“Great, he’s a pleasure to live with!” A parent caught herself making this remark in an impromptu moment when she was asked how her teenage son was doing. She surprised herself when she heard her own words and experienced a little bit of internal dyssynchrony. After she has had time to reflect on this experience of cognitive and emotional dissonance, she realized that this was due to two underlying reasons:

•   First, her experience with her teenage son’s much older sisters had been difficult, far from being a pleasure.

•   Secondly, society as a whole is more accepting of lamentations about teenage antics and rebellious behaviours rather than a public declaration that they are a pleasure to live with!

This mother went on and authored a book on this theme, entitled: My Child is a Pleasure.     Her name is Diane Gossen.

Parents often have different experiences with each child in their family. The fact that Diane had a difficult time with her daughters earlier on, and then a pleasurable time with her son subsequently is not unique in itself. We have all had personal experiences or been observers of families where siblings who seemingly grew up in the same household in the same environment with similar dealings by their parents having different “growing up” journeys, especially through the adolescent years. In Diane’s case, the variable worth mentioning is that her daughters were much older, and in between her daughters’ teenage years and her son’s birth, her parenting style changed.  She wrote in her book that for the second time around, she was able to put into practice at home many of the ideas she had learned through her work with Dr. William Glasser in Control Theory (later renamed as Choice Theory) and Reality Therapy.  This success then led to her subsequently establishing her own work on Restitution.

Glasser’s Choice Theory posits that behaviour is driven by five physical and psychological needs, similar to those of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy:

•   Survival (food, clothing, shelter, breathing, personal safety and others)

•   Belonging/connecting/love

•   Power/achievement/competence

•   Freedom/autonomy, and

•   Fun/learning

Our school community was fortunate to have Diane with us for a day last week.  We started our learning journey with her when she came to work with our staff and parents in 2011/2012. On this second visit she spent time first with our new staff to lay the foundation, and then worked with the whole staff to delve deeper into the philosophy of reality therapy and also guided us through case studies.  She shared with us how understanding her son’s basic needs enabled her to resolve conflicts with him as he was growing up.  The premise of Glasser’s work is that all behaviours, appropriate or otherwise, are purposeful; and we behave in certain ways at any given time to meet our own physical and psychological needs.  Therefore,  successful and enduring conflict resolution between two human beings can only happen when the solutions are need fulfilling for both parties.

The parent book study club whose members have been studying her book sponsored a luncheon with Diane and picked her brains on specific issues they are encountering at home with their children.  It was fascinating to observe how Diane advises different approaches to seemingly similar conflict situations.  She explained to us that even with siblings in the same family in the same scenario, the conflict resolution approach for each



child should always be guided by each child’s specific need at the time. For example, when children resist bedtime routines, the resistance itself can stem from different needs not being met. Here are some possible scenarios:

•       A child with a belonging need will be more responsive to going through bedtime routines accompanied by mom and dad or a loved one.

•       A child with a freedom need is more likely to require more choices in routines and the sequencing of these same routines.

•       A child with a power need probably requires some autonomy in establishing routines so that there is a sense of accomplishment.

•       A child with a fun need will respond well to bedtime routines that incorporate elements of fun.

In the evening with parents from a wider community, the topic of Diane’s presentation was on empowerment and how it has its foundation on the nature of children’s intrinsic goodness. When we believe that children’s innate intrinsic motivation is to do good, then we will put our efforts into supporting their development rather than to control them.  Furthermore, we will accept that being able to control one another is only an illusion.

Our book club continues to meet and study these gems of wisdom.  I look forward to sharing more about the myths of control, and also how most adults assume one of five positions when we interactive with children, especially when discipline or conflict is involved.  These positions of control are: punisher, guilter, buddy, monitor, and manager.          Our discussion has led us to realize that while all five positions are effective in stopping undesirable behaviour in the short term, the legacy that each strategy leaves behind on how children feel about themselves is drastically different.  We welcome new members who would like to explore the application of these strategies in their parenting journey.  Our next club meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, March 6 at 8:30 am at the school.  Please contact the Maplewood Parent Committee members if you are interested in studying with us.

Happy new year to everyone!  As I sit in my son’s study writing this blog, I cannot help but reflect on how thankful I am to have this opportunity to visit my children during this winter break.  Furthermore, the theme of the conversations we have been having seems to centre around child rearing and his childhood experience, probably brought on by his impending parenthood in a few month’s time.   He seems to have an insatiable thirst and questions around creating conditions so children can learn naturally.  Obviously, his mother does not need encouragement to talk about something that is so close to her heart as learning has always been a life-long passion.    Serendipitously, this was also where the parent group and I left off as we said good bye on the last day of school in 2012.   Perhaps serendipitous is the wrong word, after all, we are an institution of learning, and if we don’t talk about learning, then why are we here and for what purpose do we gather?

On every last Friday morning of the month the KGMS parents host a coffee chat and invite different speakers to facilitate discussions on topics of interest.   Since September, topics discussed have included anxiety, transitions, homework, and motivation.  The last topic was mine to facilitate on the last day of school in December.  The group of die-hards actually came ready to learn, and we explored the idea of motivation.   It is commonly accepted, both among parents and educators, that we need to motivate children, and somehow it is our job to get them to learn, hence the need to devote the morning’s hour long discussion on the topic.    However, as the morning progressed and as we started to delve into labeling our daily practices, both at home and at school, we cannot help but notice that much of our  efforts are spent on input, doing things to externally ‘’entice’’ children to learn what we want them to learn.   Most of us give rewards, praises, razzle dazzle them with seemingly novelty approaches – anything to get them to learn what we put in front of them.   It didn’t take long into the morning for us to take pause, stop ourselves on our tracks, and question ourselves along the following lines:

·       Why do we need to do things to children to motivate them?  Is curiosity not innate?  

·       Do children or adults ever have to be externally motivated to learn something that they want to learn?

·       Are praise and rewards necessary for motivation?  What does research have to say about their effects on children?

·       How do we motivate learners to persevere in face of difficult tasks?

The answers to the first two questions seem quite obvious – talk to any mother of a toddler, or teenager for that matter, and you have your answer.   The terrible two’s are labeled as such because they get into anything and everything (!), much to the chagrin of all the adults around them.   The curiosity that drives these little ones becomes the constant source of frustration as we trail behind them to make sure they explore safely.   Fast forward a decade, many parents dread the teenage years because we fear that our adolescents will explore much of the tabooed topics behind our backs, and their curiosity will drive them to do things that are unsafe or that we do not approve of.   So, the evidence is all around us that children, from infancy on, do not need motivation to learn, as a matter of fact, it is hard to keep up with their curiosity.    So what is the problem?   The problem lies in the phrase ‘’what we want them to learn’’.   Seems to me we are not quite as successful in harnessing that curiosity in areas where the domain for learning  is our agenda rather than their agenda.    Therefore, the task in front of us becomes:  How do we move ‘’what we want them to learn’’ into their agenda instead of ours?   In other words, how do we work with the inner child to so that they see what we put in front of them is important to them, that it is worth persevering when things get difficult?   It is clear that we need to shift what we do to motivate children from external to internal – work with the internal processes of innate curiosity,  altruistic tendencies, and the inner drive to succeed.   How do we support these inner processes so that our children’s internal self talk will continuously validate their self confidence and worth?   Research is clear that if we give indiscriminate praise and reward, it will lead to a totally different line of thinking and internal self talk than if we give purposeful recognition to processes.

Needless to say,  on that last morning of December before we parted for our vacation, we came to the realization that the questions we have raised deserve more in depth study than our chat mornings allow.   Therefore, the parents decided to form a book study club to come together once a month to study ideas and recommendations that current published experts have to offer us.  The first book that the parents decided to look into is Diane Gossen’s  My Child is a Pleasure.   Since Diane is coming back to work further with our parents in February, we thought it might be a good idea to study her book and review the concepts before her session.

The first study session is Wednesday, Jan 16 at 8:30 am at the school.   If you are interested, please contact our Maplewood Parent Committee for more information. 

Let’s learn together in 2013.

Dr. Christopher’s Parenting 101 piece spurred me to respond with a recount of my own experience in raising my two children.   My daughter and son are both grown, leading independent fulfilling lives, and  living in different countries at present.   One is about to enter into parenthood as well.   In this blog,  I hope to share my parenting insights in connection with my previous article on motivation.

Before I was even pregnant with my first child, I vowed to myself that I was going to do everything “right”, that I was not going to be like all the “mediocre” parents that I see out there who are only “half hearted” in their vocation.   I read many of the books written by experts and even went to visit a child development centre in another country half way across the continent to learn how to raise the “perfect child”.

Do you hear the screeching violins crashing to a halt yet?    Well, in the two decades following the birth of my first born,  I often found myself in such a steep learning curve that sometimes I even got vertigo!    On my journey from being idealistic and fantastic to realistic and optimistic, I went through stages of being fearful, overwhelmed and resentful.    I was resentful of the fact that I was given the most important and awesome role of my life and nobody gave me a manual.   I was fearful of making mistakes that I might scar my poor children for life.   I was overwhelmed by the fact that there are so many experts out there and there is no guidance as to who I should follow first and then second, or what area I should be learning from which expert!!???     It didn’t take me long to realize that the only way to tackle parenting is to be a learner 24/7, learn on my feet, learn in my sleep, learn while I ate,  and learn learn learn learn…..    

As I look back to our journey, I think what saved me and my two children was that I developed a growth mind set about parenting very early on.   I was willing to learn, in the face of mistakes, in the face of criticism (have you noticed that as soon as you become a new parent with a baby in your arms, everybody feels that they can be your teacher?),  even in the face of resistance from the two precious angels who were the reason for me to be on this roller coaster ride in the first place!   

Yes, there were rough times, especially through adolescence, and when I became a single mom.    However, through thick and thin, we were able to learn together, learn how to repair our relationship after disagreements,  disappointments, and  yes, confrontations.   I am thankful that we were able to pick our battles and chose only to confront the very few utmost important issues where differences can shake you to the core.   I am also thankful that our relationship became stronger when we repaired our heart connections by making restitutions rather than resorting to punishment and control.    I am thankful that the experts had already given us general principles and guidelines, and that they respect parents enough NOT to give us recipes or manuals.     These principles helped our family to create a vision of the parent-child relationship.   And with that vision in mind, our family of three was able to persevere enough to do the inner work to grow in our hearts and minds.   If I have to capture one central theme on my learnings, it is this:    That it is less about me going to the moon for my children and more about creating the conditions so that they can reach for the moon and beyond.

The journey has been, and continues to be exhilarating, tumultuous, exciting, heartbreaking, difficult, joyous, labour intensive, and unpredictable.    It is an honour and a privilege to have been given the responsibility to raise two young lives.   I often hope that the mistakes I made have been small ones and not life shattering, and that we have kept sight of the vision and steered clear of the icebergs in the rough seas along the way.    Somehow their hugs, smiles, endearing messages I get in my phone from my two darlings tell me I have my answer.

Now that we are into the third month of school, parents and students have mostly  adjusted to their new classes or in some cases, new school;  everyone seems to be settled into a routine.     And it is around this time of the year that conversations with parents typically turn to the topic of motivation.    It is not unusual for parents to drop into my office and ask me how to motivate their children.    This call for help is probably preceded by their children coming home saying, “I am bored”, or “I don’t want to go to school”, or “It’s too hard” during homework time.   Sometimes it could be a wake up call from  their teachers saying,  “ Your child can attend more, stay more focused, or engage more in learning…..”.     Sound familiar?

During the academic year 2011/2012, the KGMS staff made a commitment to learn about motivation:   What do we know about the internal workings of children when it comes to learning?     We posed this question to Dr. Shelley Hymel, the social emotional learning expert at UBC, who is also on our KGMS advisory board.    She came to the school and worked with us multiple times throughout the year, using  Dr. Carol Dweck’s research as foundation.   

According to Dr. Dweck’s work at Stanford University, there are two beliefs of intelligence, the fixed mindset and the growth mindset.  People who have a fixed mindset believe that intelligence is a fixed quantity and cannot be changed.  People who have a growth mindset believe that intelligence can be increased by effort and can be cultivated through learning.

Pause for a moment and ask yourself, what do you believe?   Where are you on the following continuum?

            Fixed Mindset                                                                        Growth Mindset

        A---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Z

            “You can’t really ever                                                            “You can always improve

             change how smart you are.”                                                  on your intelligence with hard work.”

 

What people believe about intelligence affects how motivated they are to persevere in the face of difficulty or failure.    For example,  people with fixed mindsets will equate failure or encountering difficulty as an indication of low intelligence.   Therefore they will avoid failure by almost always seeking easier tasks.  By succeeding in an easy task, they will have proven to themselves that they are smart.

On the other hand, people with growth mindsets will equate any failure or difficulty as an opportunity to grow and learn something new.   They are motivated to persevere and are not discouraged by initial failures because to them failure is not related to how smart they are, it is just a necessary nuisance on the road to success.    Therefore, a  person with a growth mindset is more likely to take risks in learning, try new ideas, and take on new challenges; whereas a person with a fixed mindset is more likely to continuously seek safety in success and attempt less challenging tasks while simultaneously resisting challenges.

So, what are the implications for us practitioners or parents as we interact with our children daily?    Simply put,  we need to encourage the development of growth mindsets in ourselves and our children.   We need to model the belief that we can grow and learn,  especially when we are faced with difficult tasks.    When we share our successful experiences,  the joy of this process is infectious.  Our children can see that failure is only an open door that will lead to success with hard work; and that there is no bounds to how much our minds can soar when we apply some effort to learning something that is difficult.

Just when I think that speaking about different mind sets is only limited to those of us who know how to speak educational jargon,  I discovered that it is no longer the best kept secret – the common man out there knows about it too!      This discovery happened when I walked into my dentist office last week for my semi annual check up and met a motivated team.    There is energy in the air.  The atmosphere is that of subdued excitement and innovative efficiency.    My dentist and his team put me on the chair and started explaining to me about all the new techniques and equipment they are learning to use.    Before I had a chance to even respond, my dentist made a comment:   Got to have the team embrace the growth mind set and stay on the cutting edge!      Now, that is motivation.

At this time of year, Canadians across the country participate in remembering.     For many of us who do not have any personal experience with wars and battles, we count on historians and our teachers to give us the context; we count on our loved ones to tell us their personal stories of digging trenches, of hiding, of narrow escapes, and of standing up with their comrades in arms against oppression.   Another source of information for us is in public narratives told by survivors in media and in print.   Our students and the next generation of youth, like many of us, also depend more and more on what society collectively can do to ensure that active remembering continues to take place.  

As I do some active remembering, an image from several years ago comes to my mind.    The image consists of elementary school age children unloading from school buses, lining up in designated areas waiting for entrance to the museum.    At one glance, I can see hundreds of these students in the gathering area, and then dozens of school buses parked neatly side by side in the parking lot.    The location of this fieldtrip?     The Dachau Museum near Munich in Germany.    Dachau was  the first of the Nazi concentration camps.   After the war, at the insistence of ex-prisoners, various memorials began to be constructed there.  Today, it is a museum open to the public and  used by educators to teach the children about a part of history that the Germans are not particularly proud of.    And yet, I respect the German educators for recognizing the importance of active remembering, of presenting history in an authentic way, of presenting facts without bias, and most importantly, of recognizing that the shaping of core values about war and peace in the next generation rests mostly on us, the educators.     I had the privilege of learning in that museum with these German school children and educators on that very special trip.    I am thankful that their active remembering includes teaching a history curriculum that is honest and transparent, and that the unit of instruction culminates in a visit to such a historic site.

Here in our city, we do not have historic sites of that magnitude to offer our children.   However, every November in our school, the teachers and tutors talk about war, remembrance, and peace in our classrooms.   We make special efforts to take books out of the library to illustrate, to read, and to discuss the horrors of war and the endeavours, sacrifices, and cost  to keep peace both at home and globally.    Our teachers present poetry, songs, plays, and literature to inspire young minds for peace.    We invite guest speakers to share their personal stories of triumph, tragedy and sacrifices.    The staff  works very diligently with the students to put on a Remembrance Day ceremony.    As a school community we pay homage to war veterans -- those who have paid the ultimate price for freedom, and those who are still in active duty far away.    We stand together to send a message of gratitude by our poems, by our performances of songs, dance, recitation and art.    It is always a touching moment for me as we observe the minute of silence.   I am grateful that I live in a free country, and I appreciate all the giants in history and unsung heroes who stood for that freedom and fought for it so that it can be a reality for us today.    We need to actively remember so that this reality will continue….

The Power of "We" 
from the desk of Rosita Tam, Director of Instruction at KGMS.

Last Thursday, I had the privilege of attending We Day at the Rogers Arena with 26 KGMS students and five staff members.    The journey to earn attendance to this event started in September 2011 when John Rodgers, our Div. 6 teacher, taught a social studies unit on global village to his students in Grades 6 & 7.    Margaret Haines, our teacher-librarian got on board to support the classroom instruction to expand this integrated theme unit to raise social awareness by including the Craig Kielburger story.    Craig, as most of you know, at age 12 took a stand against child labour and went on his quest to free children in the third world from this oppression.  Today he and his brother, Mark, head an organization called Free the Children.   This organization works with children and youth globally to support communities in education, health, sanitation and generation of sustainable alternative income.    Their motto is “From Me to We”, and one day is designated in each academic year as a “We Day”.  The purpose of this day is to gather young people around the province in one location to experience the synergy and inspiration created in a vision of giving to the global community.  

Throughout 2011/2012, our students, under the guidance of the social responsibility team, embarked on a journey that earned their attendance in this event.   At this time, I would like to acknowledge the social responsibility team and thank them for the hard work they have put in thus far in guiding the students to this point.    Carolynn Fast, our team leader, connected with Free the Children and invited speakers to come and streamline our fund raising efforts.   So, with bake sales, no uniform days, car washes, freezie sales, the team not only raised funds to support a rural village in Nicaragua,  we also raised awareness of the plight of children in developing countries within our school community.   We learned to be more socially conscious of needs around us, to be more responsible in our giving, and most importantly, the students are empowered to move from the me mentality to the we kind of thinking.

The We Day in Vancouver is one of eight events across the country.   All the participants of the day have embarked on a similar journey as ours, and they represent over 60 school districts from around the province.  Therefore, the energy that these 20,000 young people bring to the arena is electrifying and palpable.  

At this time, I want to thank Nelson publishing, a corporate sponsor of We Day.    It is because of their invitation to additional VIP seating that all 32 of of us from KGMS are able to attend this event.

The event’s theme of bullying cannot be more timely due to Amanda Todd’s recent suicide.  Craig and Marc Kielburger, founders of Free the Children, explained that this theme was chosen in 2011 because this is the number one issue that children and youth face today, the problem further exacerbated by the fact that internet and social network are readily accessible.    Guests at the event spoke about their personal experiences ranging from personal to community to political systems.   Molly Burke, who at 14 lost her eye sight due to a degenerative retinal disease talked about how she was bullied mercilessly that she came close to losing hope.  Burke, now 18, shared her story to reach out to young people who are dealing with similar situations because she understood what it is like to feel all alone.    Demi Lovato, an  Americal pop singer and anti-bullying advocate, showed the motto inked on her wrist:  Stay Strong, and shared about how she suffered from self esteem and felt cursed as a teenager.   Magic Johnson, the five-time NBA champion, who has become an HIV/AIDS prevention advocate, talked about how he made use of his adversity – testing HIV positive – to go public with his diagnosis to help bring open dialogue to this topic.  Today, he is able to stop the discrimination against HIV, and he encourages students to embrace differences because bullying is not cool.     Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace Laureate, shared about the oppression he experienced.   He recalled his struggles in apartheid South Africa where there was physical, emotional and psychological bullying endorsed by a political system.

I am very thankful for the opportunity to have been in the audience for such distinguished speakers.   The synergistic experience is life changing.    The power of WE is visually demonstrated as the 20,000 participants waved our little electric light to join in the call for change.   As Marc Kielburger quoted Mohandas Gandhi’s mantra, Be the Change, we were ready to respond by standing up – to stop bullying, to fund raise for children in developing countries, to relieve hunger, to support education and health efforts, so that we can deliver a better world than we found it to the next generation.

The four staff members and the 26 students came back with a renewed commitment to continue our efforts, and as we plan this year’s fund raising efforts, we can truly attest that we are the ones who benefit the most from the giving of our time and energy.    We are strengthened by the message of perseverance and hard work.   As Craig Kielburger reminded us, Free the Children started when one teacher responded to one child’s request to talk about social injustice in child labour practices in a grade 6 classroom 17 years ago.    Today, this one child, Craig himself,  is on the stage, leading a global community to stand up against social injustice and tap into the power of WE.    We are humbled by what one person can do.

Pushing the Limits - Grade 4 Outdoor School
from the desk of Rheanne Stevens, Director of Intermediate and Middle School Program Collingwood School, West Vancouver

Many people believe that teachers spend their days giving information to students, prescribing exercises that will fill children’s brains with facts.  Movies and television shows often portray teachers standing at the front of a classroom, chalk (or white board marker) in hand lecturing to lifeless crowds who count down the minutes until the bell rings and they are released from their daily captivity.   This is far from the reality that I know.  

This week I had the distinct privilege of joining the grade four classes at “Camp Summit”, an outdoor education facility in a stunningly beautiful location just north of Squamish.  The children, their counselors and the grade four teaching team boarded the buses early on Monday morning, ready for a three-day, two night experience that would enhance their social studies and science curriculums.  The reality is, that in addition to the vast learning about habitats, local eco-systems, food systems, and navigational techniques, there was so much more going on.  

The children bonded as a community, making friendship bracelets together, singing silly songs around the campfire, snuggling in sleeping bags and talking by the light of their flashlights.  They chased after camp staff and laughed with each other, ate with friends in the dining tent and created memories together.   They learned what it is to feel connected to others and know that they have shared important experiences.  The children learned to take risks in a place where they had the full support of their peers and the adults around them.  They placed themselves in uncomfortable situations that helped them learn about what they are capable of, what it feels like to set a goal and succeed.  I watched as a new, fairly quiet little girl impressed herself and her classmates by climbing to the very top of the “vertical play pen” on the high ropes course and sitting in a tire where she could look out over the tops of the trees.  She was in her element.  I also watched as a boy demonstrated an abundance of concentration and landed four arrows on the target during archery while most others sent their arrows off into space.  His self-image shot up exponentially.   

Perhaps the greatest learning for me came not from the successes, though, but from the children who struggled.  They weren’t the fastest or strongest or most adept at a given challenge, but it was their attitude that struck me.  In one instance, a young girl who had never ridden a bike, strapped on all of the gear and climbed on despite her extreme anxiety about it.  In another case, a determined boy rode his way around the mountain biking course, falling off his bike no fewer than ten times, and each time, dusting himself off and continuing on.  He was last, he was tired, but he was going to finish what he started and the pride that he had in himself at the end of the course inspired both his peers and teachers.  This is genuine, meaningful and long-lasting learning.   

Facts can be found at the touch of a button, but deep learning about community, risk-taking, commitment and perseverance is something that the internet can’t deliver.  Searching for authentic tasks and challenges that allow for significant learning, like the ones the children came into contact with at Camp Summit, is really the way that good teachers spend their days.




Add Comment