On David Brooks and Emotion

A couple of weeks ago, David Brooks wrote an op-ed piece, “What Machines Can’t Do,” in the NY Times that describes human traits that should be valued now and in the future as these traits cannot be replicated by computers.  While Brooks is a political commentator, he is also a thoughtful observer of human nature.  In this article, Brooks writes that “The role of the human is not to be dispassionate, depersonalized or neutral. It is precisely the emotive traits that are rewarded: the voracious lust for understanding, the enthusiasm for work, the ability to grasp the gist, the empathetic sensitivity to what will attract attention and linger in the mind.”  If Brooks is right, and I believe he is, then as educators we must examine how schools can help these traits to flourish.

Voracious lust for anything sounds pretty scary to a middle school principal.  Do we really want a bunch of limit-pushing, hormone-pumped twelve-year-olds unleashing their Freudian ids into our orderly classrooms?  Well, maybe not all of teenage passion should be on display in schools, but Brooks isn’t talking about sexting or sticking it to the man; the passion that he describes is the passion of engagement, the passion of inquiry -- an unyielding desire to figure things out.

Most schools squelch this passion, the very thing that should be driving our youth.  School has become ruled by graphite-filled ovals on Scantrons, by squealing bells that signal the end to learning, by curriculum written by who-knows-who a jillion miles removed from any teenager’s first pimple.  Most folks would have loved to have Robin Williams’ character in Dead Poet’s Society as their teacher; however, a teacher like that, one who seeks to connect students with their own passion, will not last long in America’s controlled, assembly-line schools that have been cleverly and frighteningly described in this RSA talk by Sir Ken Robinson.

Schools that support passion are schools that have deliberately created a culture around passion.  It doesn’t happen by accident. These schools offer students a chance to plunge deeply into learning. They know that not everything in a standard course can be “covered” so they choose particular elements to examine thoroughly.  They frequently offer students the opportunity to choose what they want to read and write.  They serve up problems that make students’ brains wrinkle, problems that cause students to mentally engage because whatever they have seen or heard just doesn’t quite fit with their current understanding.  They require students to discuss and argue over big, meaningful topics like justice, love, revolution, and peace.  They ask them to solve difficult problems that take weeks or months of planning and trials.  They realize that passion doesn’t come from chasing the currency of school -- grades -- but that it comes from within each individual, so teachers offer formative feedback so students are supported in their attempt to try something different rather than thwarted by the prospects of getting a bad grade.  They offer students chances to let their spirits flow by asking them to paint, design, make films, take photos, sing, dance, and perform.  They give every student an opportunity to participate and grow in sports.  They require students to think about how they think and learn, so that they can more deeply understand their own passions and how best to explore them.

These schools are out there; in fact, I work in one.  However, schools that are grounded in passion will only flourish as long as educators are given the opportunity to display the passion that drew them to their life’s work.

Group Foresight and Action -- Mt. Fuji

What thirteen-year-old boy would voluntarily give up control and power to one of his classmates for the good of his group? I know three who did, as well as the one who accepted the others’ nomination and worked to govern the group judiciously.

Yesterday, I interviewed a group of seventh-grade boys who were asked to work together on a project that involved figuring out how long it would take to move Mr. Fuji.  Yes, it is an intriguing math problem, but for these boys it became a greater exercise in learning to work together.  Putting strong-willed, opinionated students together in a group is often a recipe for disaster.  Arguments, frustration, sarcasm, and hurt feelings are common outcomes.  Frequently the groups become so dysfunctional that one or two group members leave the group because they can’t control the outcome. 

This group of boys was different.  This group of boys recognized that they had a problem from the start.  They are all high achievers, willing to do the work of those who are less motivated to make the final outcome something that meets their own ambitions.  They are all willing to motivate others using leadership skills they possess in order to succeed.  Grouped as they were, they realized right away that they all were inclined to lead.  So, instead of fighting it out, undermining others, or giving up, they reached a pivotal decision.  They decided to give up control and choose one of the four to lead them.  What is amazing is that the leader didn’t simply emerge or usurp the power -- but rather he was unanimously selected by the others.  Truthfully, the leader probably could have been any of them -- what is significant is the foresight and collaboration that they exercised.

Sublimating one’s own will and voice for the benefit of achieving something worthwhile does not happen by chance.  I believe that these boys were able to foresee and remedy the potential problem because they have been asked to work together in groups with others since they were little kids.  Our students work together every day; it is an expectation.  I’m pleased that my school and faculty recognize that the skills needed to be successful and happy are just as important, if not more important, than content that usually reigns king.  I’m not sure how long it takes to move Mr. Fuji, but I do know that these boys have developed skills that are more important than moving a mountain.

The Big Problem - Real Life Requires Real Math

Solving real problems is messy.  Sometimes, we don’t even know what problem we are trying to solve, and it doesn’t become obvious until some investigation and discovery takes place.  We must decide what information is needed and attempt to get it, although it isn’t always available.  Sometimes there are so many variables that they distract or even confuse us from defining a course to follow.  And, frequently there may not be one absolute solution.  The solution that we reach may have corollaries or disclaimers, or it may simply be a best guess given all of our efforts.  I hope this is starting to sound like real life because it doesn’t make a lot of sense to devote a huge chunk of time in school to learning math that is not useful in real life.  And, if our students don’t get opportunities to use math in real life situations, then they will continue to see it as a boring, inert process that must be slogged through just to get to the next math course; or, even worse, as the way to a better score on the SAT.  Math is so much more than a way to get into college -- it is a way to view the world, and it gives us the ability to understand, seek, and find solutions to the world around us.

This week, we started working on one of what we call our Big Problems --  a real problem.  I told the students that I had been thinking about replacing the long, rectangular tables in our lunch room with circular tables.  Because our students are primed from years of practice as problem solvers, it took them all of ten minutes to come up with the following questions and comments in some small group discussions.  Although as a school administrator, I have thought of changing out the tables for a long time, I hadn’t considered several of their ideas as variables:

• Are round tables more ergonomical?  Forearms naturally form triangles when on the table.
• How big can a round table be to hold a conversation with someone across the table in our lunchroom?
• Does looking at someone when talking to them help conversation and relationships?
• Would there be more space to move between the tables?  
• What happens to aisle space?  Will it open the flow or restrict it?
• How would moving to round tables affect cleaning? How big can it be and still be easily cleaned?
• Storage? (We move our tables every day to clean the floor.)
• Will round tables hurt or help inclusivity?
• Will they fit in the lunchroom?
• What will be the cost?
• Will the cost be worth the benefit (if any)?
• Unintended consequences?
• Other stakeholders (the LS students who use the lunchroom also).

What kind of math tools will we need to pursue this problem?  Some things are obvious like measuring, performing simple arithmetic calculations, working with geometric shapes, and spatial reasoning.  However, we may look at hearing as a function of distance from speaker (this is an algebra class after all).  Or the number of seats available as a function of the circumference of a table.  We are going to have to figure out some way to apply a dollar amount to something that is not easily counted (building relationships) and this will definitely involve some statistical analysis.  We are going to have to do some data collection, analysis, and interpretation.  More statistics. Finally, we are going to have to reach beyond our collective knowledge base to get information and possibly even help.  

So, how does this assignment hold up to the teaching of skills that have become a fundamental element of our middle school:  collaboration, problem solving, communication  creativity, perseverance, grit.  We can check all of these off.

I told the students that if we decide that replacing the tables would be a good idea that we would present our findings to our Chief Financial Officer and other stakeholders.  We are not sure if the school will take our advice; this is the real world after all, and there are all sorts of other claims on school dollars than lunch room tables.  But, regardless of the outcome, the process of working through this problem will give the students and teachers some practice with the utility and function of math.   

Using Minecraft and Plotz to Visualize Limits

At the start of class for the last two weeks, my algebra team teacher and I have been using a discussion on “area under a curve” to extend our students’ thinking.  Of course, our eighth-grade algebra I students do not have the calculus tools they need to solve this type of problem, and we are not trying to teach them the necessary algorithms.  We’re asking them to envision different ways that the problem might be solved.  One of our primary goals in this algebra class is to create divergent thinkers who realize that the process of solving a problem is often more important than the solution.  By offering them problems that are “unsolvable” given the math that they know, they are forced to think of the problems as abstractions, to ponder the same ideas that intrigued the likes of Archimedes, Descartes, Leibniz, and Newton.

Our students’ first attempts to best measure the area under a curve mirrored the earliest methods of the Greeks -- the exhaustion method.  The students quickly decided that they could fill the area using different size polygons and circles, and they would ultimately get pretty close to a solution.  While this was a good first step, and started them down the conceptual road to limits, we ultimately decided that it would be problematic to obtain the measurements of different sized shapes.  Some students wondered if using a single shape of the same area would simplify the process.  Then one of our students, Rion, said that every gamer knows that shapes on the computer screen are just made up of the same size pixel, and that the problem could be best addressed by filling the area under a curve with pixels that could be counted.  Extending this line of thought, Rion thought that he could use the Minecraft creating website, Plotz, to illustrate the idea that reducing the size of the squares, thus increasing the number of squares under the curve, would result in a more accurate answer.  Rion shared these images with the class:

After this, we discussed the idea of being able to reduce the error of the area measurement to a point where for all practical purposes it was accurate.  While the students certainly did not reinvent the concept of a limit, they did discover, in a general sense, the way a limit could be used to help solve this type of problem.  Our hope is that they will be able to apply this concept and type of thinking to other problems that we challenge them with in the future.

My team teacher and I believe that it is vital to continue to push the students’ ability to think of math in abstract terms.  This forces the students to see math as something different from memorizing steps in order to follow the predictable, worn-out path of textbook examples and problems.  It forces them to engage with math -- to wrestle with it in a way that builds engagement and deep conceptual understanding.

Learn to Use Math

I frequently use math.  You probably do too, so I’d like to give you a math awareness challenge.  At the end of the day today, spend ten minutes or so making a list that describes when, where, and how you used math during your day along with the math skills that you used.  If you are kind of geeky like me, you may want to put it into a table:

when	where	how	why	math skill used
5:45 AM	bedroom	looked at clock when alarm went off	oriented me into the day	telling time
5:50 AM	bedroom	counted pushups	helped me to set and reach goals of physical fitness	counting
6:10 AM	kitchen	measured ingredients for pancakes	prepared food that tasted decent	measuring
6:30 AM	kitchen	read info from yearly physical from prior day,  (specifically my body mass index and how it related to averages)	helped me to understand my physical condition and enforced beliefs about eating and exercise	reading tables and comparing data

Perhaps you will be surprised by how often you actually use math.  We frequently use math for day-to-day tasks, and we never think about it.  We use math to help us make sense of the world around us and our place in that world.  One of the other things that becomes obvious from my table is that I was not born with any of the math skills that I used in the first forty-five minutes of my day.  I learned all of them.  

I’m not sure where I learned the skills listed above, but I’m pretty sure that I learned all of them before I was six or seven-years-old.  I carry all of those math skills (and a few more) around with me every day in what I like to call my math toolbox, a toolbox that was first opened soon after I was born. I am almost always unaware when I use my math tools.  However, every time that I use something in my toolbox, I get some practice with that skill.   I remember how to do all of this math because I do it on a regular basis.

I also know that folks can lose the computational math skills that most of us take for granted.  My father has lost most of his cognitive function due to Alzheimer's.  While he may recognize a number on a clock, he has no concept of what that number means.  He doesn’t know the difference between ten dollars and a hundred, and he couldn’t count twenty paper clips on a table.  While Alzheimer's has done other terrible things to his mind, it has also taken away his ability to make sense of the world by using math.  

The ability to use math in our lives is a skill that is frequently overlooked and taken for granted, but without it we could not function successfully.  It is no wonder that we teach math in school.  However, I do wonder about the math that we teach and the way that we teach it.

If the function of math is to help us make sense of the world around us and to solve problems in that world, then shouldn’t we spend some time practicing how to recognize problems, how to get the information we need to solve them, and then how to apply the math that we carry in our tool box (or that we can access from a resource)?  Unfortunately nearly everyone who attends school in the United States gets little practice at this, which I would argue, is a more important skill than memorizing algorithms.  

We need to present our students with situations and scenarios where they actually have to determine the problem, find the information that they think they need to solve it, and then reach into their toolbox of math algorithms to find a solution.  Students who are taught to recognize problems that others may not see, who are taught to seek multiple solutions, who are taught to appreciate the possibilities of alternate perspectives, and who are taught to synthesize other’s ideas into their own -- these are the students who are going to have control over their lives.

Yes, of course students still need to know the algorithms necessary to solve problems.  However, for math to be truly useful in their lives, students must develop the capabilities to know how and when to use the appropriate tool in the box. They can't do this without practice.

Google Sees Little Value in Test Scores and GPA

It must be reassuring to the folks who believe that school shouldn’t prepare students for the workplace to read the following written by Max Niesen from Business Insider:

In an interview with The New York Times' Adam Bryant, Google's Senior Vice President of People Operations Laszlo Bock explains that some of the biggest stalwarts of the hiring and recruiting world, the interview, GPA, and test scores, aren't nearly as important as people think.

Google doesn't even ask for GPA or test scores from candidates anymore, unless someone's a year or two out of school, because they don't correlate at all with success at the company. Even for new grads, the correlation is slight, the company has found.

Bock has an excellent explanation about why those metrics don't mean much.

" Academic environments are artificial environments. People who succeed there are sort of finely trained, they’re conditioned to succeed in that environment," he says.

While in school, people are trained to give specific answers, "it's much  more interesting to solve problems where there isn’t an obvious answer," Bock says. "You want people who like figuring out stuff where there is no obvious answer."

When I started teaching in the early 1990s, I had already worked for a bank, done some oil and gas properties management, and run different divisions of an automobile dealership.  My first teaching job at Robert E. Lee High School in San Antonio was a shock on many levels, but the biggest head-spinner was that it became clear to me that school had little to do with other workplaces or real life.  Some teachers were unmotivated and would have been fired in a week if school were anything like the working world.  I’ll never forget one seasoned teacher asking me why I worked so hard.  There was little focus on the customers, e.g. , the parents who paid our wages through taxes and the students who were the passive recipients of knowledge that was of little use in their lives.  A lot of time and energy was spent in managing the students’ days, making sure that everyone was accounted for and trying to limit the opportunities for students to engage in illicit or unsupervised activities.  Even amidst this mind-deadening, controlled world, there were many dedicated faculty and students who struggled to teach and learn in a system that really wasn’t conducive to helping students learn how to be successful in their lives outside of school.

The students who were successful at Robert E. Lee High School and most other high schools around the country, the students who learned how to “do school” and be successful in what Bock calls an “artificial environment,” went on to ply their school skills at college.  Then they faced what I and nearly everyone I knew faced when I graduated from college:  they faced a world of work that was quite different from high school and college.  While a college diploma may have given them a ticket into the workforce, it did little to prepare them for what they would be doing.

The most frustrating thing to me is that we know how to help students learn to be succesful outside of school.  We know how to teach students to examine and solve open-ended problems; we know how to instill grit in our students to give them long term perseverance; we know how to help students develop character strengths; we know how to create environments and methods that hone students’ communicative and collaborative skills; we know how to help internal motivation flourish within students; we know that we should limit curriculum to what is truly “lifeworthy.”  If you don’t believe me, pay attention to the experts who have spent the better part of their lives researching and reporting on these topics:  Check out Dan Meyer’s work in implementing problem solving, look at Angela Duckworth’s work on grit, read Martin Seligman on developing character, don’t forget Daniel Pink’s and Alfie Kohn’s books on motivation; listen to what Dave Perkins has to say about lifeworthy skills.

There are many things standing in the way of making school more relevant to life, but the primary obstacle is the collective mindset of institutions, parents, teachers, administrators, and students that we all think we know what school looks like.  In our minds, even though many of us know better, school should look like what it looked like last year, or ten years ago, or fifty years ago simply because that is school.  Unfortunately, the school that we are comfortable with, the school of our memory, grows in irrelevance as the rest of the world speeds toward the future while we remain firmly planted in the past.

Modeling: Another MOOC Course

I’ve been doing a little modeling on the side the last few weeks.  No photo shoots for Esquire or GQ, but modeling -- as in creating ways to represent the world by using math or graphics to gain understanding and find solutions to problems.  I enrolled in my second MOOC (Massive Online Open Course) through Coursera a couple of weeks ago and have gone through the first three weeks of Dr. Scott E. Page’s “Model Thinking” class at the University of Michigan.  It already has me thinking that modeling, along with probability and statistics, should be required at all schools.

If you have been listening to the news lately, you are probably aware of the growing demonstrations in Sao Paulo, where Brazilians are protesting against high taxes and low living standards.  Dr. Page’s lecture that I watched yesterday demonstated a simple model that explains how difficult it is to predict these huge public demonstrations that have occurred around the world the last three years.  It all has to do with thresholds and peer effects.  I’ll let him explain it in this six-minute video:

This simple model has some pretty big implications for seventh-graders.  We know that as children grow to be teens that most look to peers for cues on what they should wear, how they should act, what music to listen to, the type of social media to use, etc.  What is a particular thirteen-year-old's threshold for "trying on a new hat" and what if that new hat is not something harmless, but something that can have lasting ramifications.  I plan to show this video to my advisory next year in hopes that  understanding thresholds and the peer effect may give my boys enough knowledge to display courage and confidence in situations that could be harmful or dangerous.  

Postive Psychology - A Summer Project

A few weeks ago, Missy Sullivan gave me an article to read about Positive Psychology written by Martin Seligman.  Missy has her headlights set on the completion of an advanced degree in School Psych, and during the summers we sometimes discuss ideas that apply to psychology and school.  I admit that I knew little to nothing about Positive Psychology, and although I found the article interesting, I was also a little skeptical.  In the meantime, I came across a large section in the book, How Children Succeed by Paul Tough, that described the theory and outcomes of Positive Psychology.  It seemed too much of a coincidence for me to be exposed to this theory twice in such a short period of time, so I’m following the serendipitous guidepost and delving into the theory, process, and outcomes.

The following is an excerpt from Martin Seligman’s Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being

First, a quiz:

Question one: in one or two words, what do you most want for your children?

If you are like the thousands of parents I’ve polled you responded, “Happiness,” “Confidence,” “Contentment,” “Fulfillment,” “Balance,” “Good stuff,” “Kindness,” “Health,” “Satisfaction,” “Love,” “Being civilized,” “Meaning,” and the like. In short, well-being is your topmost priority for your children.

Question two: in one or two words, what do schools teach?

If you are like other parents, you responded, “Achievement,” “Thinking skills,” “Success,” “Conformity,” “Literacy,” “Math,” “Work,” “Test taking,” “Discipline,” and the like. In short, what schools teach is how to succeed in the workplace.

Can and should schools attempt to teach well-being?  The list of adjectives that Seligman describes as what parents “most want for their children” seems pretty squishy.  Is it really our job in school to teach kids to “love each other” or to “find meaning?”  Truthfully, great teachers have always taught these skills and attitudes.  It is one of the things that promotes such strong bonds between teachers and students.  However, what if schools adopted systematic and coordinated approaches to teaching well-being?  This has been done and, according to Seligman, done with success.  

I’ve got some research to do this summer.

Revisiting Choi to the World

There are some Japanese words that just don't translate well into English, and natsukashi is one of them. To me, natsukashi is a gentle fondness of a memory that you know will never be repeated. One might feel natsukashi when remembering a perfect spring day walking next to the Matsukawa River with cherry blossoms drifting to the ground. This morning I woke up feeling a little natsukashi, remembering my family's time with Choi and his graduation from high school a year ago. So, I am reposting one of my favorite pieces, Choi to the World.

It will take me a few months to get over the absence of brilliant piano music as I prepare dinner in the evenings.  Choi is leaving us after nine months of inhabiting a room in our basement and our lives.  We are sad to see him go.  

Choi is a Korean national who graduated from Carolina Day School a few days ago.  He has attended CDS for three years, living with two other CDS families during the previous two years.  Among his many talents, Choi is a gifted linguist (fluent or proficient in five languages), an amazing pianist, an aspiring badminton player, a brilliant actor, an award-winning mathematician, a divergent thinker, and an encourager of vegetable eating for my seven-year-old.

I am sure that my sons get sick and tired of me asking them questions; it is simply a byproduct of my years as an educator, and I can’t help myself.  So this morning on the drive to school, I asked them what they learned from Choi over the last nine months.  John Kelly thought for a while (I give tons of wait time) and said simply that it was different having Choi live with us.  At first it seemed like a “duh” response, but John Kelly rarely gives simplistic reasons for anything.  After a few leading questions, what he was trying to say was that he learned a lot by being forced to live differently.  Our cozy family of four, with our routines and habits became different when Choi moved in last August.  Changing things up, making things different, is a prerequisite for growth and learning, and this was Choi’s greatest gift to our family.

My children also had first-hand experience living with someone from another country.  This will make them more accepting of others and other cultures for the rest of their lives.  Wow!   We had dinner table discussions about mandatory service in the military (following his freshman year at Dickinson College, Choi will serve in the Korean army for two years like all Korean males), we talked about gender roles and sexism in other countries, we listened to Korean pop wafting up from the basement, we learned that Korean children learn never to question their father (too bad I couldn’t get this going in my family).

Choi also provided inspiration to us all.  John Kelly composed his own piece of music for his recent piano recital because he observed Choi’s love of music.  Charlie learned some better table manners.  Elizabeth and I were reminded that the world is huge and that we can still take risks in our lives.

Last week, it hit Charlie that Choi would be leaving us for good.  He cried himself to sleep that night.  We will all miss Choi, but we send him out into the world with our love.  Choi to the World!