Why Schools Are Failing Our Boys

Posted on by metroupe

why-schools-are-failing

“Statistically speaking, boys now lag behind girls on every single academic measure; they also get in trouble and drop out of school much more frequently than girls. There are fewer boys in college than girls, and far more lost 20-something boys than 20-something girls.”

This article is a helpful intro on how our education system is failing our boys. In many ways normal boy behavior is considered at best an inconvenience, and at worst a disorder to be treated.  This is important stuff, and if you would like to explore this more check out the book “Boys Adrift” by family practice MD and psychologist Leonard Sax.

You need to read this if you have little boys.

Our current system is not helping boys succeed, it is holding them back. And this in spite of the ongoing myth of oppressed girls in the academic environment.

Source: Why schools are failing our boys – The Washington Post

Helping People Learn By Letting Them Fail Is Essential – 6 Recommendations To Fail Well

Posted on by metroupe

randy pausch

Here is a great (and brief) article on the importance of failure in developing character, growing businesses, and helping people have a good life.  It turns out that trying to spare people (ourselves, our children, our employees, etc) from experiencing the pain of failure is bad in the long run.  Why? We can’t gain deep wisdom without the process of learning from our failures.  This is a list from the article at Forbes.com of ways to help people fail in a way that is positive for them and the organization.

“Here are some ways to increase employees’ comfort with the risk of failure, and to be resilient when it happens:

  1. Share past stories of struggle. Everyone’s been there.
  2. Practice recovery so people aren’t paralyzed by failure. When I was coaching sports, we didn’t just diagram plays. We always developed a Plan B. That’s why great organizations scenario-plan. It helps people think of struggle as part of the process.
  3. Help people around you think like long-term investors in their own ideas and their own careers. The aim shouldn’t be to try to have one uninterrupted string of successes, but rather to have a portfolio of some winners and, yes, some losers.
  4. If someone is struggling, your job is to figure out how to get them on the right path. The real job of a manager is to help people learn from failure and move forward.
  5. Champion failure that turns to innovation. Find examples where ordinary failure has led to extraordinary opportunity.
  6. Encourage failing fast. Sometimes we recognize that something is failing, and our instinct tells us to push harder to make it succeed. Knowing when to pull the plug is always difficult but is necessary.”

Source: Helping People Learn By Letting Them Fail Is Essential – Forbes

Teaching Is Simply Stocking The Shelves

Posted on by metroupe

book shelf

A moment of clarity for me: Teaching is often the slow investment of truth over time to allow for moments of understanding and transformation.

Someone I know recently “saw the light” on an issue, but only after hearing good advice for a couple of years. I was tempted to feel a little hurt.  When they told me about their new perspective,  my absurd pride was a little wounded, as if this person wasn’t giving the proper credit to me.  I felt like saying, “yes of course, I have been telling you that for 2 years.”  But I realized that this is the nature of teaching and learning. It is the way we experience deep learning.

Time, circumstances, and truth are used by the Holy Spirit to help us grow.

As a parent or teacher, don’t get discouraged at the slow process of stocking the shelves. Sometimes we “inform” for the first time. But more commonly we remind, revisit, and explain what is already in the mind so that people can make new connections (2 Peter 1:12-15). Many of the most important realizations we experience are only possible because years of learning.

In teaching, many of the things we impart are like seeds that may lay dormant for years or decades only to sprout later.

Driven to distraction: Our wired generation – Colorado Daily

Posted on by metroupe

motorcycle phone distraction

Do we need any more research confirming that we are VERY distracted As a culture?  Do we need more experts warning us about the danger of being constantly wired? Do we actually need someone to tell us that being distracted hinders students from learning?

I am convinced that we need to hear more about this for several reasons. First, the situation isn’t getting any better.  Mobile devices are now universal, especially for the younger generation. But gradually older folks are jumping on board. There is no turning back.

Second, the longer we live with connected devices, social media, mobile phones, etc. the more “normal” our distracted state becomes. We become numb to the side effects, and even forget that an undistracted life is possible.

Third, this much distraction is bad for us. The longer we study this subject the more we realize that distraction is hurting our brains, our relationships, and our joie de vivre.

Here is what Larry Rosen has to say:

“Recently my research team observed 263 middle school, high school and university students studying for a mere 15 minutes in their homes. We were interested in whether students could maintain focus and, if not, what might be distracting them. Every minute we noted exactly what they were doing, whether they were studying, if they were texting or listening to music or watching television in the background, and if they had a computer screen in front of them and what websites were being visited.

“The results were startling considering that the students knew we were watching them and most likely assumed we were observing how well they were able to study. First, these students were only able to stay on task for an average of three to five minutes before losing their focus. Universally, their distractions came from technology, including: (1) having more devices available in their studying environment such as iPods, laptops and smartphones; (2) texting; and (3) accessing Facebook…

“So, what was going on with these students? We have asked thousands of students this exact question and they tell us that when alerted by a beep, a vibration, or a flashing image they feel compelled or drawn to attend to that stimulus. However, they also tell us that even without the sensory intrusions they are constantly being distracted internally by thoughts such as, “I wonder if anyone commented on my Facebook post” or “I wonder if my friend responded to the text message I sent five minutes ago” or even “I wonder what interesting new YouTube videos my friends have liked.” Three-fourths of teens and young adults check their devices every 15 minutes or less and if not allowed to do so get highly anxious. And anxiety inhibits learning.” (emphasis mine)

Source: Driven to distraction: Our wired generation – Colorado Daily

American Capitalists and Socialists Have The Same Message

Posted on by metroupe

Capitalists socialists green

Recently I have noticed that in America the hard core consumer capitalists and socialists are really saying the same thing.  Both groups have morphed away from their traditional roots into distorted versions of themselves.  Marketing culture has now invaded every square inch of our lives.  I was at the DMV the other day, and this government office now has TV’s running advertisements to entertain people as they wait for their appointments.  The ad war has been so successful that we no longer believe it is possible to have a good life without more and more stuff.

In order to be successful, both groups have to move us to a place of discontentment, and even fear. They have to convince us that what we already have is not enough.  Then we are ripe to believe their propaganda: They can solve our problem.

The consumer capitalists, through the ubiquity of advertising, are telling us we need new shiny gadgets to have a good life.  Happiness is not possible without this stuff. So spend your money to buy happiness. Use a high interest credit card.  After all, what is happiness worth?  We are marinating in this narrative. We can’t escape it. It’s on TV, the internet, sporting events, nonprofits, schools, etc.  Not all of this is bad, but it does fuel the worst in human nature. We end up believing that happiness comes from stuff.  And that it comes from having stuff in a  particular way: the newest, the fastest, etc. And happiness is found in its highest concentration in having more stuff than our neighbors. So when you see your neighbor with the “next big thing” you need to go out and buy it. No interest, no payments for 6 months.

The socialists are saying that in spite of unprecedented prosperity (the majority of people considered poor have a vastly higher standard of living than the middle class 40 years ago),  happiness is not possible when others have more than you do.  You cannot be allowed to forget that the rich have more than you do.  And where this problem exists (and it is universal) there must be some cosmic inequity. You are a victim.  So the government will take other people’s money AND STILL GO INTO DEBT on your behalf so you can have the good life– which basically means more stuff.

Now poverty is real, and there are far too many poor in America where we have plenty of resources. So I don’t intended to diminish that.  More needs to be done to help those truly in need.  But I have observed that the socialist agenda wants to encourage more Americans to feel like they are poor.  To believe that they need government aid to survive. I just received a letter in the mail from our school district asking us to consider if we can qualify for free school lunches in a “need based” program.  What is the threshold to qualify?  For a family of 4 it is $52K/year.  But I wonder, If you are making this much money and you’re NOT spending it on food, where is it going? I think it is noteworthy that this is not assistance for “extras” like college applications, AP tests, field trips. That much might be understandable.  But this is for food.

My sense is that in the current context, many American socialists and capitalists are saying the same thing about where you can find the good life. They just have different plans on how to fund it. And in the end the good life won’t be found in stuff, no matter who is paying for it.

So don’t believe the lie, no matter which side is telling it.

Speed Kills- Why The Pressure to Go Faster Is Eating Our Souls

Posted on by metroupe

Speed Kills – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Sometimes you read an article that powerfully says something you were already thinking, but had trouble putting into words.  This is one of those articles for me.  I am admittedly addicted to the same craving for speed that afflicts the rest of us. But more and more I am feeling cheated. I am feeling like I want to raise a protest. I want to “stick it to the man” that keeps yelling “SCHNELL!”

Mark Taylor has done a good job showing the deleterious effects of a lust for “more and more, faster and faster” on several dimension of our culture. He specifically discusses the impact on capital markets, communication, and education.

“The faster we go, the less time we seem to have. As our lives speed up, stress increases, and anxiety trickles down from managers to workers, and parents to children.”

Our ability to do things faster has had exactly the opposite effect that thinkers and politicians predicted.  We thought that being able to finish a job sooner would allow us to clock out and go home. That we would now have time for recreation, art, and family. Nope. Instead, “Contrary to expectation, the technologies that were supposed to liberate us now enslave us.”  He writes:

“With the emergence of personal computers and other digital devices in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many analysts predicted a new age in which people would be drawn together in a “global village,” where they would be freed from many of the burdens of work and would have ample leisure time to pursue their interests. That was not merely the dream of misty-eyed idealists but was also the prognosis of sober scientists and policy makers. In 1956, Richard Nixon predicted a four-day workweek, and almost a decade later a Senate subcommittee heard expert testimony that by 2000, Americans would be working only 14 hours a week.”

The quest for speed has been paired with our desire to measure success with numbers. This has destroyed or dismissed hard-to-count virtues like creativity, reflection, and problem solving. And Oh, yeah, what about happiness?  There is a difference between “rapid information processing,” the kind of thing we do when reading and writing online, and “slow, careful, deliberate reflection.”  By the way, when was the last time you read anything about “slow, careful, deliberate reflection.”   Yeah, me too.  Probably in too much of a hurry.  We are too busy to ask whether our pace is actually good for us.

By the way, when was the last time you read anything about “slow, careful, deliberate reflection.”

One of the other bad effects of speed is that it tends to diminish complexity in favor of simplicity. Now, simplicity is a good thing. But not everything is simple. And paradoxically, arriving at the kind of simplicity that is truly valuable takes a LOT of time. Greg McKeown has argued for this in his book Essentialism.  If you are going to figure out what is truly important you will need time and space to do it.

Life is moving too fast, and we are NOT better off because of it. Read this article and take another step toward deliberately slowing down.