One day second grader Miranda said: “I was in the garden looking at the tomatoes with Patrice and Josh, and we saw a wasp tackling a fly.  Then it tore the fly’s head off and flew away with the body.  An ant found the head and started eating it and the fly’s eyes separated from its head.”

The teacher asked, “What did you think about when you were watching this happen?”

She replied, “I thought, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I wouldn’t want to be that fly.”

Later that same afternoon Sasha and Kate joined in the insect hunt and Kate said, “The garden seems to be so calm when you first look at it but when you look closer it’s very alive.”

On another day first graders found the front half of a dead snake and immediately started generating hypotheses as to what happened:

“It was a hawk.”

“Maybe a chicken ate it.”

“Maybe a sheep stepped on it?”

Why do we teach science? Is it because there is a set of things that all children should know by the time they are 18? Is it because we want them to learn certain disciplined ways of approaching a problem? Is it because connecting with nature at a young age is critical to developing empathy for the planet we live on?

The answer is obviously: “e) All of the above and so much more.” My favorite—because it is inclusive of all the others—is d) because kids are human and therefore already scientists.

Several good books have come out in the last decade on the importance of learning in nature. Two that harmonize with this theme are: Children and Nature (Kahn and Kellert, 2002), Last Child in the Woods (Louv, 2005). Playing in nature is perhaps one of the oldest and still one of the best educational activities. Why? Full brain development.

Theater, music, art, dance and physical education are also essential parts of a good curriculum for the same reason. Humans are storytelling artists with bodies and music in their souls. Education is about giving the human brain practice at using everything it’s got. It would be harmful not to help budding scientists blossom.

One recurring theme from all the breakthrough brain research of the last few decades is that there are very few meaningful activities that use only one part of the brain. This points to making sure that everything in the curriculum from writing to mathematics to science to music is taught so as to activate and utilize as many parts of the brain as possible.

All of today’s challenges will be handled by the same fundamental wiring that our ancestors’ brains had. Our musical brains, for instance, are built on the wiring they had when their chief function was to distinguish, categorize, remember, recognize and replicate the sounds of other creatures from birds to members of their tribe and family. When confronted with a modern mathematical problem, our brains use not only the sequential functions for linear processing, but also the wiring that helped our ancestors instantly estimate the size of a herd.  All activity that uses curiosity, inquiry, imagination, problem solving, and emotional intelligence is important in building a stronger brain which in turn is necessary for doing well on standardized tests.

Each academic ability (from filling in the right bubble to writing a short story to investigating a hypothesis) rests on a complex web of knowledge stored in different locations all over the brain. Education is a process of sophisticating each location and building strong links between these locations. To be good at mathematics a child needs to spend hours practicing arithmetic problems, but she also needs to spend hours drawing pictures, arguing with friends, building play houses, playing music or just plain playing on the dance floor, on the playing field, and in the garden.

But all this leaves out the most critical strand of a good educational fabric: our purpose. The aim of education should not be any kind of success, but the ability to keep facing up to challenges especially in the face of failure. Brain research can remind us that when faced with a challenge, we want to be able to use all the resources packed in that amazing three pounds of goo humming there behind our eyes.

Technorati Tags: Authority, building character, character, child-rearing, children, decision making, Discipline, education, Emotional control, Genius, kids, Leadership, Learning, Learning community, learning social skills, math, math teaching, Parenting, responsibility, school, school reform, teachers, teaching

My one-year-old grandson, Musa, is fast. No, I mean very fast. He can be safe on the sofa and in the time it takes me to get up and take a book off the shelf, he can be waving a poker from the fireplace in all directions.

One can easily foresee the onset of the “terrible two’s,” where all his relationships are defined by a continual string of “No’s” and a battle of wills. But on my last visit with Musa before I returned to the Midwest, I got a clear picture of how it doesn’t have to be that way.
I met him, his mother Lizzie and his older brother Abdallah at Ardenwood Historic Farm in California. (Gulp. Chickens, manure, and tools, oh my—two hours in Don’t Touch City with a 16-month-old.)

Immediately after I put him down from his hello hug, he picked up a three-foot stick at his feet, waved it around, and then offered it to me.

“Thank you,” I said, as I took it, used it as a cane and gave it back to him with a big smile. He poked the dirt with it a few times, and when Lizzie said, “Come on. Let’s go see the goats” and started walking, he played with it where he was until we were thirty yards away.

By the time he caught up Abdallah was feeding the goats through the mesh of a fence. Musa picked up a leaf and cautiously poked it through to the goat whose mouth greedily took it. Life is admittedly easier when one has an older brother to show you how things are done—less trial and error is necessary—just copy.

More wandering took us to the tractor shed where a rope looping from post to post separated us from 100 years of farm equipment. All technology requires investigation; so Musa was inside in the time it takes a humming bird to go from one flower to the next.

But Lizzie is experienced. She reached over the rope, put him on the correct side, and said: “This rope is a boundary. Do not cross it.” For the rest of our ten-minute exploration of tractors, Musa stayed on his side of the rope, pointing and saying “Oouushsh.” (Musa has a two-word vocabulary. The other is “ersch.” His mother and father are still trying to translate, but both words seem to mean everything from “Look” to “I want that” to “Tell me about that.”)

A generation ago as a father I learned early to see small children as researchers rather than bestial creatures needing to be trained, and that understanding has helped me in my work as an educator. These days there is a wealth of brain research to back it up. Google “children are scientists” and see. Here’s a tidbit from Alison Gopnik’s “How Babies Think:

…children learn about the world in much the same way that scientists do—by conducting experiments, analyzing statistics, and forming intuitive theories of the physical, biological, [sociological] and psychological realms.

If Musa could talk he would say: “Look you guys there are millions of objects and thousands of processes I have to understand. I need your help. You can teach me short-cuts and boundaries so that I don’t have to learn the hard way. You can give me work that is more interesting than I could choose for myself. That’s great, but there is no substitute for my experimental method. It is my job to figure things out. You see, if I don’t engage in the scientific method now, it will be hard for me to learn it later. And how will I build a brain that others can rely on if I only rely on what authority people say?

“I certainly want us to enjoy our time together; so go ahead and say “No,” or suggest a different activity, or show me how, but don’t get mad at me for testing. It’s my job. I appreciate anything that helps me build my brain into an organ that will stand the test of perpetual newness.”

Two-year-olds are determined to become autonomous decision-makers. They come by their willfulness honestly; it is necessary for their survival, and they know it deep in the very wiring and chemistry of their being.

Furthermore, early childhood educators take note, before you interrupt what a child is doing be sure you have something better to offer. It is usually better to join a child in his investigation than to abort it and replace it with an idea of your own.

Technorati Tags: Authority, building character, character, child-rearing, children, conflict, decision making, Discipline, education, Emotional control, Genius, kids, Leadership, Learning, Learning community, learning social skills, overparenting, Parenting, parenting skills, parents, play, respect, responsibility, school reform, slow parenting, teacher, teachers, teaching, teaching responsibility, terrible two's

When we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., we celebrate a great deal more than the life of a great man. We even celebrate more than a period in American history when our country took a very large step forward toward the dreams of our founding fathers. We celebrate the whole idea that each of us has a responsibility bring out the authority in others.

Today in so many schools across the country children of all races and economic backgrounds are being abused in the most insidious way. They are learning that they don’t matter. They are learning that they are stupid or gifted–both labels do damage. They are learning that if they are “challenged” there is something wrong with them. (We know better than to call it a disability, but we don’t know better than to use a euphemism for it.) What we really want for our children is for them all to be challenged, and for them to love rising to a challenge.

My vision is that all children (who are born already loving a challenge) will continue to love a challenge after their first year in kindergarten, will continue to love a challenge after thirteen years of school and will go on to their next phase of life welcoming this process of building their authority by rising to a challenge.

For this concept is essential to the concept of liberty. If our voices are to “ring with the harmonies of liberty,” those in authority from parents to teachers to principals to presidents need to use as a yardstick for the quality of their authority, their ability to increase the authority of others. Done right it is a challenge of a lifetime, but rising to this challenge is the only way for us to be happy in a world with other people. It is also the only way for our nation to realize its dreams.

Technorati Tags: Authority, building character, character, child-rearing, children, conflict, decision making, Discipline, education, Emotional control, Genius, gifted, kids, Leadership, Learning, Learning community, learning social skills, Parenting, parenting skills, parents, respect, responsibility, school reform, teacher, teachers, teaching, teaching responsibility

“I’m Not the Only One” Part 2

(Continued from January 4)

As it turned out, I did not have to wait long for an opportunity to address the bullying issue. Later that week Davion did come to my office to complain about Jeremy, telling me about his intimidating behavior and threatening language, emphasizing, “It’s not just me. He’s does it to everybody.”

He talked for a while, and I listened intently. When he was finished, I said slowly and thoughtfully, pondering the situation, “I think I understand. Tell me about the last time it happened.”

“It just happened today,” he said, as if he were still trying to convince me that there was a problem.

“What happened? Give me the blow-by-blow so I can see it like a movie in my head.”

“Well, we were playing soccer on the playground, see, and the ball went out, and we both chased it, but I got there first and picked it up, but he tried to take it out of my hands and when I wouldn’t let go and twisted away, he pushed me and said, ‘gimme the ball and came at me like he was going to hit me.”

I nodded knowingly. (Don’t we all know this situation?)

“So what did you do?” I asked.

“So I gave him the ball.”

“Hmmmm.” I said nodding thoughtfully. There was silence for a while.

“What would happen,” I asked, “if you had faced him, holding the ball like this,” and I pretended to hold the ball with both arms across my chest, “looked him straight in the eye and said: ‘stop that’?”

“He would hit me.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Then what would happen if you hit him back?”

“I’d get kicked out.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Well, I would get in trouble.”

“Well, maybe. But you would both get in trouble, right?”

“Yes, I guess so.”

“You might both be sent to my office, right?”

“Yes, I guess so.”

We looked into each other’s eyes for a few seconds. I felt a click of understanding. He left the office.

Neither Jeremy nor Davion ever got into trouble, again. As far as I know there were no more incidents the teachers couldn’t handle. I talked to the homeroom teacher to inquire a week or so later, and she confirmed that Jeremy was no longer bothering Davion. The epidemic of intimidation stopped. Four years later, they both graduated from eighth grade in good standing. I never had to speak to Jeremy the perpetrator, again, either.

It sounds like I had a magic wand, and indeed it felt like I had actually waved one. But what did I do right? That question rattled around my brain for some time. Did I make a mistake?

One thing I did learn is to pay attention when someone says: “It’s not just me….” For the first few years I just noted it. Then, I began to respond to it with something like: “It doesn’t matter to me whether or not there are other people. You are upset. Let’s deal with that.” For the last ten years I would often find myself saying: “Let’s make it just you. Right now, to me, you are what matters.”

What do you think I did right, or did I just get lucky? What do you think? What would you have done?

Technorati Tags: building character, Bullying, character, child-rearing, children, conflict, decision making, Discipline, education, emotional intelligence, Genius, harassment, kids, Leadership, Learning, Learning community, learning social skills, Parenting, parenting skills, respect, school, teaching, teaching responsibility

“I Am Not the Only One”

Part 1

In the autumn of 1974, in my first year as school principal, a kind and gentle fifth grader named Davion was having trouble with some of the other boys in the class. In particular, Jeremy was becoming increasingly intimidating. The teachers intervened anytime they saw an incident. Jeremy had already been sent to my office once, and the teachers were beginning to talk to me about him. We felt that bullying was going on, but saw very few punishable offenses.

One day, Davion’s mother—a kind, thoughtful, single parent —came to my office to complain about Jeremy. I assured her that we had a policy of no tolerance for bullying or harassment. Any kind of physical or verbal violence was unacceptable.

She said, “I can understand people saying mean things to each other, but I have told Davion never, ever to be physically violent.”

I told her that we had the same attitude, but reiterated that I took an equally strong stand against verbal violence. I even told her about the new teacher who told her students that she has one rule: “Be kind,” and that the faculty and I were talking about making that the school rule.

“No physical violence,” she repeated. “It’s an absolute.”

I decided not to press the point, so I said that I wanted Davion to come and talk to me, and she replied that he was afraid to talk to me. When I asked her to encourage him to do it anyway, she bristled. “He shouldn’t have to.”

I said, “I know what you mean. But it is important for him to learn that he can find resources beyond you to help when he has a problem.”

“Look, I am not the only one who is upset. Many parents are talking about this problem.”

We talked for some time, she complaining and protesting, and me insisting that Davion come talk to me. Finally, she left my office unconvinced that her son would be safe, despite my efforts to reassure her. When I walked home from school that day, I went over and over the conversation, but my thinking produced no satisfying plan. I woke up at four in the morning with butterflies in my stomach and stewed on the problem.

As a 29-year-old, rookie principal I was always waking up before dawn with butterflies in my stomach over problems like this, and I had dozens to worry about. After all, in a school with about 250 students I had over 750 incipient relationship problems. I feared that all this worry was sapping my energy, and I couldn’t see that I was solving any problems, but I couldn’t help it. I just woke up before dawn and stewed.

If you had been my mentor, what would you have advised?

Tune in next Wednesday for how it turned out.

Technorati Tags: building character, character, conflict, Discipline, education, Genius, kids, Leadership, Learning community, learning social skills, respect, responsibility, teaching responsibility

 We wish each other peace, joy and love this time of year. Seems like a simple way to happiness. Why is it so hard?

At Christmas Eve dinner with friends someone asked the question, “If your life could be any movie you wanted, what would it be? Who would play you? Who would play the role of your true love? Would you change the ending? What would the new ending be?

The conversation was lively, and the merriment branched into some interesting discussions. Over dessert someone said, “If I could change one thing in my movie, it would be myself. The challenge of my life is that I am stuck being myself in it. I wish someone would give me a vacation for Christmas—a vacation from myself. What good is being on a beach in some beautiful, exotic place, if I’m there with myself.”

Of course, normally hearing someone talk like this, one’s first reaction would be something like, “Oh, come on. You are so successful. You have three wonderful children, a fine relationship with your wife, and you have a great job. There are a whole lot of people who would love to trade places with you.” (Which someone said.) Then there would also be: “Poor you! I sure hope you are seeing a therapist. All this self-loathing and negativity about yourself; you need to learn to love yourself.” (Which no one said.)

But in the conversation that ensued it became clear that we all had some awareness that we are trapped and that the trap is our selves.

Of course, this is literally the case for all humans. Our marvelous human brain hides a tragic flaw. On the one hand, our brains are miraculously designed to know stuff, and by the time we are five we know thousands of things—everything from how to turn on a light to how to annoy our mothers. By the time we are adults we know a million things—from the theories of physics behind making lights go on to how to take care of our mothers. Our thoughts, our actions, even our feelings flow from this knowledge. Actually, it’s all one thing. We are our knowledge.

And that can be a good thing. After all, it is because of the quality of my friend’s knowledge that he was able to be so “successful” (children, wife, job, vacations on the beach, Christmas Eve dinners with friends, etc.)—well, that and a little luck.

On the other hand, all this genius has an underbelly. All of our knowledge is a fabrication. We think it’s real because it works enough of the time to have “proven itself,” but it is still precisely “all in our heads.” When we react to something in our environment—like a smile or a curve ball—we are reacting to a construct of our brains, not the thing itself.

One result is that we get things wrong. Another is that we conflict with others. We think we know (where you put the keys, how to make a lasagna, God is love, etc.), but others know different. This can lead to everything from an argument to mass murder.

Still another result showed up at our Christmas Eve dinner. Each of us is frustrated with the gap between how we know things could be and our capabilities. Here’s a short list:

I can’t seem to write anything longer than three pages and have it be any good.

This voice of judgment in my head paralyzes me.

I can’t find the time to get the exercise I know I need.

I keep getting mad at other people on the highway.

I can’t produce a drawing of a building that is any better than anything else I have already seen.

I keep stubbing my toe.

I want to lose weight, but I can’t stop eating.

The slightest irregularity, and my amygdala takes over leaving my pre-frontal cortex aghast at my behavior.

Then someone said: “I can’t get my son to behave the way he needs to in order to be successful in this world.”

“Wait,” replied the mother to my left, “I gave up on that back when my oldest turned twenty.”

Then it came to me: Being Right has nothing to do with our main markers of happiness, Peace, Joy, Love, and yet so often we put it first. My New Year’s resolution: to have fun experimenting with being wrong.

Technorati Tags: Anger, Authority, building character, child-rearing, children, conflict, decision making, education, Genius, kids, Learning, Learning community, Parenting, parenting skills, school, teacher, teaching, teenagers

Meditation on Solstice Peace

You have family. You have conflict.

–Bobby Richman

 On December 21 many years ago, my thirteen-year-old son arrived in the kitchen as I was having my morning coffee. Rather than greeting me with, “Good morning, Dad” he went straight to the refrigerator, took out a carton of orange juice, grabbed a large glass from the cupboard and filled it to the brim.

“Wow. That’s a lot of orange juice,” I said. (I don’t know why. “Good morning, Peter,” would certainly have been a better opener.)

Standing in the middle of the kitchen floor in bare feet with the glass of orange juice in his hand and looking squarely at me Peter flew into a rage with: “You are always on my case! Why are you always on my case? Nothing I ever do is right!…” and went on in that vein for a minute or so.

During a moment of speechless surprise a smile slowly spread over my face, after which I said, “We belong to mutual confrontation society, don’t we?”

He laughed, I laughed, and then we laughed together. From that moment on I was blessed with a hassle-free relationship with my adolescent son. It was like magic.

Even if you live in a city where the lights never go out, and the solstice means nothing to you, your soul knows it’s dark. You are living through the darkest day of the year. Lighting a candle can remind you of the reality that even when things are darkest you can light a candle. Children’s songs like “This Little Light Of Mine” can remind us that we can be that light—that a smile is a candle to someone else’s soul, and words like “You matter,” can cut through all darkness.

At this time of year we see “Peace, Joy, Love” everywhere. That’s nice, but if one isn’t feeling that way (and many are not—this is actually depression time, you know) it can feel more like an accusation than a reminder of perpetual goodness.

The uniqueness of each human means that we differ with all others, and those differences are a natural cause of conflict. In fact, it is fair to say—it is in fact precisely the truth—that we are in conflict with all other humans all the time. That most of it doesn’t feel like conflict most of the time is because, 97% of humans are pretty good at interpersonal conflict 97% of the time. In case you hadn’t noticed, let me state the obvious: we are in conflict with our children all the time.

My son knows that it is his job to know stuff. Otherwise, how can he ever grow up to be a satisfactory human who can make his own decisions? On my side of the table, I am trying to treat him as if he knows what he is doing, but I also know that he doesn’t know what he is doing.

But that’s okay.

Prepare for conflict. It is his job to assert, to make decisions and to do; a parent’s job is to give him feedback on the effect of his decisions on the world around him (in addition to loving him unconditionally and letting him make his own decisions.)

Thinking back on that magic moment in the kitchen, I realize that the active ingredient in the hassle-free relationship I had with my teenage son was the notion that it was okay for us to conflict. There are usually two layers to interpersonal conflict: the conflict itself, and the recrimination layer. I had removed the recrimination layer. We now had permission to disagree, argue, and fight without either of us feeling bad that we were conflicting.

Today, the darkest day of the year and the longest night of the soul, we remind ourselves that however bad things get, they can get better—and probably will, soon. We can light a candle and encourage ourselves to let our little lights shine. We want peace for everyone—especially our family. Paradoxically, a necessary ingredient in the holiday punch of Peace, Joy and Love, is acknowledging that conflict inevitably comes to loved ones, each of whom is trying to let his own little light shine.

Technorati Tags: building character, character, child-rearing, children, conflict, decision making, education, Emotional control, Genius, kids, Learning, learning social skills, Parenting, parenting skills, parents, teaching responsibility, teenagers

 Love

When I was nine and my father asked me what I wanted for Christmas I said, “Something I can build and then when it’s built I can play with it.”

Fifty years later, when my wife asked me what I wanted for Christmas I said, “Fifty pieces of rebar two feet long.”

Both of these requests were a challenge, the first because Legos hadn’t been invented yet, and the second because, well, it just didn’t seem like much of a Christmas present.

In my family Christmas was always about love. The question, “What do you want for Christmas?” was not just another way of saying, “So what’s my shopping list for you this year?” It was more, “Tell me about your loves, that I may show you that I love what you love, because I love you.” (In case you haven’t guessed, I love to build.)

Perish the thought, but I have to confess that one fear I have for children these days is that they will be given a book. Correction, I fear that they will be given a book more out of fear than love—fear that they aren’t reading yet, or that they aren’t reading faster than other kids in the class. In schools, in airports, in planes, in the cloud, I keep hearing a pervasive cacophony of concern about whether a child is going to read soon enough or well enough to succeed in school (and it goes without saying that if they fall behind there, they will be behind for life.) Read: FAILURE!)

The same year that Santa brought me cool things to build, I was also given a book on sailing ships. My parents somehow knew that I loved sailing, ships and the ocean more than I even knew. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t read. (I actually did not read until the following summer—the summer before fifth grade.) I read the titles and the captions because the fabulous pictures helped me figure them out. None of that mattered; I loved it.

So, please do go into a bookstore before Christmas. In fact, go with your children, one at a time. Wander, browse and listen. Pretend that together you are looking for presents for other people, but know that you are watching and listening for their own interests. (Very few children will fail to tip their hands about what they love, even if they know the task is to find something for someone else.)

Should you ask a teacher or librarian or storekeeper about reading level? Sure, it can’t hurt, but if you are thinking too much about that, you will miss the point. You are not giving a book in hopes that it will have a positive effect on their academic achievement. Santa’s message is “I know what you love,” not “I, too, am on the team that wants you to be successful in school.” Selecting books for children should reflect their passions; degree of difficulty can be a secondary consideration.

Okay. So let’s say you know all this and are still afraid for your child’s academic success. The science of learning can remind us of what we know in our hearts. For instance, research on “The Arts and Human Development”by The National Endowment for the Arts gives us windows into how complex and multi-directional are the routes to academic success. Even if our top focus were those nasty test scores, we would still be wise to cater to the loves of children.

Yes, give your child a book for Christmas, but remember that research also says that you might do just as well to give your child a drum, or some paints, or a dollhouse, or a toolbox, or 50 pieces of rebar, or a box of crayons and a ream of 500 sheets of white paper.

Here’s a cool gift idea: a message in an bottle that says: “This certificate entitles you to one Day at the Museum of Natural History and an Ice Cream Sundae of your choosing.”

Our metric for a good gift should continue to be the time-honored one of delight; for delight is a window into our children’s souls, and the research also supports the tradition of Christmas that it’s all about the love we generate this time of year—and all year long, too.

Technorati Tags: child-rearing, children, education, Genius, gifted, kids, Learning, learning social skills, learning to read, math, math teaching, mathematics, Parenting, parenting skills, parents, play, Reading, reading to children, school reform, teacher, teachers, teaching

“How Do You Use Blocks? An Excellent Interview Question” was the 100^th post on “The Genius in Children.” Looking back on the postings of 2011 I am reminded of many great discussions that some of the posts triggered, and I am enormously grateful to all of you who participated. To celebrate, I am stepping back to ask you about your favorites and ask if any of these discussions need to be continued or if there are topics you would like to see pursued in the new year.

Here are a half-dozen of the most active from 2011, but please feel free to find your favorites. I would love to get your thoughts.

Why Mathematics is a Foreign Language in America and What to Do about It.

JUNE 21, 2011

Nine Lies about Academic Achievement that Parents and Teachers often Seem to Believe—but Don’t Really.

JUNE 15, 2011

How Parents and Teachers Can Get Bad Results with “High Expectations” for Children?

MAY 11, 2011

Parents as Teachers in the Academic Achievement Race

APRIL 13, 2011

Parenting toward Happiness

MARCH 2, 2011

“Superior Parenting?” That’s Crazy Talk. Children Need Only 3 Things.

JANUARY 19, 2011

Technorati Tags: academic achievement, Happiness, high expectations, math, math teaching, mathematics, Parenting, parenting skills, parents, teachers, teaching, teaching responsibility