rapport with students. However, I believe educators who have that ability to seemingly get young people to “run through a wall for them” have not just developed a rapport, but have a classroom culture which nurtures this connection that meets young people’s need for relatedness. This connection helps to contribute to an environment of strong trust, low stress, and high willingness to take risks.

Developing self-determination is an important part of parenting and educating.  We, as adults, should celebrate as the young people in our lives make more connections, develop competence, and yes even (and most importantly) have a strong sense of autonomy.  A friend of mine has said, “Don’t you love them enough to make the hard decisions as they grow up, so that you don’t enable them?” A lot of hard decisions are made when nurturing an environment that promotes self-determination.  However, if the goal is to develop young people that are prepared for life, then I believe it is not only the best step at home for a parent, but it is also a necessity for educators in our schools.

Wish me good luck...I think I hear my daughter waking up.  :)

References

Stixrud, William & Johnson, Ned  (2018). The Self-Driven Child: The Science and

Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives.  New York, NY.

Penguin Random House LLC.

Viewing DOK Through a Different Lens

This week our District Instructional Leadership Team  was fortunate to have Tom Rounds, a Northeast Ohio Field Specialist from the Ohio Department of Education, share his expertise on Webb’s Depth of Knowledge (DOK) during our annual kick-off meeting.  Although DOK is not brand new to us we are going to be looking at it through a different lens this year.

Over five years ago now, then Assistant Superintendent and now Superintendent Pat Ciccantelli, introduced DOK to support work with some of our K-5 teams while they were breaking down the standards.  At that time we were just getting a handle on what was expected from the State and were using a backward design model which provided a target for some of our pedagogy. What is so exciting about revisiting the DOK levels is that we are now in a place that is going to allow the reverse.  As an example, thanks to our Math and ELA frameworks, we have a stronger understanding of the pedagogy needed to put our young people in situations to allow them to make connections in order to support and nurture their growth and learning. We will be able to use the DOK levels , to not drive our instruction, but to instead help us assess if our pedagogy is having the positive impact we are seeing in our classrooms through anecdotal or qualitative pieces of evidence.  Having appropriate leveled DOK formative and summative assessments in place, will allow teachers in the moment and within PLCs to have a better understanding of our young people’s learning.

This is the first step of many in revisiting the DOK levels this year, but by changing the lens through which we view these levels we are going to be able to  provide even more opportunities to help our young people. The goal for us is to continue to find ways to nurture our young people’s “roots” through a culture which is designed to prepare them for life over one focused on the transfer of a curriculum.  Using DOK levels as checkpoints, and not drivers of instruction, will help us to reach that goal.

Close No Doors Requires Considering Side-Effects

In a post titled “Raising Young People as Human Beings vs. Manufacturing Machines,”

I mentioned a comment from Yong Zhao concerning the importance of considering side-effects when practicing certain pedagogy.  Zhao mentioned that those programs in school that are focused solely on raising test scores (Study Island comes to mind for me) should come with a “side-effects disclaimer.”  Like a disclaimer for those medications you see on TV commercials, these disclaimers should state, “This program can raise your reading scores, but will make your children hate reading forever.”  This observation stuck with me and I have used the quote several times over the past year, so you can imagine my excitement when Zhao came out with his latest book titled “What Works May Hurt: Side Effects in Education.”

This book is a great quick read which points out that we should  not only consider the

benefits of various pedagogical practices, but also weigh the side-effects of the aforementioned practices.  The analogy to medicine and the individual analysis doctors must consider when prescribing medication is emphasized. As an example, penicillin is an effective medication which kills bacteria to the benefit of the patient, yet the very same drug can also be harmful to those who are allergic to it or become a problem if over prescribed.  A doctor must consider these side effects on an individual basis, so that that proper prescription is prescribed. This takes place best when the doctor has a conversation with the patient, listens to the needs of that particular individual, makes a diagnosis, and then provides the proper prescription.  Similarly in the classroom, we need to be sure that we are taking the time for individual conversations with the young people under our care, listen to where their understanding lies, analyze or diagnose where they fall in the continuum of a particular concept or skill, and than “prescribe” or apply the appropriate pedagogy.  If we were to approach teaching in such a way we could avoid the seemingly inevitable swing of the educational pendulum.

“Education remains stuck in perpetual pendulum swings-lots of movement and action,

but going nowhere” (Zhao, 2018, p.108).  We seem to fall into the same trap over the years by shifting from one pedagogical approach to another because we are looking for the “silver bullet” that can be used on all of our students.  As an example, Zhao points out that “Math Wars” have taken place because math education has “been caught in a 200 plus year pendulum swing between an overemphasis of rote practice of isolated skills and procedures and an overemphasis of conceptual understanding, with their respective overreliance on either teacher directed or student centered instruction” (Zhao, 2018, p. 106).  Some of the more recent battles were waged in the 1960’s, appeared again in the 1990’s, and have reappeared today as “new math” through the Common Core. Reading instruction has had a similar cyclical battle between phonics and whole-language during that same time period. Both the reading and math battles have arose from the war between progressivism and academic traditionalism.  “This war is the mother of all wars in education. The division between progressive, child-centered, and inquiry based education and academic curriculum-driven education is the power source that has fueled the reading wars, math wars, the battles over direct instruction versus inquiry based learning, the wars over standards and testing, and the wars over the national curriculum” (Zhao, 2018, p. 119).   Unfortunately, both sides of this war are looking for one overarching approach that will meet the need of all students, but both ignore the potential side-effects of the individual young people who are affected by the prescription.

What we should be doing is listening to what our young people need.  There will be times when some individuals will need more direct instruction and others will thrive when given more latitude.  We should consider side-effects, and not just results or outcomes, when making all of our pedagogical decisions. This approach can be beneficial whether you are in the progressive or traditional camp.  However, using this approach will emphasize that there is no panacea in education. By the way, compromise is not the answer either. A doctor would never prescribe a lower dose of a medication to which a patient is allergic as a compromise.  The politically correct advice to find middle ground or balance between opposing views is scientifically irresponsible and combining them would actually reduce effectiveness (Zhao, 2018). It comes down to making informed decisions and that means as educators we need to constantly be analyzing what the young people in our care need.  Sometimes they will need more direct instruction as a group, other times individuals will benefit more from being put in situations which allow them to make their own connections and develop their own relationships as they recognize patterns between concepts. This means that every day and every class could and probably should look different.   

A doctor who prescribes a medication for a patient because that is what has always been done or because it works on most patients without considering the needs of the individual patient or potential side-effects of the individual would never be tolerated. As a matter of fact, the doctor would be breaking the oath to “do no harm” and it would be considered malpractice.  Why should we, as educators, be held to a lower standard? If we follow a pedagogical practice that has always been done because it works for most of our students, be it progressive or traditional, and do not consider the potential side-effects of the practice on the individual young people in our care we would be guilty of educational malpractice and breaking what should be our own oath to “close no doors.”  That is Zhao’s call to action. Considering side-effects of our practices is something we should be doing as a district, within our schools, during our PLCs, and in our daily practice within our classrooms.

References

Zhao,Yong  (2018). What Works May Hurt: Side Effects in Education.  New York, NY.

Teachers College Press.