The S Words

The S Words

There was a news item over the weekend that I thought we should all talk about. Michele Borba, a parent coach, interviewed on CNBC, was asked what one thing that parents need to change these days.  She said, without hesitation, that we parents need to lose our sad faces, our scowls, and our pessimism.  (I put that last sentence in my own words for a reason.  I’m hearing a lot of s words lately and I don’t think they’re doing us or our children much good. Hence this blog.)

Let’s start our chat with the first s word – sad.  It goes right along with the pessimism that Ms. Borba was talking about, doesn’t it?  Don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot to be pessimistic and sad about.  But the real question is whether all that pessimism is helping us in any way.  According to Ms. Borba, it isn’t.  it’s hurting us and our children – and in a big way.

Here’s her thinking. When our children hear from the adults around them that the world is in a dark place – climate change, war, injustices, school shootings, problems with education, political issues – they start to believe that nothing will change and that nothing anyone does matters.  They hear their parents say exactly that. They hear their parents say that there will always be bad people, bad events, bad problems. As a result of all the “badding,” and this is straight from Ms. Borba, our children lose hope - hope for change, hope for good, and hope that people can be successful problem solvers.

Once they think that, they often begin to shy away from trying anything challenging because “what’s the use?” which gets us right to the classroom.  In other words, students who learn to carry a pessimistic view about other people and their ability to solve problems take on the same attitude about meeting challenges themselves.

Now that brings us to the second s word = scowl.  Many people seem to be walking around a lot of the time with that worried look. Whether it’s a result of worrying about the state of the world, the neighborhood, or the family, the look is the same.  And that look sure isn’t a joyous one.  In fact, it looks like joy has left the building permanently.  Children pick up on facial expressions very early on and use ours as a way to take the “temperature” of a situation.  When they see us smile, the world is a happy place.  When they see us scowl, not so much.

Then there’s a third s word that’s related to these other two. It’s heard a lot in my classrooms, and I’m determined to help our students stop using it. If I have any hope of succeeding, I need your help. I frequently hear “I’m so stressed, I’ll never get all this work done.”  Now where do you think they got that idea?  How many times a day do we say, “This is way too stressful, I’m so stressed,” “This, or you, is stressing me out.”  Stress has become such a topic of conversation and anxiety that there are whole advertising campaigns built on our search for stress-free lives.

Now add this stress thing to a pessimism about the state of the world and what are we telling our children/students?  We’re telling them that life in and of itself is a stressful and unhappy experience.  But if we approach it only as that, and our issues, concerns, and problems with a pessimistic view, we’re kind of doomed to a terminally sad state.  The people of the world have always had problems – big ones, little ones, all sizes.  But those problems have always been solved by the optimistic, critically thinking, let’s-just-do-it people.  Over time, they have been the ones that recognize that we better make some changes instead of thinking “we can’t possibly.”

So, how about you and I make an agreement?  Let’s begin by tamping down the sadness and the pessimism with a more optimistic can-do attitude.  In turn, we will be getting rid of some of the stress in our own lives, and, at the same time, giving our students the idea that they, too, can be problem solvers.  And what if, while we’re solving said problems, we put on a smile? Can you just imagine?  Our children might actually get the idea that it’s fun to problem solve and that they can make a difference. Can’t you just see it?   

What do you think?

Read Any Good Books Lately?

Read Any Good Books Lately?

Today I’d like to talk about the absolutely easiest way to help your child be more successful in every class she takes in school.  It will even help her do well on the SAT test.  I know, that’s way down the road, but later in this post I’ll explain why it’s important now.

Reading.   There, that’s it.  Oh, maybe I need to say more about it?  Okay.  Reading increases vocabulary (without having to study vocabulary words).  Reading teaches us about people, places, ideas, problem solving, sequencing, events, cause and effect.  It’s hands-down the best way to time travel, fight bad guys,  try on new personas, learn about ourselves, and, lest we forget to mention, become better writers.

And get this. Studies reported in the Science section of The Independent show that reading a novel “causes biological changes in the brain which last for days.”  The research was conducted at Emory University and showed that the heightened brain activity that occurred when reading a good book lasted for five days.  Imagine what would happen if we read a little every day!

Now let’s get back to those SAT scores and writing.  There are all kinds of studies that show a direct correlation between reading and growing our vocabularies – and a strong and large vocabulary is one of the best indicators of a good SAT score.  More importantly, in all my experience as a teacher, the students who enjoy reading are always the best writers in the class.  It almost seems that all that reading helps students learn the mechanics of writing by osmosis.  Pretty cool, huh?

So, now that we’ve talked about how important reading is, let’s talk about how to get our kids to read.  The first way is pretty obvious.  We start when they’re babies with cloth books.  We cuddle with our kids and read the books out loud to them and point to pictures and talk with them about what’s on the page.  And we continue that way until they start to read books themselves.  That’s when things start to get dicey.  We’re busy, they’re proud they can read, and it becomes a little too easy to let them “do it by themselves.”   However, if that’s what’s going on, we need to make a few adjustments.

When’s the last time your child saw you sit quietly with a book.  When’s the last time you talked with your family about the book you’re reading?  When’s the last time you read the same books your child is reading?  And then talked with her about it?  All these activities send the quiet message that books and reading are important and the whole family believes that and lives it.

Then there’s the public library.   A library is like a museum of ideas, so what can we do to get our kids to see that?  Maybe we need to make frequent visits.  Check out more than the kids’ section or the young adult section.   Look at an art book, or a book about music or architecture.  Try them all.  Every book counts.

Now for the deep weeds part. I’m just going to say this.  I don’t like to see kids reading on a portable device.  All books are not created equal – some are bigger than others, some have hundreds and thousands more words than others, and some deserve our attention because of the profound effort exhibited by the author.  We need to help our kids become discriminating readers and if they grow up thinking all books are the same (on a portable device they only see one page at a time) then they will have a difficult time comparing one book to another.  Don’t take my word for all this.   Manoush Zomorodi, writer, podcaster, and journalist, researching digital vs. hard copy books has offered the following:

Digital technology has produced an ongoing fight within our brains. The more you read on screens, the more your mind shifts towards ‘non-linear’ reading—a practice that involves things like skimming a screen or having our eyes dart around a web page. 

Linear reading, which is something we humans have developed over years and years, is what we need to do when want to do deep reading—like immerse ourselves in a novel or read a mortgage document. Dense text that we really want to understand requires deep reading, and on the internet, we don’t do that.

Recent research also shows us that reading an actual book requires the use of more than just looking.  When we touch a book, when we hold it and become aware of its heft, when we run our fingers across the pictures, or when our tears from the sad parts blot the page, we are “all in.”   It means we are using more of ourselves, thereby giving us back a more meaningful experience.  Isn’t that what we want for our children – more meaning in their experiences?

What do you think?

Let’s Stop Tasking (Multi or Not) and Start Minding

Let’s Stop Tasking (Multi or Not) and Start Minding

Last Wednesday we talked about how so many of us – kids included – sometimes have a hard time staying focused.  We also talked about Mindfulness, but we only scratched the surface, so that’s where we’re picking things up today.  Before writing this post, I went back and reread a couple of the articles about Mindfulness and I noticed a few consistent ideas we can start with.

First, being mindful does not mean exerting more concentration.  Concentration takes effort and being mindful is much more relaxed.  In fact, it’s being so peaceful that it allows us to become more aware of what people around us are saying – or not saying. It helps us listen to ourselves, to what’s going on in our minds and in our bodies.  It allows us to be more aware of what’s going on in nature.  We tend to see the nuances of color more clearly, hear sounds with greater clarity, and, if we’re lucky, make better choices about what we say and do.  In other words, the greatest benefit of being mindful is that we become better at being ourselves.

Second, an added benefit is that once we become comfortable with just being in the moment, when we do choose to focus on another person, or on a task that’s a little difficult, or a book that takes a little effort to understand, we do a much better job.  Win-win, right?

The next question is how do we learn to do this mindful thing?   First, I think we start small.  We try letting ourselves “be” for small periods of time.  For instance, we could get up in the morning, pour a cup of coffee, and stand at the kitchen window for 30 seconds just looking out.  We won’t assume we already know what we’ll see.  Everything outside is different from one minute to the next, but most of the time we don’t even notice.  So, back to the kitchen and the coffee and the 30 seconds.  Can you visualize it?  Let’s look out the window again.  There’s that tree we’ve looked at a hundred times.  But what colors are the leaves in the early morning light?  Is it taller than we’ve noticed in a while?  Are there any birds in the tree?   What about the bark?  Does it have a pattern or is it smooth?  What colors are in it?

I know – what’s this got to do with much of anything?  Well, I think the more we really “know” about ourselves and the space around us – whether it’s the backyard or the office or the classroom – the more comfortable we are.  The more comfortable we are, the better able we are to entertain new and different ideas.  There’s a reason for this:  the more we add to what we know about our world, the bigger our frames of reference become. The bigger the frame of reference we have, the better able we are to make sense of the things, people, and ideas we encounter.

Now let’s think about ways that could translate to our children. How about this for practice?  The next time we’re in the car together, let’s turn off all portable devices and have a conversation.  We’ll talk about colors, about people we know, and about what we might be happy/ concerned/ scared about.   We can talk about absolutely anything as long as we’re really paying attention to each other. (That’s the real key, here.)  This could be one way we expand our frames as well as our focus ability -- all at the same time.  And once we practice that a few times with each other, we can try it with our kids.  BTW, it will also give us an opportunity to ask them “What do you think?”

Mindset Matters

Mindset Matters

How many times have we heard someone (maybe even ourselves) say “I just can’t seem to focus today”.  Now take that for a minute into the classroom and imagine, if you will, what it’s like when some of the kids in the class are in that place.  The teacher is going along with the lessons and all the students seem to be paying attention and learning appears to be happening.  Then he turns back from writing something on the whiteboard and out of the corner of his eye he notices Billy staring out the window at the kindergartners on the playground.  Or he reaches for a book on his desk and when he looks up Nancy is making a face at Anne.  What happened?  Lost focus.

All in a nanosecond.  Surely the lesson wasn’t that boring.  No, it was, in fact, full of activities; it even had a video clip pulled up on the smart board.  So, is the message that our kids have a hard time just sitting for a second?  Do they have a hard time just “being”?   Yes, actually, that is today’s message.

It seems we’ve become so used to being entertained and stimulated each second of every day that we can’t just sit still anymore.  And it isn’t just the kids.  It’s many of us.  When’s the last time you just sat still?  You didn’t think of all the things you should be doing, you didn’t go over the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting, you didn’t make the grocery list in your mind?  Can’t remember, can you?  Neither can many of our children.

“So what?” you may ask.  Isn’t it more important to get stuff done and move on than just sit and do nothing?   Well, as it turns out, researchers have been writing about something called Mindfulness and how important it is for all of us, and especially for kids.   Simply put, Mindfulness is the ability to be completely (as much as we can be) in the moment.  It means being able to focus on the task at hand without thinking about all the other stuff we need to get done.  It also means being able to notice what’s around us and what’s going on inside us.

When’s the last time you drove down the road and noticed all the different colors of green?  When’s the last time you drove down the road and your kids were looking out the window instead of interacting with their technology?   When’s the last time you navigated your way by road signs and landmarks instead of your GPS?  The point is not to do away with our technology.  That will never happen – nor do we want it to.  The point is if we’re a little short on the Mindfulness scale, our interactions with the world may get out of balance.  Then we, and our kids, will be in danger of missing out on the who, what, and where all around us.

What do you think?

Numbers Count, Too

Numbers Count, Too

Last week we talked about calling things by their names instead of their categories, like calling it a seagull or a bluejay or a robin instead of a “bird.” Today we’re going to talk about something that’s just as important, but for different reasons. We know that language – words – are important because they allow us to communicate easily with people who share the same language. We don’t have to draw pictures to let someone know what we’re talking about. But the key piece is that we have to each know the language we’re using or it doesn’t work.

Numbers also let us communicate, and, in a sense, they’re better than words because they cross all languages. 4 is 4 is 4 no matter where you live. Addition and subtraction are addition and subtraction no matter where you go to school or what language you speak. The same is true for fractions, algebra, and calculus. Cool, isn’t it?

So what does that mean for our kids? It means that at a very young age, and all through our lives, we have the capability of learning a universal language. And we know the best way to learn any language is to use it. So, how about this? The next time your 3-year-old wants to help you and you’re trying to fold laundry, try counting the socks. Count Cheerios. Count cars in the parking lot. Count flowers in your yard. Count ceiling tiles. Count everything. And do it together.

Once we’re pretty good at the counting thing, move up to patterns. Help your kids see that the parking lot has rows and columns. Then show them that each row and column has the same number of spaces in it. Help them see that if they know how many are in one row, they know how many are in the next. (This is called arrays and forms the basis for multiplication.)Help them see the patterns in nature, too. Count the petals on a flower. Then look at a different kind of flower (don’t forget to name both of them) and notice the differences. Discover the patterns in tree bark. Look for patterns in vegetables. Pretty soon, your child will be showing you patterns everywhere. At the same time, you’ll be sharing an incredible experience with them, together discovering some of the most fascinating beauty in our world. And just think – it can all start with numbers.

Let’s Watch Our Words

Let’s Watch Our Words

As many of you know, among other things, I teach Humanities to junior high students.  That means I teach a combination of English and Social Studies which means my students spend a great deal of time working on becoming better writers.  Recently (the last few years), I’ve been noticing that it seems to be more difficult for them to write descriptively.  They tend to write stories, poems, and memoirs with simpler words than I would like to see them use.  As a result their writing includes many birds, flowers, cars, shirts, apples, and so on, instead of seagulls, roses, Toyotas, Polos, and Granny Smiths.

Over the years when I have asked my students to “be a little more specific” in their writing,  many of them have told me it would be a lot easier if they knew what to call everything.  That’s a little sad, isn’t it?

So, what does this all mean?  Have we been failing our kids?  Not at all. We’re providing the best lives and experiences we can.  But I think it does mean that we could do a little better in helping them identify the parts of their world.

We live not far from a beach where I love to walk along the water. I see a lot of parents with their children on my walks and I can’t tell you how often I have heard a parent say “look at the bird.”  Not “look at the seagull” or “the sandpiper” or “the pelican.”  Just “look at the bird.”  It’s good that the parent and child are experiencing the beach and all it is, but as that child grows, she is more likely to use the word “bird” to describe each and every bird she sees rather than distinguish one from another.  And that will impede her writing – and her reading.

We’ve been talking about writing but let’s talk about reading for a minute.  Many of my students start the school year saying they don’t like to read.  Often it’s because they have had to read books they didn’t like.  But that isn’t all that keeps them from loving books. Many other things affect their love of reading and one of the big ones is vocabulary.   If they don’t recognize the words they’re reading, they are much more likely to give up on the book; they’ll also be more likely to not want to try another.  And that means they won’t want to read at all which will have a huge impact on all the rest of their academic endeavors.

I’m not saying we all have to talk to our kids like we’re college professors.  What I am saying is if it’s a comfortable moment in the conversation or the experience (like playing in the waves at the beach) let’s identify that bird by its real name.   Better yet, if we aren’t sure what kind of bird it is, let’s get a bird book at the library and look it up together.  Or Google it together.  How cool would that be?  Not only would it extend the experience, but it would send the message that it can be fun to research.  What a concept!

So my suggestion this week is that we start to call a rose “a rose” – not just a flower.  And maybe that car over there is a Ford, and maybe that apple in the bowl is a Macintosh.

What do you think?

The Gift of a Lifetime

The Gift of a Lifetime

The year I was twelve my dad gave me a gift that changed my life.  Back then he had his own company and on Saturday mornings I went along with him while he visited his sites.  Then we would go out for lunch. I was allowed to order whatever I wanted, we would make father-daughter small talk, and then we’d go home.  But one Saturday it was different.  That day we checked out everything we needed to, picked a restaurant, ordered lunch, began to eat, and started talking about what we usually did - our favorite TV program.  He and I had a standing date to watch the Twilight Zone together every week, and although I was too young to understand all the science or the adult themes of the series, I loved our time with each other so much it really didn’t matter.

On one particular Saturday we were talking about the episode we had just watched that week about time being the fourth dimension when my dad put down his fork and asked me what I thought.   Now I need to paint a proper picture here.  My dad was pretty strict.  He was loving and thoughtful with my mom and me, but he also didn’t hesitate to make his expectations clear about how I was to behave and, often, how I was to think.  So, imagine my amazement when he asked me my opinion.  And, even more surprising, he waited for me to collect myself and share my ideas about, of all things, the fourth dimension. 

I don’t remember what I said or what he said back, but I’ll never forget the gift he gave me that day, my very first idea-driven conversation.  That day at lunch he treated me not only as if I had ideas, but that he thought those ideas were worth talking about.  For a tiny moment in my almost-a-teenager life, I was his peer, and we were discussing opinions and thoughts.  For that hour, I wasn’t a kid that didn’t know much; I wasn’t a kid that lacked the experience or education to have an opinion.  I was a person worth having a conversation with.

As I think about my students today, it occurs to me that the ones who seem most comfortable with ideas, who like stretching themselves to think and analyze, who think it’s fun to talk about current events, are the same students who tell me about how their parents watch the news with them or talk with them about world happenings.  It’s that pure and simple: validation for them as people with ideas and questions.  The message they receive at home is the same one we try to send at school; they are not kids unable to understand.  Instead, the message is “here you are, and I’m happy to hear what you have to say.”

I firmly believe there’s a correlation between that message at home and academic success at school.  I’m not a researcher, so I don’t have empirical data to back up my assertion.  I do, however, have many anecdotal accounts to support my theory.  So I’m going with that and here come my questions of the week:  Do our kids believe they have – and should share – ideas, or are they waiting for someone to tell them what to think?   Do they offer new information, or ask questions about current events?  Do they ask our opinion about things happening in the world? And, most importantly, do we ask for theirs?

My dad died a year after that lunch.  That was a very long time ago, but his gift of our conversation has informed all of my life.  It has given me the realization that listening to one another’s ideas – no matter how old or young the people are – is the foundation to understanding.  One more thing.  My dad’s gift has been a precious gem I’ve carried with me for decades; now I give it to you so you can give it to someone you care about. Ready?  Here it is: put down your fork and ask that person ….

What do you think?