Well-chosen words

Once long ago, I was listening to the radio in bed waiting for my favorite late night satire. At some point during the News I fell asleep, and then woke up with the comedy in full force. It took at long moment before I could reorient myself and discern which was which.

This article from the NY Times is not satire, but if you are reading it late at night while going to bed, it is easy to confuse what it is your are reading about.

For example,

_____ want their _____ to be “confident, empathetic, humane, personal, forthright, respectful and thorough,” the researchers wrote

and

_____ shows how simple actions and well-chosen words on the part of _____ can make an enormous difference in a _____ ’s emotional and physical well-being.

and

_____ urges _____ to build rapport with their _____ by greeting them warmly by name, asking briefly about important events in their lives, maintaining eye contact, focusing on them without interruptions, and displaying empathy through words and body language.

and

_____ cautions _____ against trying to “fix” the emotion when bad _____ upsets a _____ . Rather, he said, “they should empathize and align with the _____ and say something like: ‘I can see you weren’t expecting _____ . I understand that you’re upset by it. I’m disappointed too that we didn’t get _____ .’ ”

The Growth Mindset - Reducing Cognitive Dissonance

Just finished reading Mistakes were made (but not by me):
Why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acts.
by Carol Travis & Elliot Aronson

An interesting book about cognitive dissonance and how we try to resolve it: either by being more charitable to ourselves, or by being less so to others.

If you are in a rush, just read the first and last chapters. Chapters 2 to 7 are rich in examples, but once you are sold on the idea, they are largely unnecessary.

As happens to me so often, I find the 'solutions' chapters of such books (usually the last one) wanting. In this case Chapter 8 (Letting Go and Owning Up) did not offer as much as I wanted. But all was not lost.

Fittingly, the very last section of the last chapter is "Mistakes were made - By me." And, finally, with just two page to go, they bring first Stevenson and Stigler and then Carol Dweck to make that point that culturally Americans fear being wrong. (And, I might be putting words into mouths here, the way we bring up and educate our children perpetuates it.)

[Memorable quote] In 1985 Ronald Regan visited a German cemetery as part of the symbolism of the post-war reconciliation between Germany and the USA. This upset many because 49 Nazi officers were buried there. When asked for his reaction, Shimon Peres said:

When a friend makes a mistake, the friend remains a friend and the mistake remains a mistake.

Coming into those last two pages, Travis and Aronson later reprise this quote as a useful dissonance reducing strategy.

When I, a decent, smart person, make a mistake, I remain a decent, smart person, and the mistake remains a mistake. Now how do I remedy what I just did?

Presto! The segue into a growth mindset.

Great teachers are wasted on the young

An extremely moving experience earlier this evening - much better than any uplifting movie about a teacher and his/her classroom.

Represented on stage were more than 340 years of teaching experience from a single school.

Our school (my boys', that is) is now 46 years old. This year one of the earliest teachers retires after 43 years. Last year another retired after 28 years.

Anyway, this evening there was celebration of the careers of 17 teachers who have given at least 20 years of service to the school. Amazingly one can find about 10 of them still on campus many days, some still teaching the full 5 periods a day.

A couple thoughts on the way home.

1. A few blog posts back I commented that these days teachers need a bit of a thick hide to endure the criticism being heaped on them as representatives of the contemporary educational system.

But today was different. One after the other, alums recalled memories of these wonderful teachers (going back even to kindergarten , 1st and 2nd grades) and the effects they had in shaping individual lives. One alumnus recalled the three teachers who taught him in 'P2' who collectively had 96 years between them. It was really remarkable what stood out in their minds about the value of their education.

And I realized that for teachers the satisfaction of a job well done comes so much later, and softly, and personally. The spotlight that shown on those teachers today probably lights up like that only a few times in their entire career.

2. The second thought has to do with the fame and prestige accorded to teachers as professionals. For the most part individuals who are success stories in their fields get accustomed to a certain amount of awe and deference that accompanies them in their professional lives - especially when they travel. Maybe this happens for teachers too within their professional community, but I am not so sure.

However, for the children and their parents, this is the first time they are in 3rd grade, and this is this year's assigned 3rd grade teacher. Sure, he or she may be wonderful with the children, and they in turn really, really like school. But at the end of the day she is just another teacher.

We (the children and parents) so very rarely get to hear introspective, well articulated thoughts on the effect that this particular teacher had on someone who is now 20 years older. And even if we did, would it make much difference?

For we are filled with all the arrogance and impatience of youth, and we hardly even know it.

A place we carry inside ourselves

The Familiar Place - By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
From the NY Times, June 3rd, Editorial Notebook

The trick, of course — and it is a hard one to master — is to think of home not as a place we go to or come from, not as something inherent in the world itself, but as a place we carry inside ourselves, a place where we welcome the unfamiliar because we know that as time passes it will become the very bedrock of our being.

This struck a chord with me and got me thinking.

Stream 1:
I began life living with my parents. Two years of boarding school followed, then five of College. A couple of jobs. Graduate School. More jobs. And along the way kids and a house. Fairly typical - with the sense of home morphing along the way until it finally comes to rest on the little piece of land we now call home.

I don't sleep well when I am not at home. And I still remember when I first noticed that I had stopped sleeping well in my parents' house, needing to return to my dorm room for a good night's sleep. (Something I like asking people is where they dream, especially if they have moved city in the last few years.)

Stream 2:
I enjoyed grad school immensely, but I faulted my education on two counts. First, it did not spend much time preparing me for a life in academia. (A bit like a school covering the core curriculum, but not preparing its students to be future citizens in their community.) The other is that, even at that rarefied level of a PhD, so little attention was paid to the idea of owning ones own education. I believe that, at all levels, the education system does not pay enough attention to preparing people for independence as learners (despite the popularity of that phrase life-long learners.)

Intersection of these two streams:

The trick, of course, is to think of school not as a place we go to or come from, not as something inherent in the world itself, but as a place we carry inside ourselves, a place where we welcome the unfamiliar because we know that as time passes what we learn there will become the very bedrock of our being.

That to me is the essence of being a life-long learner. And the levels of independence and rootedness closely parallel those of the various spaces we call home. But just as we eventually create our own space as adults (to be inhabited for long chunks of time), so too we must create our own school (our learning home).

The formal education system needs to make it explicit to its students that this is something it seeks to prepare them for.

[edited the modified quote to include ashley's suggestion.]

Education Reform - what is the writing on the wall?

This entry eventually gets to teachers' unions via Steel, Gambling, and GM.

Today's news: General Motors files for Chapter 11 protection.

Last week's news: In a bid to boost its sagging profits, Las Vegas-based casino giant Sands Corp opened a new casino in Bethlehem, PA.

Sands spent 3/4 of a Billion dollars to redevelop part of the old Bethlehem Steel mill site for the new casino. That is a lot of money, considering GM's debt after the restructuring is going to be of the order of $60B.

It seems sort of symbolic that the new casino is on the very site that for 140 years had been an integral part of the modern industrial age. Bethlehem Steel, one of the icons of the United States' industrial manufacturing prowess, finally went bankrupt 8 years ago, and its remaining assets are now in the hands of Mittal Steel.

As one prospective gambler at the new casino told a CNBC reporter - "Life goes on. We got to make the best of what we have"


Back to today's news: So today GM takes another step down a road that Bethlehem Steel has been down. Who knows whether it will find a different exit, and how far it will have to go before doing so.


Looking back at the road travelled so far, all the pundits - with the clarity of hindsight - have plenty of explanations of the writing on the wall that GM should have seen, and responded to.

Whatever your political ideology, it is clear that GM's responsiveness was hampered by its relationship with its Unions, and that they (the Unions) had a role to play in how we got here.


Education Reform: Every time I read an analysis of the woes of the United States' education system, and suggestions for improving it, I invariably run into someone suggesting that the stands taken by individual Teachers' Unions are impeding necessary reforms. Of course, there are many valid sides to this story, just as there were in the case of GM.

But the fact that such a criticism exists means that there is some writing going up on the wall this very minute.

Will we have to wait another decade or two to look back and discern what it was?