All posts by Michael Bromley

Founder and President of School4Schools.com LLC & The A+ Club, Bromley taught Social Studies for seven years at Archbishop Carroll High School in NE Washington, DC. Bromley is a historian, published author, entrepreneur, and dedicated teacher. School4Schools.com LLC and The + Club are Bromley's expression of enthusiasm and love for students.

Homework, Procrastination, Students, Studying Skills

Procrastinators unite!

September 30, 2013 Michael Bromley 3 Comments

Nah, we’ll get around to it later.

“Hi, my name is Michael, and I’m a procrastinator…”

In our inaugural podcast, Gabriela Bromley, a neuroscience major at Simmons College, introduced to our listeners the relationship between procrastination and anxiety. I’m amazed by the insight – so simple, so obvious, but one that I had never considered before.

I asked a guidance counselor friend of mine about it. This professional’s ability to relate to and understand kids is extraordinary. “Wow,” she told me, “I’ll have to include that in my next student questionnaire.” Me, too.

Rational Choice Theory

When teaching, I always talked to kids about procrastination. I viewed it as an entirely rational choice and its opposite, getting things done right away, as, well, a bit freaky. Think about all the moral tales and quotes on it, starting with Thomas Jefferson’s, “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today” or Aesop’s “The Grasshopper and the Ants” fable. If procrastination weren’t so normal, society wouldn’t lecture us about it so much.

Thankfully, Mark Twain comes in on our side: “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.” Yep, there’s always another tomorrow, or so we hope. Yet even Twain gets serious and gives actual advice on how to beat the impulse to delay:

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.

It’s tough advice, no matter who it comes from, because just grasping the nature of some tasks sure can be “overwhelming.” And if we could just do that first step, wouldn’t we be doing the rest already? How are we going to start that first thing if the entire thing is scary, or if we are unsure and intimidated by it? Even more readily than putting off what we know we must do, we put off what we don’t understand how to do. Thank you, Gaby, for pointing this out!

Teachers: how many of your procrastinators just don’t know what to do? How many late papers or projects are late because the student was unsure and insecure about it, and not because they’re lazy or disengaged? Have you prepared your students for it? Have you identified their needs and concerns? It’s not so simple as “get it in on time,” anymore, is it?

Warriors

It begs the question, however, that if we are anxious and unsure, how come we finally get to it at the hard deadline?

“If it weren’t for the last minute, I wouldn’t get anything done”- Anonymous

The reason that procrastinators posses infinite ability to focus and work long hours just before a deadline is because the task wasn’t clear to them until then. It was the deadline that forced the concentration and the courage that went missing before. We procrastinators need to build early that anxious deadline feeling, that scent of battle that finally pushes us to get it done at the last minute — only at the first minute, instead.

But this is, as they say,

Easier said than done.

“How soon ‘not now’ becomes ‘never.'” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

That and the Golden Rule, easier said than done. So what can we do about it? A couple thoughts, first, following Gabriela’s ideas about procrastination and anxiety, and the other following our core strategy of articulation at the A+ Club:

1. “Am I putting it off because I’m afraid of it?

From now on I will use Gaby’s dictum as the first question. Am I afraid? Or is it because I don’t know what to do? It’s so much easier to say “I can’t” than to get help. Again, a rational choice. But, we want to resolve this procrastination thing, not excuse it. So, instead:

2. Articulate: say it, track it, and get it done.

At the A+ Club , our view on overcoming procrastination and delay is to think about it, say it, and remind. The more you speak it the closer you are to getting it done. We call it “Articulation.” Say it, track it, and get it done.

Student procrastination is not about laziness. Not even procrastinators put off the things they enjoy. When students are inspired and engaged, they eagerly jump on the assignment and meet all the deadlines. Sure, procrastination is a matter of priorities — get off the phone, turn off the Xbox, and so on, but we prioritize what we best understand and believe in.

Maybe it’s time for us all to put off taking an honest look at procrastination.

– Michael

The A+ Club from School4Schools.com LLC, based in Arlington, VA, is dedicated to helping students across the U.S.A. meet their goals and find the academic success the want and deserve. Contact us here or call now to (703) 271-5334 to see how we can help.

Student Success Podcast

Gaby’s dinosaur tree

September 26, 2013 Michael Bromley 6 Comments

: Gaby’s Dinosaur Tree

Gaby’s Dinosaur Tree

Show Notes

Today’s interview: Gaby Bromley, student, Simmons College

Guest Biography:

Gabriela Bromley, Senior, Simmons College, Boston MA, Biopsychology Major. Gabriela has worked in various hospitals and psychology wards since high school. She is fascinated by neuroscience and aims to apply her learning in real world situations to help others.

Subscribe to Student Success Podcast RSS or find us on iTunes

Topics Discussed

Mindfulness and its five facets:
- observing
- describing
- awareness
- non judgment
- non reactivity
Procrastination
- Coping strategies
- Conditioning
- Setting priorities
- Anxiety
Thinking strategically
Critical Thinking through Art
- visual thinking strategies
- Homer’s Hunter and the Hound painting
- Gaby’s Dinosaur Tree
Social emotional learning: to discuss in the future

Additional Resources and Links

Gabriela shares the following links:

Mindfulness and Learning: What’s the Connection?

Visual Thinking Strategies: What’s going on in this picture?

Credits

Host: Michael L. Bromley
Dinosaur Tree photo: by Gabriela Bromley (copyright 2013)
Original Music: by Christopher Bromley (copyright 2011, 2013)
Best Dogs Ever: by Puck & Stella

Here for Puck & Stella slideshow

Jobs & Careers, Students

Jobs galore! (… if you got edumacation)

September 24, 2013 Michael Bromley Leave a comment

Joblessness related to education? And work ethic. And skills. And…

A single temp agency reports 20,000 unfilled jobs. One would think that temp jobs up would mean full time openings are down. Not so here: these jobs go unfilled not because everyone is happily employed but because they require 20,000 qualifications that job seekers don’t have. And we’re talking part time jobs.

The sad fact about unemployment today is its disproportionate impact on the unskilled and uneducated, but even for qualified job seekers many opportunities are temporary or part time.

Yep, part time work is the new job market. A look at the raw unemployment numbers to see that temp jobs are driving employment. The reasons for this trend are debatable, and we won’t go there. Still, that in 2010, one quarter of all new jobs created by the private sector were temporary ought to scare us all.

There are today 3.69 million jobs open to be filled, according to the Labor Department, which leaves us with about 3 workers for every job opening. Now, if you’re ignorant like me and you wonder why with 3 people available for every job there are still almost 4 million jobs left open, let’s think this through together:

Firstly, not all of those who are unemployed want a job. The vast majority of those on unemployment insurance find jobs the final month of payments or just after the benefits expire. That’s logical, especially if available jobs don’t pay much more than insurance. Next, individual skills and experience, of course, set the conditions for jobs for which one qualifies. And that’s the problem.

Most unfilled jobs tend to require skills, education, and lifestyle choices that are found only at a premium and by a few. In 2012, CNN reported that there were 200,000 job openings for long-haul truckers. That’s not an easy job, and given drug tests, driving records, and other requirements, one that’s not available to all comers. With my driving record, this is not a career choice for me. What about you? Do you make your daily choices as if a top security clearance depended upon it? You should.

I used to take students to visit the White House Garage, an Army unit that is charged with moving the White House whenever and wherever the President goes. (A few years ago, I did some historical work for them.) The Garage is staffed by NCOs led by a Sargeant Major and a hotshot CO — big league stuff. Whenever the NCOs speak to the students, they always stress the difficulty of appointment to this elite unit. They will not take you if you have a scar, blemish or otherwise unsightly shadow across your record — and that includes your social media history. Sorry, you shouldn’t have said that on Facebook. And the little marijuana bust, ain’t gonna pass. You can get a job from the President with all that, but you cannot get a job protecting the President with it.

And so the same for those other some 4 million unfilled jobs: the applicants don’t meet the job criteria, and vice versa.

A Wall Street Journal interview on Sept 20 with Bob Funk: Where the Jobs Are—and How to Get One highlights the dilemma. Funk owns the staffing firm, Express Employment Services, that has those 20,000 jobs to fill. As in right now. But he can’t fill them. And his jobs pay between $13 – $40 per hour. Why?

Let’s start with that one quarter of applicants fail a drug test.

Think about it: one out of four people looking for a job with this company can’t pass a drug test. Let’s take it further: those one of every four applicants were the brave ones, as the rest of the drug-taking unemployed didn’t apply. God bless those that tried.

Next, Funk says, applicants don’t have the skills. “If you’ve got a college degree in psych, poly-sci or sociology, sorry, I can’t help you find a job.” Degrees or training in engineering, IT, robotics, accounting, welding will get you a job, he says, and it could be one of the 20,000 openings his company is looking to fill with qualified applicants. They’re not out there. Or they’re taking unemployment or disability.

Now we get to Funk’s larger complaint, that today’s society doesn’t value success in the workplace:

“In my 40-some years in this business, the biggest change I’ve witnessed is the erosion of the American work ethic. It just isn’t there today like it used to be,” Mr. Funk says. Asked to define “work ethic,” he replies that it’s fairly simple but vital on-the-job behavior, such as showing up on time, being conscientious and productive in every task, showing a willingness to get your hands dirty and at times working extra hours. These attributes are essential, he says, because if low-level employees show a willingness to work hard, “most employers will gladly train them with the skills to fill higher-paying jobs.”

In addition to the “erosion of the American work ethic,” Funk points to fundamental problems in our educational system. He suggests that we reward good teachers instead of paying them all the same (been reading my stuff, Mr. Funk?), and that schools should offer vocational alternatives to students who are not academically focused.

I’d add to that last thought that, yes, vocational education should be available for high school and recent high school graduates, absolutely, but any single student can engage the standard high school curriculum so long as that student finds purpose in it. And that’s the rub.

A thousand reforms can’t change that our society is producing high school students ill-prepared for college and college students ill-prepared for the workplace. What can change is individual student choice.

One student at a time can choosing to make his or her academic life more meaningful means one more qualified job applicant — one at a time. Students, let the academic dysfunctions and social pressure to choose wrongly be someone else’s problem. Own your outcomes, students, but you have to choose it.

We help kids do this every day. One student at a time.

– Michael

Education Policy, Students, Teachers

Due consideration, and not just a syllabus

September 17, 2013 Michael Bromley 1 Comment

Benefits derived from a contract are called “consideration.”

The Common Law holds that contracts that don’t deliver some benefit, or consideration, to both parties are invalid. Let’s say that you sign a contract for lawn service, but you have no lawn. The courts would not hold you to that contract because you couldn’t possibly benefit from a lawn service living, say, in an apartment.

I’ll let the lawyers argue this one out, but for our purposes, let’s look upon the student and teacher relationship as a contract. Teacher contracts to deliver learning to the student, and the student contracts to be taught. Easy enough, except the usual teacher-student contract has lots of clauses and stipulations. If we think of a syllabus as that contract, then here are some of the usual elements to it:

Students shall…

purchase a book and materials such as a pen, notebook, or folder
arrive to class on time
not disrupt class
be graded as designated by the teacher and based upon completing assigned tasks
turn in assignments on time or be penalized
adhere to writing guidelines
track grades as posted by the teacher
not cheat
follow fire and emergency procedures
not use cell phone in class
etc., etc.

Teacher shall

grade students
hold certain office hours

Uh, yeah, that’s about your typical syllabus.

My own syllabus generally included all those student things, but I always added the following stipulations on the me, the teacher:

Your teacher promises you compassion, enthusiasm, understanding, learning, and love.
Maintain a comfortable classroom and learning environment
Set clear expectations
Bring the highest-level preparation and knowledge to students

Teachers often throw in fluff like that, although I was deadly serious about mine, especially the promise to maintain a friendly and comfortable learning environment and to be prepared as the teacher. And, as with just about every syllabus, mine were never looked at again after first handed out. And, as with contracts, the only time anyone ever really pulls out a syllabus is when there’s a problem. But even then, the syllabus offers no solutions.*

Thinking about a syllabus as a contract makes me reconsider my own. If I were to redo it today, I’d turn the document into a much simpler, much more “considerate” document that holds me responsible as much as it holds the students. I’d add things like, The teacher will:

return emails within 24 hours
submit grades within 2 days of receiving student on time work
never say anything sarcastic or purposefully insulting
post assignments online daily

There’s a lot more to go in there, but you see my point: students don’t get much consideration in the typical classroom contract. It’s time we treat them as we expect them to treat us.

– Michael

* Note how college syllabi are far more useful than those for high school; the reason is that the college course is more easily planned, so due dates are able to be scheduled in advance — and kept more easily than in high school.

Parents, Students

Lather, rinse, repeat… Gaming on & on

September 15, 2013 Michael Bromley Leave a comment

Got gaming obsessions?

We heard last year from several of our parents worry that their child’s incessant video game playing was getting in the way of school, so we got busy trying to figure it out. A friend in the psych community offered some suggestions, which are most illuminating. This is not professional advice, which you should seek if you are seriously concerned for your child’s gaming obsessions. Nevertheless, common sense affirms what we learned, including that gaming is not necessarily a bad thing.

Adolescence is “a stage of life given over to passions,” we were told, and nicely put! So the question for any obsession is whether it has breached enthusiasm and is inhibiting healthy development. Concerns with gaming arise as the standard tasks of adolescence, including academic responsibilities, go unmet and the gaming itself takes over from other, healthier coping skills. It is a very serious concern that if children do not mature with certain social and emotional skills during adolescence they may have difficulty dealing with the responsibilities and interactions required of adults.

So, yes, there are “unhealthy substitutes” for a normal life, and gaming can be one of them — but not necessarily. (Think drugs, sexual promiscuity, and violence.) The psych trade itself is divided on the subject of gaming, although there can be no doubt that it can become a poor substitute for other coping mechanisms. It is when children “isolate themselves” in gaming that we must be concerned. In psych terms we’re talking about the gaming becoming “pathological” and “obsessive compulsive.”

Lather, rinse, repeat

Many adolescents, males especially, respond to repetitive tasks as their minds and bodies journey into adulthood. It is not necessary for healthy development, but it can be productive of it. Studies show that in boys (and not in girls) repetitive, concentrated tasks — including gaming — are calming. Doing the same thing over and again relieves anxiety and assists normal development. In this sense, gaming can be a perfectly healthy activity. Until it gets in the way of other tasks and functions.

And that’s the trouble. Figuring out the line between healthy and unhealthy behavior is not easy, not for anyone, especially adults. If moderation is the key to health and happiness, why is it so hard to discern and follow?

The gaming will seem excessive if the child won’t do anything else or if it is getting in the way of grades and other responsibilities. Yet, that doesn’t make gaming the issue. We should first ask that if the gaming were not available what other behaviors would we see? Excessive, obsessive activities are not necessarily problems themselves, and may instead be masking other anxieties or issues that the child is attempting to reduce or resolve. So we might think of excessive gaming as a symptom and not a cause.

Normally, gaming is just more fun that some other things, and if it is masking anything it’s likely mild. The larger, unhealthy side to gaming is that in children who lack maturity and focus or who feel isolated, gaming offers a sense of accomplishment that is easier to gain than through more difficult or demanding tasks such as academics or other social activities. Unlike sports, which offer repetitive tasks (practice, practice, practice!) and whose rewards accrue over time, gaming gives instant gratification, which can be hard to let go. For a child in this situation, our friend says, “Finding healthier substitute or moderation can be challenging.” On the other hand, the gaming might just be the only activity available to a child, so the problem isn’t gaming so much as an absence of alternative activities.

Kids are… well, kids

There is also the matter of adolescent social interactions to which gaming can be another piece. Kids who game talk about it with their friends, they use it for status, and the enjoy sharing it with each other. And, as our friend reminds us: it’s fun. They like it.

Concerned parents need to think about how to properly address potential gaming obsessions. What alternatives do parents offer their children? Is the gaming a message from children, such as a call for help or for alternatives? Will clamping down on the gaming merely become a punitive measure that the child takes as personally critical and that leads to coping difficulties with more difficult tasks? Children hate to disappoint parents, so avoiding failure, or, worse, embracing it, can be an unhealthy coping mechanism designed to avoid responsibility and the disappointments in not meeting them.

Our friend reminds us that there will always be failures in parenting, so we must stay positive, stay patient, and maintain expectations. Again, if you fear that your child has breached healthy lines in gaming or other obsessions, please seek professional advice.

In our student support service, we want to listen to kids, to hear their own goals, and to offer them opportunities to be honest with themselves and those around them. Kids have the same goals as parents, they just don’t always want to recognize or admit it, especially if walking away from those goals becomes easier than trying hard to accomplish them.

– Michael

Technology

What? I have to pay every month for a computer program…?

September 15, 2013 Michael Bromley 1 Comment

Monthly subscriptions for everything.

Yep, that’s where we’re headed. I am hearing more and more frequently from students and parents their confusion over buying or renting Microsoft Office and other programs. We can only be thankful that the software makers took so long to figure this out. We had it good with software, just buy disk, load it up and you’re good until the next version is out three years later. It’s not there entirely, but we’re heading to monthly fees for everything.

The reason cars cost what they do, the reason health insurance costs what it does, the reason cell phones, houses and college — whatever it is that you buy on credit or in monthly installments — are so expensive is because by spreading their costs across monthly payments allows consumers to buy more than they could otherwise afford if paying cash. What is generally paid for in cash has more stable, lower prices than things purchased on credit. Allowing consumer to buy what they can’t afford credit creates more demand, so prices go up. Think about it this way: if you have the money, why borrow, which makes your purchase more expensive? The wealthy don’t borrow money to buy things; instead of borrowing money, they’re making more money by financing everyone else’s loans. (The typical home 30 year mortgage costs about twice the original borrowed amount, and, worse, that interest is paid before the original loan). With software, is it the same?

Yes and no. Yes, the monthly subscription is over time more expensive than a single purchase. But, no, it will not lead to a spike in prices as with homes, college and cars. A couple things are going on here.

First of all, mobile use has changed the way technology companies approach consumers. Mobile requires frequent software updates, and consumers move between platforms and operator systems more quickly than with their computers. It’s now a consumer expectation that operating systems and surrounding software be constantly and quickly updated. Secondly, it’s “the cloud.” Microsoft is actually late to move to the subscription model, to which Adobe recently moved all of its products. You cannot purchase new Adobe software anymore: it’s all rental. Then there’s Google docs, which has made strong inroads into the student and home markets, so Microsoft is trying to make its products more, not less accessible. Finally, businesses have essentially been using the per-user license model, anyway, and Microsoft is very wisely making the same system available to consumers. They call it “Office 365.”

So instead of buying MS Office outright, which costs $139.99, Microsoft wants you to rent it’s Office 365 version for $9.99 a month (or $99 per year). Now, before you scream too loudly, here are the advantages:

1. The 365 license is for up to five machines. (You weren’t supposed to be using the Office disk on all those different computers…)

2. Instead of the “2003,” “2007,” “2010,” “2013” versions, ultimately Office will just be updated with new features without having to launch each as a different product. This means that your license today buys the next version. This is important in today’s world as operating systems change rapidly.

3. Office 365 brings more programs than the stand-alone Office, so you get Outlook and others along with your Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote that are on the Home and Student disk version. As I have written before, I strongly recommend using Outlook, which costs another $80 on the single purchase Home & Office version.

4. The cloud. Yes, that cloud. Office 365 includes “web apps” versions of all the software which can be accessed from any browser, just like Google Docs, only with most of the functions of Office (not all of them; the interface is different).

5. Cell phone integration, which along with cloud file storage makes for easy access to all your documents from any device. I no longer store anything but older and exceptionally large files on my hard drive. Everything I use and create I store on the cloud, which in my case is SharePoint and Skydrive.

6. Exchange email: Office 365 allows users to take advantage of “Exchange” which used to belong to businesses only. Exchange allows for syncing of email and other accounts across all yoru devices. So a calendar entry on one machine will update automatically on all the others, not just your cell phone as with competitor products. (Google uses the Microsoft “ActiveSync” system to allow this feature on Google accounts with Outlook, but just recently took it away from non-paying customers.)

7. Windows 8: this is about Win 8, for sure. Aside from the touch featur3es, the new Windows integrates with cloud- and web-based applications, and Microsoft wants to move its customers in that direction. (I am writing this on a Surface RT; see here for more that).

8. Finally, for our college students who have .edu email addresses, there’s a great deal on Office 365: 4 year subscription for $79.99. There’s no reason not to get that one.

If you’re a Google Docs person, God bless ya, but you’re not getting anywhere near the capabilities you can get with the Office products. I’m not a Microsoft shill. I am deeply concerned about my work efficiencies, and Microsoft’s programs are superb products that work for me better than others. I wrote two books using Wordperfect, but MS Word proved itself the better program, so I use it instead. I use Youtube, a Google product, and other services that are not Microsoft systems. I like what works best. And, as I said before, most businesses use Office because they care about their employees’ efficiencies. Whether you go with the subscription or the single-user license for Office, you really do need these programs.

As always, call or write me to discuss your own technology needs and concerns. Good luck, and get busy with making your work more efficient and leaving yourself more time to get more done and enjoy yourself more.

– Michael

Students

Cheating, Plagiarizing & Learning

September 12, 2013 Michael Bromley Leave a comment

Cheating at Harvard? Say it ain’t so!

Uhm… just ask the IRS about cheaters… never mind, let’s not go there. But cheating in school?

Half the incoming Harvard freshmen admitted to cheating, and last year the school expelled 70 students for academic dishonesty. Many of those students claim that they “collaborated” in preparation for an exam and were unfairly accused. Either way, it highlights the problem with academic honesty: who you gonna trust? and who gets hurt the most, anyway?

My favorite cheater was the kid in my 4th grade class who copied his neighbor’s test word for word — including her name. As a teacher I have no favorite cheaters, and I know it went on all the time. There’s no good way to stop it, frankly, except…

Except for this: cheating isn’t so much academic dishonesty as it is a signal, albeit an immoral one, of not knowing. We need to stop treating cheating as simply dishonest and address instead its causes. I’d like to applaud those half of Harvard freshmen for being honest about cheating. I don’t know the exact questions of the survey, but we can be assured that some or more of the supposedly honest other half lied. Faced with the enormous challenge of getting into Harvard, you can be damned sure that many a kid with Harvard aspirations pulled an ace out of the sleeve on occasion in order to get that extra advantage. Let’s be honest here: the reasons for cheating are larger than the moral code against it.

Students who don’t cheat are of two species, both of them rare. The first is an obtusely honest and moral person. Wow, and God bless ’em for they shall inherit the earth. The other type doesn’t need to cheat: they did what they had to do to learn and understand what’s expected of them by their teacher. They don’t need it.

One of the most amazing students who ever blessed my classroom reports a horrible cheating event she endured at college. A very, very difficult engineering professor whom, quite literally, no student understands, scheduled a test as usual, and the students showed up as usual ready to get killed. This day, however, this rather tenured prof didn’t show, and the students were not only on their own in taking the exam, the TA who proctored it encouraged them to cheat. My former student who never, ever needed to cheat is also that other type of rare, obtuse species who refuses to cheat. She failed miserably while the other students managed to pass with their extraordinary “collaboration,” as the Harvard cheaters called it. My honest and good former student was bent and nearly destroyed by it all: she had studied, she had prepared, she had kept her oath of honesty. And the cheaters were rewarded.

How do we sort this one out? The cheaters were not only allowed but were encouraged to cheat. The sole honest student was stuck with a poor grade that really hurt. (In Engineering, the difference between a .1 and .2 grade increment is the difference between jobs). Is this life? Do successful people need to cheat for success? Do good guys really finish last?

All I can say is that cheating will never stop. I get it when teachers want to “teach a lesson” (I love that phrase coming from teachers) and crush academic dishonesty. But please know that cheating is a cry for help as much as it is dishonesty. Punish the cheating, yes, but deliver compassion and severe, constant, and direct attention to the learning that has gone missing.

Cheating on tests is simply wrong and should be stamped out. But cheating on prepared work is an entirely other problem that cries for a different solution.

In our student support service, we review student writing in advance of handing it in for a couple reasons. Primarily, if the student gets a draft done in time for us to review it, that student is more likely to hand it in on time. Secondly, our review feedback builds student writing skills. But we also test every paper for plagiarism, and we highlight (“BING, BANG, FLASHING, FLASHING) plagiarism. Sometimes the plagiarism is the result of simple laziness. If so, fix it and get it done right. Other times, it’s just a dart thrown blindly at the wall, an attempt to get something in, anything, because the student is lost and doesn’t know how or what to write. Usually, though, it’s a skill deficiency and all that is needed is practice and guidance for the student to get past using someone else’s words and to develop ownership of ideas.

When it comes to plagiarizing on papers, I strongly recommend that teachers not simply fail a kid; they’re failing themselves at the same time. Work with and not against the student. Cheating is not murder, it is not rape, and it is only a very mild kind of theft. It is wrong, but its cure must be taught and not bashed. If the kid knows it, there will be no cheating. If the kid is confused, unprepared, lost, cheating will likely follow.

– Michael

Homework, Parents, Students

Parents, helicopters & angry kids: how to successfully manage a teen’s academic struggles

September 2, 2013 Michael Bromley Leave a comment

So what is a parent supposed to do?

You get in their face too much, and it’s “Back off!” You back off, and they do everything but what you want ’em to do. There’s no better way to go crazy than to be a parent. I know, I’ve gone crazy twice. Well, make that three times, since I was a kid once, too, and the only way to go crazier than by being a parent is by being a child.

To be the perfect parent is impossible. Kids disagree, because they’re always full of advice on how we could be doing our jobs better as their parent. And, of course, the perfect child doesn’t exist either. And here is a real problem: when kids assume they can’t please us, they just drop all of our expectations. Some call it “rebellion.” When it comes to school, we call it “trouble.”

Then we get angry parents

Think about how quickly your child runs home with a good grade on a test, waving it in front of you, demanding your congratulations and praise. Of course they do, because they know you’ll be so happy with them.

Then think about how they defer, hide, and try to get away with not showing you the low grades. They do it because they think you’ll get mad at them, and they’d rather not deal with that. You know, yelling and grounding and the like. Much easier to put off your anger for later than deal with it now. Deferment of pain is a natural and rational human choice.

But what kids don’t get is that that’s not what’s really going on. Sure, you’re going to get mad, and, yes, yelling and grounding may follow. But it’s not because of the low grades. You’re angry because you’re worried. Kids don’t realize this. They just think you’re mad because you’re like that.

Kids want to please parents

Kids want to please their parents. They want to meet parent expectations and to be that perfect child they know they’re parents want them to be. Reality gets in the way, and disappointment and anger may follow. But it doesn’t have to go that way, and real trouble can result if we parents don’t handle it well ourselves.

When I work with students, I ask them why they don’t tell their parents about the bad grades at school. It’s always, “because they’ll get mad.” Okay, I say, but you know they’re going to see it eventually and then get even more angry. No answer. Now, do you show your parents the good grades? “Sure.” Why? Smiling now, “It’ll make ’em happy.”

Parents don’t get angry with the low grades. It’s the impact of those grades that scares parents into anger. And when kids bring good grades, it’s not the grades we parents applaud, it’s our joy at a bright future for our children that those grades represent that makes us happy.

Children are deathly afraid to disappoint their parents, and they will make up all kinds of excuses for negative outcomes. If you listen carefully, all of those excuses are designed to deny having disappointed parents: it’s always someone or something else’s fault. And in the face of parental anger, kids then further excuse themselves from having caused that anger by blaming it on the parents’ own anger. Yes, there is a logic to it, however unproductive it may be.

Parents are motivated by fear

Kids readily perceive parental anger over bad news but not the love that stands behind it.

We parents are afraid for our children, and we see danger at every turn. When they were little and starting to walk, everyday objects around the house were like daggers poised to kill our precious children. So we padded the sharp corners of the table, put those stupid plastic covers into the outlets, and blocked off the stairs. As children grow older, our fears turn to new dangers, also very real, such as popular culture, the internet, drugs and alcohol, teen driving, and, of course grades.

Children don’t get that our fears are motivated by love. When I ask kids if their parents would get angry if they didn’t love them, they go blank. Of course not, since if they didn’t love they wouldn’t care. It is helpful for kids, at least conceptually, to know that parental anger over poor grades is an act of love. We parents need to remind them of it, especially when we are angry.

Helicoptering & other forms of oversight

Sometimes I hear about the old school, hard-knocks way of parenting: let ’em fall, brush off, and get back up again on their own. There’s a lot to be said for this, as it develops independence and ownership of outcomes by children. But it doesn’t always work, and how can it truly work all the time? Kids do need help sometimes.

We also hear about the “helicopter” parent who hovers over every little thing the child does, making sure it’s all perfect. The danger here, of course, is the opposite of the “hard knocks” school of parenting in that the child will never develop independence and ownership of outcomes. Plus, sometimes that helicopter runs out of gas, and then what? You can’t be on top of everything that goes on in your child’s life.

So the question is balance: what can we do for our children that is productive, healthy, and promotes the values and independence and ownership of them we want out of our children?

Honesty, Love, and Trust

But verify.

Honesty is a two-way street, and when that traffic is coming at you hard, it’s easy just do dodge it with a little lie. But we must face things as honestly as possible, for without honesty we can never fully trust. It’s most difficult for kids to be honest with their parents, because they don’t want to disappoint them. The best we can do as parents is to remind our kids what our expectations are and how they are built from love and not anger. Let our children know it’s okay not to be perfect, but remind them of the values and hopes we hold for them.

This is really hard to do, and no parent can every fully reach it. So we must also verify.

Help when needed

I can’t tell you how many times we hear from parents, “He always says he did his homework already. How am I supposed to know?”

When it comes to schoolwork and grades, schools are supposed to assist parents with timely assignment and grade notifications and communication between teachers and parents. It is impossible, of course, to know everything all the time. (My mother had me convinced that she was “the fly on the wall” in my elementary school.) Ideally, the information flow is sufficient for parents to know what teacher expectations are so as to be able to verify workflow with their child. Worse, however, in the schools we have seen in our student support service, effective teacher feedback is not the norm.

Well, when the grades come back you’ll know for sure.

Until then, the question is if the child is deferring responsibility or actually fulfilling it. In our student support service, our ideal is for students to account for themselves without parent or teacher oversight, and we provide the HomeworkTracker to our clients as an effective tool for it. But we’re not always working with kids who have that ability to be on top of everything all the time, so more tools are needed. We support parents and students by monitoring their teacher pages and progress reports and encouraging teachers to provide direct feedback for our students.

The most powerful tool we provide, however, is a simple, honest conversation. And an ongoing one. We speak with our students at least once a week in order to help them think through what’s going on in school, verify what we see, and to problem solve. The very first and the most powerful thing we can do with a student is to help them remove those self-imposed barriers that they use as easy excuses for not meeting their parents’ and their own goals. Once a student articulates a goal honestly (a goal to get all A’s is less honest than a goal to improve on existing C’s and D’s), then those self-imposed barriers becomes problems to solve rather than excuses.

It is a huge the first step for students who have been in the process of denial and deferring to be honest and realistic with themselves. When parents and students are in a cycle of denial and anger, that honesty is difficult to find. Some of the greatest successes in our service have been to restore that trust between parents and students over school work. Then they can argue over more important things, like chores and what movies they’re allowed to see. Getting there takes patience, consistency, honesty and love. We’re one tool available to parents and students to get there.

In an upcoming post, I will cover the feedback process more carefully and offer some suggestions for parents and teachers on how to up that game. Meanwhile, we wish students and parents all a happy, positive start on the new school year!

– Michael

Learning Skills, Students, Teachers

Prior Knowlege (PK), relevancy & teacher expectations

September 1, 2013 Michael Bromley 1 Comment

“Why’s that teacher do that?”

Ever had a teacher that makes no sense? Ever not understood why the grade was what it was? Ever wanted to just given up on it? As a teacher, every day I wrote up my lesson plans starting with two reminders:

1) Never Assume Prior Knowledge (PK)!

2) Learning = Relevancy!

The first was a reminder to myself that students may not know all the words coming out of my mouth. I was always reminded of the importance of using words kids know whenever we’d have another non-teacher, adult speak to the class. They always used words and references that the kids hadn’t a clue about. The second reminder was to scold myself into always trying to make whatever we did in class meaningful and relevant to the kids. I did nothing in class without first explaining to the kids why were were doing it. If a student sees no purpose in what is going on in class, it will be very difficult for the student to find success.

Only the most motivated, grade-oriented children can get away with it. Most kids just turn off the teacher like a bad TV channel when it no longer seems important or they don’t know what the teacher is saying. For teachers, these are difficult to attain and maintain on a daily basis. For students, the only way to get a good grade is to keep up with the teacher. It’s impossible to do, though, if none of it makes any sense. It’s like that great Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson in which he compares what the owner says to the dog with what the dog hears: Owner says: “Okay, Ginger, I’ve had it! You say out of the garbage. Understand, Ginger?…” Dog hears: “blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah blah GINGER…”

PK!

“PK!” for Prior Knowledge was a constant slogan in my classroom. Learning is the act of taking New Knowledge and turning it into Prior Knowledge. (Then students get graded on that learning, which is where grades are supposed to come from; please our The Learning Process page for more on how grades don’t always measure learning.) If a student hears a word or concept from a teacher that has no place in the student’s mind, whatever the teacher is doing and everything else that follows it will be lost. If the math teacher is speaking Chinese, and the student has no PK in Chinese, there will be no learning. Simple, right?

Well, we don’t need to exaggerate for the daily examples of how a lack of PK can leave a student lost in what the teacher is trying to teach. Advancing across every subject there is some idea, word, or concept that is necessary to know in order to understand the next thing. Additionally, those words and concepts must be understood in context, or in the situation in which they are being used by the teacher. You can understand every word in chapter five of a novel and still have no idea what’s going on there if you haven’t read chapters 1-4. In my history classes, I stressed maps, because knowing where some place is is fundamental to learning more about it. While most kids hated doing my maps, those who could not recognize places on maps were always those who had trouble developing other, relevant information about a place. In other words, geographic PK is fundamental for learning history. Without it, the rest becomes “blah blah blah.”

Relevancy

The reason why generally kids do better in subjects they like is that they already know more about that subject, i.e., they bring more PK to it. We all know that “know it all kid” who has a an answer to every question and whose hand is constantly in the air. These kids are excited and eager to share what they know because they already know it and it’s easy for them, and they can grasp what the teacher is saying. When you already know it, it’s more relevant. Obviously a student who speaks Chinese will find more relevancy in our math class that’s being taught in Chinese than the other students who don’t speak Chinese. But same thing for every kid in every other class: if you know it, it’s more meaningful.

The very best teachers will always build on student PK and relevancy in order to bring them to new learning. I loathe teaching strategies that are designed to teach through student’s perspective. Makes me want to scream when I hear that teachers need to “speak their language” or appeal to the experiences. I find it condescending and demeaning to kids, and, besides, if we are going to teach them through their own world view, should they be teaching us? Instead, we need to bring kids into the relevancy of our topics by developing PK and NK through genuine learning. One of my proudest moments as a teacher was a near screaming match amongst my 9th grade history class arguing over Pre-Pottery Neolithic Natufian society. That they found relevancy in the PPN period mean that they had not only built PK on the topic, they found it meaningful and, thus, relevant.

Teacher Expectations

At a minimum, students cannot learn and cannot be accurately measured, aka graded, on their learning if they are unaware of teacher expectations. The greater the relevancy the more the students will identify and follow teacher expectations. Regardless, a teacher who can develop student engagement but does not clarify expectations will show lower results than from a teacher who is clear in expectations. All the content relevancy in the world is useless if grading expectations and due dates are unclear. The best teachers have who is explicit and consistent expectations, especially on due dates, assessment guidelines, and general instructions.

I always enjoyed giving open ended assignments, because it drives the kids who are good at following instructions nuts, while empowering those who are less particular about instructions. The kids who were totally disengaged, of course, didn’t know where to begin. But the kids who wanted instructions felt constrained and would often plead, “What am I supposed to do?” Whereas the other kids loved it: “What, I can do what I want on this?” Yeah. But to get the good grade on everything else, you’d better follow instructions.

So here’s the crux: some teachers are better at developing PK, relevancy, and setting expectations in students than others. Some kids find some teachers better than others, and some kids are better at some subjects than others. When we ask kids about their “best” and “worst” classes and “favorite” and “least favorite” teachers, usually the teachers align with the classes they enjoy, so the “best” class is also the “favorite” teacher, or the “worst” class is the “least favorite” teacher. We do hear about a “worst” class with a “favorite” teacher, but we rarely hear about a “best” class with a “least favorite” teacher. To paraphrase Abe Lincoln, we can’t fool all the kids all the time, just some of them some of the time.

Now, the student responsibilities

When students come to us for help, we often hear all about the problems with the teacher or the subject. Usually they’re right. Kids make great critics. But if a teacher is deficient (“I hate her”), if a subject is irrelevant (it’s “stupid”), it doesn’t matter. Ultimately, it’s the teacher grading the student, not the other way around. If, as I’d like it to be, students hired, fired, and set teacher pay, then students could have lots of say on the whats and hows of teaching. But that’s not going to happen.

So we work with our students on engaging their classes with what they have. You’re in the class. Done. What’s your goal? Well, if it’s to get a bad grade, you don’t need any help. But if you want a better grade, then let’s talk some strategies on how to take advantage of what your teacher is offering, primarily those expectations for good grades. If you end up liking the class, great, but that’s not the point. The point is to make it meaningful for what it is, and to get out of it what you need: better grades. Once you clarify your teacher expectations, engage the learning the teacher wants from you, seek help where you need it, and make it important enough to do the work, your grade will go up. It’s up to you.

We give our kids the tools they need to succeed even in classes they don’t like. We help them track their assignments, we offer on-demand tutoring, we review essays, and we arrange for study sessions. Even with all that, it’s up to the student. But when they do figure this out, it’s magic, and grades go up. Well, not magic, but it’s so great to see!

– Michael

Education Policy, Students, Teachers

Sitting in on the “Straight Talk” blog

August 31, 2013 Michael Bromley 1 Comment

Rick Hess kindly invited me back

to step in during his vacation last week to rant and rave about education on his national blog at Education Week.Two years ago I got in trouble with some of Rick’s readers for suggesting that some teachers are overpaid. A shocking idea that, it seems, but my point was that there can be no real basis for teacher pay without the input of their clients, students and families. As a parent, I have no say whatsoever on what my children’s teachers get paid, and I know there are a few of them I’d rather not give money to, just as there are more than a few I’d like to reward even more. Please see my notes on this in “What about the students?” post here.

My point this year is more of the same: that students are clients and not inmates, that schools should support teachers to support students in more meaningful ways, and that teachers should treat students as paying customers who have choice and not as automatons who are just supposed to do everything. Here’s what I came up with:

Bad Dogs or Bad Owners?

PD Stands for Perverse Incentives

Feeding Motivation

Well, I had a blast thinking it over. These ideas are from my experiences as a businessman, a teacher and now as independent adviser and advocate for students and families. Rick has no agenda but the truth, “Straight Talk,” as he calls it, and I appreciate the opportunity from him to add my ideas to the national dialogue.

– Michael

Nah, we’ll get around to it later.

Rational Choice Theory

Warriors

Easier said than done.

Gaby’s Dinosaur Tree

Guest Biography:

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Topics Discussed

Additional Resources and Links

Credits

Joblessness related to education? And work ethic. And skills. And…

Benefits derived from a contract are called “consideration.”

Got gaming obsessions?

Lather, rinse, repeat

Kids are… well, kids

Monthly subscriptions for everything.

So what is a parent supposed to do?

Then we get angry parents

Kids want to please parents

Parents are motivated by fear

Helicoptering & other forms of oversight

Honesty, Love, and Trust

Help when needed

“Why’s that teacher do that?”

1) Never Assume Prior Knowledge (PK)!

2) Learning = Relevancy!

PK!

Relevancy

Teacher Expectations

Now, the student responsibilities

Rick Hess kindly invited me back

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