In This Issue:

1. Rethinking social and emotional learning

2. Leading in a time of loss

3. Dealing with five challenges of being a working parent

4. The daily effects of “white privilege”

5. Successful classes for English language learners

6. A downside of growth mindset for some students

7. Doing something about summer learning loss

8. Getting more students writing research papers

9. Short item: A video on child labor in the U.S.

 

Quotes of the Week

“The humbling, brutal, messy reality is that you can do everything in your power and still fail.”

Rachel Simmons (see item #6)

 

“Expecting students to pull themselves up by their bootstraps when they have no boots can be quite damaging.”

            Jay Greene (see item #1)

 

“Learning is complex and so are kids. No single tool is going to solve everything. Our success depends on executing as many sound strategies as possible over the course of each child’s entire experience.”

            Timothy Daly (see item #7)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Rethinking Social and Emotional Learning

            In this American Enterprise Institute paper, Jay Greene (University of Arkansas) salutes the goals of social and emotional learning (SEL), but says this new label “represents a set of educational priorities that are as old as education itself.” In the past it was often called character education. Greene believes that SEL advocates won’t achieve their goals “if they fail to acknowledge the moral and religious roots of SEL, do not consider its history and how past efforts have managed to succeed, and attempt to reinvent those past efforts from scratch on a technocratic foundation that is at odds with what allows SEL to be effective.” In fact, he says, embracing previous incarnations may make social-emotional learning more appealing and motivational to many educators and parents. 

            Greene recalls the cardinal virtues described by Socrates in The Republic– prudence, courage, temperance, and justice – which were later incorporated into Christian theology. There is almost a one-to-one correspondence with the core competencies identified by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), but SEL advocates have rebranded the traditional virtues, de-emphasizing teaching character and morality and the religious overtones. Here’s how Greene sees the “translation” of the age-old virtues to the modern, secular lingo:

-   Prudence – Responsible decision-making, which includes identifying and solving problems, reflecting, and ethical responsibility;

-   Courage – Self-awareness, which encompasses self-confidence, growth mindset, and self-efficacy;

-   Temperance – Self-management, including impulse control, diligence, grit, and self-discipline;

-   Justice – Social awareness and relationship skills, embracing empathy, respect for others, and teamwork.

SEL proponents seem to be attempting a fresh start, says Greene, distancing their precepts from historical thinking. “But a fresh start for SEL stripped of its moral and religious roots is neither possible nor desirable,” he argues. “Moral and religious ideas are inherent in SEL, which is why they have always been connected.” 

            In 1940, says Greene, there were well over 100,000 school districts in the U.S., and local school boards had to be responsive to their often small communities. Although schools were nominally secular, they had plenty of religious overtones: Christian holidays, pledges invoking God, and character education. Today, there are fewer than 14,000 school districts in the nation, and school boards work with much larger districts with greater religious and cultural diversity. In addition, state and federal mandates to raise student achievement provide boards with a rationale for focusing on academics, not character education. The result has been less emphasis on the “soft skills” in U.S. public schools.

            “Even if people don’t understand why character education disappeared over the past few decades,” says Greene, “they noticed and were alarmed by its absence. The SEL movement is a reaction to this educational void. But rather than learning from and building on its long history, SEL advocates seem determined to build their effort from scratch on a secular and technocratic basis.” 

Greene sees four problems with the current implementation of SEL in schools. First, without the moral dimension, there’s the possibility that social-emotional learning could be used for amoral purposes. For example, diligence, grit, and self-management (temperance) could be employed to ruthlessly dominate others. Having a value-based and ethical goal is important. 

            Second, exercising SEL is impossible in certain circumstances. Preaching self-efficacy and grit in a math class is an empty exercise if the curriculum and the teaching are ineffective. “Expecting students to pull themselves up by their bootstraps when they have no boots can be quite damaging,” says Greene. “Context matters for SEL.”

            Third, there’s the challenge of motivating students to put SEL ideas into practice. “Why should students be conscientious?” asks Greene. “Why should they believe they can improve outcomes for themselves and others through their own effort? Why should they be honest, punctual, and careful in their work? Simply telling students that these are desirable qualities does not make them believe it. Telling them that their future employers will reward them is clearly insufficient.” Historically, religious beliefs have provided the motivational fuel for whypeople should be concerned with others and exert effort, and why they should be honest, punctual, and diligent. That is what’s behind the term “Protestant work ethic.” 

            Finally, Greene believes the psychological basis for SEL is not robust. “How is grit really different from conscientiousness or effort?” he asks. “How is growth mindset really different from locus of control or self-confidence? … Because the psychological concepts are fuzzy and the measures are highly sensitive to context, any attempt to centrally command and control progress toward SEL goals is a fool’s errand. These SEL measures are also easily gamed and manipulated if used for anything beyond research purposes.”

            So what is to be done? Greene suggests that educators defer the operational questions of how to teach and measure social-emotional skills, learn from the history, and rethink the broader context of SEL in schools. “The main challenge with SEL,” he asserts, “is not how to do it, but what social and political conditions allow any approaches to be effective.” His main points:

• Accept that SEL is all tied up with morality. While not necessarily teaching religion, we shouldn’t shy away from the moral and religious roots. “Doing so,” says Greene, “will wipe some of the flaky, New Age feeling away from SEL and allow it to draw support from a broad section of the country that is legitimately concerned with the values that their children are learning.”

• Make SEL real by telling stories. These might include the Good Samaritan, Hillel, Rosa Parks, and other exemplars of morality in action.

• Acknowledge that effective SEL requires local control. “Different communities have legitimate differences over the concrete moral examples of SEL concepts,” says Greene. “SEL advocates need to embrace the moral diversity that effective SEL instruction requires.” Social-emotional learning in school will get more traction if it aligns with what children are taught at home.

• Recognize that school choice would help but is not essential. Greene likes the idea of decentralizing control over schools so people with similar values send their children to like-minded schools.

• Avoid attempting to centrally measure and incentivize it. “SEL instruction can only be effective if local communities authentically adopt and pursue it,” says Greene, “which requires that they be allowed to put their own moral preferences into SEL abstractions.” 

 

“The Moral and Religious Roots of Social and Emotional Learning” by Jay Greene, American Enterprise Institute, June 2019, https://bit.ly/2ZZZvtc; Greene can be reached at [email protected]. Spotted in “Social and Emotional Learning Is Just Character Education and a Thesaurus” by Robert Pondiscio in The Education Gadfly, June 26, 2019 (Vol. 19, #26) 

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2. Leading in a Time of Loss

            In this Harvard Business Reviewarticle, Gianpiero Petriglieri (INSEAD) and Sally Maitlis (Said Business School) say they have found most leaders “come to work prepared to celebrate births and birthdays, and even handle illnesses, but when it comes to death, they fall silent and avert their gaze.” When death affects a colleague and it isn’t dealt with openly, say Petriglieri and Maitlis, “the natural withdrawal that accompanies mourning is more intense and lasting…” 

            There are many theories about the way grief unfolds, including the five stages put forward by David Kessler and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, but things aren’t always that neat. Grief can ebb and flow, and it’s important for managers to expect variations and support grieving colleagues as they experience three salient emotions: defiance and anger; pain, despair, and disorganization; and slow reorganization and reinvestment in life. Petriglieri and Maitlis have the following suggestions for leaders:

            • Be there for grieving colleagues. The default managerial impulse is to fixthings. “Death is unfixable,” say the authors. “Instead, managers should be present and support employees by managing the boundary between them and the workplace.” Grieving people are touched by small things, and outreach by the leader is something they’ll especially remember: a phone call, a personal visit, flowers, a card, being there at the memorial service. Although it might seem awkward, it’s also important and appropriate to pass along the policy on returning to work – and whether it might be flexible (which might depend on how traumatic the death was to the colleague). “At a moment in which life feels like a maelstrom,” say Petriglieri and Maitlis, “work can be a life raft of familiar structure and choice.” It’s also helpful to ask how things should be handled when a grieving colleague returns, including visiting time with co-workers and returning part-time at first. Colleagues might benefit from an expert-facilitated workshop on dealing with grief. 

            • Be patient with the inconsistency such events can generate. Grief doesn’t abate on a schedule, say Petriglieri and Maitlis. “The person in mourning will continue to be in the grip of intense confusion, exhaustion, and pain. Furthermore, the months that follow the initial shock of loss are often a time of ambivalence. We go back and forth between feeling pain and wanting to move on… One moment we throw ourselves into a challenging project. The next we can’t answer a single e-mail.” It’s helpful if managers hold the grieving person in the same regard as before, but not, for a while, to the same expectations – for example, allowing them to work remotely or not being evaluated on the regular schedule. If symptoms of grief continue after several months, the manager might gently suggest short-term counseling. 

            • Be open to new beginnings. Petriglieri and Maitlis say that a brush with death can foster “a newfound appreciation of life, a more resilient hope, deeper connections with others, and a resolve to make the most of what one has. Post-traumatic growth does not replace the devastating feelings of loss or the need to grieve. Rather, it reinforces the realization that one has survived and that life is worth living.” When and if this occurs, managers can nurture it “through affirmation and a gentle interest in what employees might be discovering about their attitudes to life and work.” It’s also helpful for leaders to share their own experience of loss, trauma, or illness.

            Being present in moments of loss, patient in its aftermath, and open to its potential for growth “complement the vision, planning, and guidance that we traditionally expect from managers,” conclude Petriglieri and Maitlis. “In confronting grief, managers help organizations do better.” 

 

“When a Colleague Is Grieving, How to Provide the Right Kind of Support” by Gianpiero Petriglieri and Sally Maitlis in Harvard Business Review, July/August 2019 (Vol. 97, #4, p. 116-123), https://hbr.org/2019/07/when-a-colleague-is-grieving; the authors can be reached at [email protected]and [email protected].

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3. Dealing with the Five Challenges of Being a Working Parent

            “More than 50 million Americans are juggling jobs and child-rearing – and finding it hard to do,” says Daisy Wademan Dowling (Workparent) in this Harvard Business Reviewarticle. It’s not surprising that a 2015 Pew study found that 65 percent of U.S. working parents with college degrees found work/life demands “somewhat difficult” or “very difficult.” This 18-year chunk of life “requires you to handle an endless stream of to-do’s, problems, and awkward situations,” says Dowling. “There’s no playbook or clear benchmarks for success, and candid discussion with managers can feel taboo; you might worry about being labeled as unfocused, whiny, or worse… Under these conditions, it’s normal to get tired, doubt your own choices and performance, and view your life as a constant, high-stakes improvisation.” 

            It doesn’t have to be that way, says Dowling, who’s worked on these issues for 15 years at Fortune 500 companies and as an independent executive coach focused on working-parent concerns – as well as being a working mother herself. She describes the core challenges and, while conceding that they are “never 100 percent resolved,” suggests how each can be “preempted, mitigated, and managed.” 

• Transitions– For example, returning to work after parental leave, children beginning summer vacation, hiring a new sitter, gearing up for a teen’s college applications. Key suggestion: rehearsing. Do a full run-through of getting ready for the first day back at work, Dowling advises. Make a new sitter’s first day a dry run while you work from home. On the way back from a professional trip, think through how you’ll pivot to parenting, greet the kids, and spend the evening with them. Rehearsals reveal potential wrinkles and buy time to solve them up front. More important, “improv mode” gives the comforting sense that “I’ve got this; I know what I’m doing works.” 

• Practicalities– These include searching for the right childcare, making it to the pediatrician’s appointment on time, getting meds at the pharmacy, feeding kids in the morning. Key suggestion: auditing and planning. The broader range of parenting/work commitments means you need to “become as mindful and deliberate as possible about where your time and sweat equity are going and why,” says Dowling. “Try sitting down with your complete calendar, your to-do list(s), and a red pen. Highlight the commitments, tasks, and obligations you could have put off, handled more efficiently, delegated, automated, or said no to over the past week – and then do the same for the week ahead… Be ruthless – and look for themes.” Is this meeting really essential? Could certain household products be delivered on a regular schedule? Can I decline this volunteer request at the kids’ school?

• Communication– This encompasses telling the boss about a pregnancy, asking for a flexible schedule, negotiating daycare pickup with your spouse, and telling a five-year-old about an upcoming out-of-town trip. Key suggestion: framing. Put each communication challenge within these borders: your priorities, next steps, commitment, and enthusiasm. When you have to duck out for your daughter’s violin recital, don’t sheepishly say, “I’m headed out for a few hours.” Say where you’re going and why, when you’ll be back, what you’ll do then, and your excitement for the work. 

• Loss– This includes fretting over missing out on important events at home (those first steps) or opportunities at work (that darned reduced work schedule). Key suggestion: using “today plus 20 years” thinking. Focusing only on the short term can be “emotionally treacherous,” says Dowling. Try this instead: “Think very short term and very long term – at the same time. Yes, you do miss the baby terribly right now, but you’ll be home to see her in a few hours – and years from now you know you’ll have provided her with a superb example of tenacity, career commitment, and hard work.” Be in the moment, but then “project far forward, to ultimate, positive outcomes.” 

• Identity– Will you attend your son’s debate tournament or an important meeting at work? Are you a rising professional or a nurturing, accessible parent? Key suggestion: revisiting and recasting. A classic example: you’ve always seen yourself as super-responsive to colleagues, but feel guilty checking your phone during family dinner. “To be clear, recasting doesn’t mean lowering your standards,” says Dowling; “it means defining important new ones.” The working parent might complete these sentences: I’m a working-parent professional who… I prioritize work responsibilities when… My kids come before work when…The reframed self-image might be as a responsive colleague – but (barring a work emergency) your kids take precedence during dinner. 

 

“A Working Parent’s Survival Guide: The Five Big Challenges – and How to Deal with Them” by Daisy Wademan Dowling in Harvard Business Review, July/August 2019 (Vol. 98, #4, p. 147-151) https://hbr.org/2019/07/a-working-parents-survival-guide

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4. The Daily Effects of “White Privilege”

            “I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group,” says Peggy McIntosh (Wellesley College) in this widely discussed 1989 article in Peace and Freedom Magazine. “As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.” 

McIntosh began to look at her unspoken advantages as “an invisible weightless knapsack,” and compiled a list of what it confers. “As far as I can tell,” she says, “my African-American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of work cannot count on most of these conditions.” Here is a selection from McIntosh’s list of 50 items, quoted directly:

-   If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.

-   I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.

-   I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.

-   I can be pretty sure that my children’s teachers and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not concern others’ attitudes toward their race.

-   I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.

-   I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.

-   I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.

-   Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability. 

-   I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.

-   I can swear, or dress in second-hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race.

-   I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.

-   I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

-   I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

-   If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.

-   I can take a job… without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.

-   I can be pretty sure of finding people who are willing to talk with me and advise me about my next steps, professionally.

-   I can be late for a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.

“Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that racism doesn’t affect them because they are not people of color,” says McIntosh; “they do not see ‘whiteness’ as a racial identity. In addition, since race and sex are not the only advantaging systems at work, we need similarly to examine the daily experience of having age advantage, or ethnic advantage, or physical ability, or advantage related to nationality, religion, or sexual orientation.”

“Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable,” McIntosh concludes. Having described it, one must ask, “what will I do to lessen or end it?”

 

“White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh in Peace and Freedom Magazine, 1989, https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mcintosh.pdf

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5. Successful Classes for English Language Learners

            In this Teachers College Recordarticle, Holland Banse (University of Denver) and Natalia Palacios and Anna Martin (University of Virginia) say that Latino ELLs face a triple challenge in U.S. schools: learning English, learning academic content, and possibly facing stigma, anti-immigration sentiment, and deficit beliefs. “ELLs are at risk of feeling unwanted or burdensome in their schools,” say Banse, Palacios, and Martin, which makes teachers’ minute-by-minute, day-by-day affect and support critically important. 

The researchers zeroed in on fourth- and fifth-grade classes with a high proportion of ELLs and impressive academic gains, looking for the details of effective support. They found that these teachers were particularly strong in combining three crucial elements:

            •Praise– Teachers used frequent, often effusive affirmation and celebration of students’ responses and efforts, giving students an immediate sense that their contributions were heard and appreciated.

            •Relationships– Teachers connected with students through encouragement, humor, asking about their lives outside of school, and using terms of endearment (for example, calling a student “sweetie”). 

• Relevance– Teachers helped students see the importance and applications of the curriculum, not just of learning English. Teachers did this by connecting the content to students’ lives and showing their own enthusiasm for the subject matter. 

“Although we cannot infer causality from the present analysis,” conclude the authors, our findings suggest that teacher use of praise, relationship building, and relevance may be useful strategies to support achievement gains in classrooms with varying levels of English proficiency… However, teachers cannot shoulder this responsibility alone. Education leaders can create opportunities for professional development that allow teachers to fully support all students.”

 

“How Do Effective Upper-Elementary Teachers of English Language Learners Show Support?” by Holland Banse, Natalia Palacios, and Anna Martin in Teachers College Record, July 2019 (Vol. 121, #7, pp. 1-42), available for purchase at https://bit.ly/2Lsq32c; the authors can be reached at [email protected],[email protected], and [email protected]. 

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6. A Downside of Growth Mindset for Some Students

            In this article in Time, Rachel Simmons (Smith College, Girls Leadership) says that an increasing number of students she works with are “crushed by self-blame” when they study or train hard and don’t come out on top. Simmons believes that some students, especially the most privileged, have bought into a “false promise that they can achieve anything if they are willing to work for it.” Emphasizing the importance of a growth mindset and complimenting young people on effort (versus innate ability) may be good for many young people, says Simmons, but it’s not good for everyone. 

For teens brought up in wealthy, pressure-cooker communities, she believes the problem is “unhealthy perfectionism.” One study found that adolescent girls who wouldn’t give up on unrealistic goals had elevated levels of CRP, a protein associated with inflammation, diabetes, heart disease, and other medical conditions. Another study linked perfectionism among affluent youth with being vulnerable to substance abuse and feelings of inferiority. 

            “The humbling, brutal, messy reality is that you can do everything in your power and still fail,” says Simmons. For some young people, life has taught them that this is true, and it serves as a base on which to build confidence through affirmation and continuous effort. But for others, says Simmons, “the belief that success is always within their grasp is a setup.” It’s a problem when kids feel that losing is a disaster, “that how they perform for others is more important than what actually inspires them, and that where they go to college matters more than the kind of person they are.” 

            Of course kids should be taught to work hard and be resilient, Simmons concludes. “But fantasizing that they can control everything is not really resilience. We would be wise to remind our kids that life has a way of sucker-punching us when we least expect it. It’s often the people who learn to say ‘stuff happens’ who get up the fastest.” 

 

“Tell Kids the Truth: Hard Work Doesn’t Always Pay Off” by Rachel Simmons in Time, July 1, 2019, https://bit.ly/2LtaGXn

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7. Doing Something About Summer Learning Loss

            In this Education Gadflyarticle, Timothy Daly reflects on the origin and meaning of the term “silver bullet.” The Lone Ranger shot them; the current Wikipedia definition is a “simple, seemingly magical, solution to a difficult problem.” Daly was a fan of The Lone Rangeras a boy, and recently had an insight about those bullets: “Being made of a precious metal doesn’t make them any more effective than any other type of bullet, except in the realm of fantasy. But at the same time, a silver bullet isn’t less effective, either. When the Lone Ranger shot them at bad guys, they worked just fine – not because they were silver but because they were bullets.”

            All this came to mind when Daly read a recent study by Paul von Hippel suggesting that summer learning loss is not as significant a factor in achievement gaps as earlier research had indicated. If this is true, says Daly, then “ending summer learning loss is not the silver bullet that will slay educational unfairness.” 

            But just because summer programs don’t magically solve the problem doesn’t mean they’re unhelpful. Summer is a golden opportunity to make up for the disadvantages with which some students enter school, and there’s evidence that extended-year programming can ameliorate those gaps. “Summer supports work,” concludes Daly, “if we have reasonable expectations for what they can and can’t do… Learning is complex and so are kids. No single tool is going to solve everything. Our success depends on executing as many sound strategies as possible over the course of each child’s entire experience. We don’t need to debate about silver bullets we lack – rather, we need to focus on the regular bullets we have.” 

 

“The Lone Ranger and Summer Learning Loss” by Timothy Daly in The Education Gadfly, June 26, 2019 (Vol. 19, #26), https://bit.ly/2Xy32kT

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8. Getting More Students Writing Research Papers

            “America’s 22,000 high schools rarely require or even encourage students to write long research papers,” says Jay Matthews in this Washington Postcolumn. “That’s why nonfiction writing is one of the weakest parts of our education system.” But he sees signs of change on two fronts:

            • International Baccalaureate (IB) seniors have been writing 4,000-word extended essays for more than 40 years; this year, 29,793 students in the U.S. completed these. IB students have two years to complete their papers, working on their own time with guidance from a school advisor. Many IB papers have been published in TheConcord Review, a quarterly collection of essays by high-school students.

            • Advanced Placement (AP) recently launched the Capstone Seminar for sophomores and juniors to analyze complex issues, and AP Research courses for juniors and seniors. The latter courses culminate in a 5,000-word paper and a 15-20-minute presentation and oral defense, and about 16,000 students completed the courses this year. These students complete their papers in a year, with help from their research course teacher and other experts. One student in Chicago interviewed 25 principals, superintendents, and school council representatives on art funding reductions in Illinois. AP papers have been published in Young Researcher andThe Whitman Journal of Psychology.

            “I have a perhaps unrealistic hope that research papers will someday be required of everyone going to college,” Matthews concludes. “But in the next few years, there will be more U.S. high-school students stretching their nonfiction abilities than before. That’s a good start.”

 

“Righting the Wrong of Not Writing: High Schoolers Finally Tackle Major Research Papers” by Jay Matthews in The Washington Post, June 30, 2019, https://wapo.st/2xm91uz

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9. Short Items:

            A video on child labor in the U.S. – This Voxvideo describes the work of photographer Lewis Wickes Hine documenting the shocking conditions under which children worked in U.S. factories and farms in the early 20th century, and how his photos moved the nation to enact child labor laws: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddiOJLuu2mo

 

“These Photos Ended Child Labor in the U.S.” by Michael Zhang in Vox, CurosityStream, June 28, 2019 

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