Thinking about Strengths

As a parent, I've been on a process that has gradually led me more and more towards focusing on a child's strengths. This process is one that I hope to bring with me into the class room. This process started one December when I realized that my daughter was a source of constant noise, like a radio left on. Her excitement was made manifest in sound- bits of song, monologue, and sometimes just random little bleeps, something that was a bit like a Looney Toons soundtrack. Fast forward a few months and a number of doctor and psychologist visits, and I had a new way of thinking about my noisy, impulsive little girl. ADHD isn't unfamiliar to me, but what was new was looking at my daughter and having a negative label stuck to her. So I set about learning all I could,thinking all the while how crazy it is that not being able to sit still is BAD, while so much of what I read didn't focus on the incredible creativity and leaps of logic and innovative problem solving that is so often part of the ADHD brain. As I began to re-vision my own child, creating a new way of defining and understanding her, I felt that I was also able to see other children and adolescents in this new light.

Focusing on strengths, not weakness, isn't hard to do. It's actually pretty fun. I stood back and tried to observe my daughter, those parts that drove me crazy and those parts that I most loved, and I realized how connected the two are. She isn't a detail person, she's a big picture thinker. She doesn't like to take her time, she likes to dive in and take on more than she should. She's not calm and quiet, she's full of life and activity. When I started to 'catch her being good,' complimenting her for doing things well, I found my relationship with her taking on a whole new depth. I always loved her, but I found myself liking more and more about her.

It isn't that I ignore the weaknesses. As far as school goes, my daughter is a horrible, horrible speller. She leaps ahead, ideas going so fast that it's hard to slow down enough to take the time to communicate those ideas in words that make any sense to a reader. We've talked about this. Fourth grade will be the year of working on spelling. But spelling is only part of the whole equation, there are also the brilliant ideas and the uncanny ability to figure out the meaning of complex materials.

As I think about education, I think about this delicate balance: focusing on strengths, facing our weaknesses. How often do we, as parents or educators, stop and take a good, long look at how we talk to the young people around us? Do we see their strengths? Do we build their enthusiasm in learning? Do we catch them being wrong so often that we no longer are able to see what they do right?

Motivation

What makes us want to learn? What makes us want to do something well, to accomplish a task, to finish something? Where, exactly, does motivation come from?

Daniel Pink looks at how one experiment takes on this question. The results aren't surprising to me, from my own personal experience as a student, teacher, and parent: the highest performance comes when a person not only is told the benefit the task provides on a personal level, but also when the significance of the task is spelled out. Meaning? We want what we do to matter.

Project Based Learning

How can learning be both rigorous and interesting? Here's a great video that talks about the basic premise and worth of project based learning.

Today's Newstories

A story in the news today caught my interest.  The report covered the discussion of academic standards and, more specifically, the adoption of nationwide standards.  Shortly after I heard this news item discussed, another was aired concerning a school district in Chicago that is using what is called "management-style" to force out the lowest performing teachers.  The link between the two stories seems obvious to me:  the continual search for that one sure, golden thing that will be the answer to the 'problem' of education.

To me, it seems that the 'problems' in education are continual and sure, and even if they didn't exist we would invent them.  That seems to be the way people react and, unfortunately, much of the reaction to anything having to deal with education is an emotional one.  Maybe we need to bring some scientific thinking to the table.  Carl Sagen wrote that "at the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counter-intuitive, and the most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new.  This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense." 

I want to keep this in mind.  Lets continue with the winnowing, shall we?

Creativity in the Classroom

How's this for a quote:  "All kids have talents, and we squander them ruthlessly."  Sir Ken Robinson said this.  In the same speech, he also said, "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original", and shortly following this "We are running national education systems where mistakes are the worse thing you can make....we are educating people out of their creative capacities."  This should give all educators pause.  Think of it for a while.  It's true, isn't it?  Ever felt the public humiliation of being wrong in the classroom? 

In this era of standardized testing, creativity is a challenge for anyone.  And yet, there are those who argue that creativity will the THE driving force of the century.  Author Daniel Pink calls it the "revenge of the right brain". Of course, our brains need to be whole to function.  I can't write, draw, read, run, walk, or sing without utilizing my entire brain.  But still, the argument for creative thinking resonates.  It is through creative thinking that genius occurs.  Inventions and innovations are part of creativity.  Einstein thought creatively.  So did Picasso, Shakespeare, and Thomas Edison.  Martin Luther King, Junior, was creative enough to imagine a post-Jim Crow world.  I could go on and on. 

So how to teach without squelching creativity?  Allow students the right to be wrong.  Encourage them to make guesses if they don't know the answers.  Teach them about what a hypothesis is.  Make it exciting to discover their own mistakes.  Make it fun for them to discover yours.

A Teacher Talking

Here's a man who expresses a certain passion for teaching.  I remember when one of my professors said, "You won't go into law, will you?"  Oh, it might have made a certain financial sense, but I was, like my professor, inclined to go in a different direction.   

Stories

I was thinking of stories today.  Specifically, I was thinking of the stories that we tell each other, in families or communities, and how those stories work to create our reality- our past, our beliefs about the world around us, our values, and even our perceptions of what is right and wrong.  I love stories, of all sorts.  I love to read, I love to write, and I love to both talk and listen.  Sometimes I like to talk more than listen, but I've realized that if I don't keep quiet and listen, I don't get to hear any new stories! 

In Hawaii, people don't just sit around and talk, or chat, or recount their weekends.  In Hawaii, people like to talk-story.  This, to me, is the perfect way of putting it.  I didn't grow up in Hawaii, but still, my family knew how to talk-story.  When I was a kid, I loved driving up over the Oregon Coast mountains, going to my Uncles' houses in the valley.  The main reason is that they all knew how to talk-story.  They would laugh, telling about near disasters, motor-cycle accidents where no one was badly hurt, the time their parent's parrot got drunk after stealing sips out of glasses left behind at a party, the size of the mosquitoes swarming around on a camping trip, the crazy way one Uncle tried camping in a hurricane.  I remember the way they tossed their heads back and laughed.  This was my family at their best.