Show Up, and Get a B - Another way k-12 does not prepare for the real world

I have recently come across an interesting article documenting a sad trend in college students increasing sense of entitlement. According to the article, professors and administrators are noticing an increasing sense amongst students that they are entitled to certain grades, and an increasing aversion to earning, rather than getting, grades.

The article makes some interesting points but I think it misdiagnoses the problem at lesat a little bit. As a k-12 educator, I think that this sense of entitlement in college students comes from the disjunct between the k-12 schools indirect teaching of entitlement and the college's continued emphasis on earning, rather than being entitled to, academic success. Like it or not, k-12 schools ARE leaving kids unprepared for college by getting them used to the idea that all children will be successful and that effort, rather than product, will be rewarded. Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work that way, leaving those students unprepared for the large paradigm shif that will doubtless come their way.

“I tell my classes that if they just do what they are supposed to do and meet the standard requirements, that they will earn a C,” he said. “That is the default grade. They see the default grade as an A.”

Why do the students think this way? As a teacher, I have seen many teachers TELL students that the default grade IS an A, and that one works to maintain, rather than earn, the high marks. I just dealt with a student yesterday who relayed that her teacher told her exactly this (and I have seen countless other teachers do this).

Of course, mathematically, this is quite untrue. The default grade at the beginning of each quarter is a 0%. If the first assignment is worth 100 points, and the student does half of the assignment, the grade becomes a 50% F. If they do the entire assignment, of course, their grade is a 100% A. From there, the grade can change based on the number of points per assignment and the relative weighting of the assignments, but in no way is the default grade ACTUALLY an A (despite what we tell students).

And there is another way in which the "default A" is unworkable. As Charles Murray points out in his book Real Education, "C" measn "average" in education parlance, or at least, it used to! It is a statistical truism that half of kids will be at or below average and half of kids will be at or above average. If our grade books were redesigned to allign with how they should look, student grades would create a bell curve where "C" would be the tip. "A" means "excellent" in education parlance, and as such, we are giving out too many "A's" if we are giving them to stduents who are not excellent in their subject. (My estimate would be about 10-15% should be getting "A's").

I think that it stems from their K-12 experiences,” Professor Brower said. “They have become ultra-efficient in test preparation. And this hyper-efficiency has led them to look for a magic formula to get high scores.”

The first half is right; the second is not. In the county in which I teach, for instance, 60% of the overall grade for a class is made up of classwork, and 25% is made up of tests and quizzes. On top of this, classwork is most often graded for completion, rather than accuracy. (Tests are generally the only thing grade for accuracy.) This literally means that a student can do all classwork without understanding the content, bomb every test and quiz, and still walk away with a "D." If she does all homework in addition to classwork, she would recieve a "C," and if she does all classwork and homework while scoring 50% "F's" on all tests and quizzes (still not understanding much of the material), she would recieve a 85% "B". I see it happen all the time where a student has a "C" in a class but does not know anything but the rudimentary skills for the class. This trend is at its worst when that student gets passed to Spanish II (or Algebra II) without mastering the requisite amount of info from the previous class.

My point: this teaches students that effort is to be rewarded above product. While this sounds like a good idea, the article points out that it is not. In essence, we are sending kids from an institution which, for 12 years, has taught them that effort rather than product is what counts and throwing them into a 4 year institution that operates in precisely the opposite way! In a college spanish class, it is rare that homeworks are graded for anything but accuracy (if they are graded at all), and tests constitute the majoity of the grade. Contrast that with the high school spanish class where student classwork and homework is graded on completion and together constitutes 75% of a stduent's grade.

There is another huge problem with what k-12 institutions' inadvertent inflating of grades and putting primacy on effort rather than product: it leads to students who become easily discouraged when they get bad grades.

“I think putting in a lot of effort should merit a high grade,” Mr. Greenwood said. “What else is there really than the effort that you put in?”

“If you put in all the effort you have and get a C, what is the point?” he added. “If someone goes to every class and reads every chapter in the book and does everything the teacher asks of them and more, then they should be getting an A like their effort deserves. If your maximum effort can only be average in a teacher’s mind, then something is wrong.”

What's the point? First, the point is to learn, rather than to earn a grade. (We are not good at teaching this in k-12 either.) Second, it is unrealistic (unless surrounded by k-12 walls) to expect that hard work garauntees a product worthy of a high grade. The real world does not work that way. If two people work just as hard at work and one turns in a better finished product than the other, then the better product will yield higher rewards. In college, one can put in all the work one wants, but if one doesn't understand the subject well enough to pass the test, then one does not deserve to pass the course as if one did understand the subject.

But k-12 works differently. In our zeal towards egalitarianism and a very chimeric belief that all children should have success, we have created a aystem so singley focused on this goal that it is artificially padded. In our desire to see all students experience success, we have made a system that places little emphasis on mastery (an elitist concept, that!) and put it on hard work (which all students are at least capable of). And even then, we treat students who do not work hard as "students with special needs" and offer even more "supports" that do little more than ensure that less effort is required of them (lest they earn an F at something!).

For those who think I am exaggerating this last piece, a previous post the story of a student I work with who simply does not show up to class and does little work. The school, however, has made deal after deal with him that he can pass the year if he does x and y. When he doesn't follow through, they re-instate the deal. When I asked why - why not let him experience the consequences of his actions - the most common response is, "Well, if we do that, he might not graduate, and that would be a shame." In other situations, I have been explicitly told to grade students for effort rather than product, or to use a more relaxed standard when grading certain students.

In the bizarre world of k-12 ed, this makes a certain bit of sense to most teachers. Fairness, we are repeatedly told, means giving everyone a tase of success. But as I hope to have pointed out, this egalitarian model does not fit with what kids will experience after high school either in college or the world of work. I shudder to think at how poorly we are preparing students for the merit-based world they will face after high school, where one is not entitled to grades, praise, or raises, no matter how hard one works, and where what matters is product rather than effort.

The Narcissism Epidemic (book review)

There is a fabulous new book by Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell entitled The Narcissism Epidemic. Twenge's previous book studied the rise in narcissistic values in today's teenagers and twenty-somethings, where this book studies this distrubring trend as applied to all age groups.

While reading this, I could not help thinking about many of my students, from the girl who will not hesitate to talk about how hot she is while insulting other students like its nothing, to the student I work with who has behavioral problems (that many teacehrs erroneously beleive stem from poor self-esteem rather than an inflated ego). I would not only reccomend this book to all concerned citizens, but particularly to educators.

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"Narcissism is the fast food of the soul. It tastes great in the short term, has negative, even dire, consequences in the long term, and yet continues to have widespread appeal." (p. 259)

For all intents and purposes, The Narcissism Epidemic is something of a sequel to Jean Twenge's previous book, Generation Me. Wheras that book focused on the younger generation's (and gen y's) increase in narcissistic behavior, this book focuses on the same trend as a nation- and worldwide phenomenon. From our ever-increasing obsession with fawning over the lives of the rich and glamorous (Real Housewives of Orange County, anyone?) to our rampant consumerism, this book tells the tale of a nation in a very strange state of decline. In a sense, we are loving ourselves to death.

The first few chapters start off with the hard numbers. Twenge and Campbell have administered, and chased down, several experimental studies which demonstrate a very clear trend towards a more narcissistic attitude in the population. Young people list "being famous" as an important life goal far more frequently than their predecessors, the rise of platic surgery has increased FIVEFOLD in the past ten years (which COULD be explained by the fact that it has become more affordable, but the increase is so large that this explanation is unlikely to be the MAIN one). More and more newspaper articles and tv shows focus on narcissistic themes than in years past. Infintitely more people, when given the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, yield results consistent with narcissism than in years past. In other words, the rise in narcissism is thoroughly documented here.

From here, our authors talk about everything from whether narcissists tend to suffer from low self-esteem (quite the opposite, as many self-help gurus and educators have yet to figure out), whether narcissism helps one get ahead in life (only if you are a entertainer, it seems), and whether narcissism has its root cause in the well-intentioned self-esteem mmovement of the seventies and eightgies (you betcha!).

As an educator myself, this last point was one of the most fascinating for me. While students today often do not think twice about cheating, disrespecting teacher and peers, or expecting grades without doing the work, we continue to mistakenly believe the problem to be low, rather than way too high, self-esteem. All the while, Twenge and Campell are careful to distance themselves from the view that we should NOT praise our kids or ignore their self-esteem, which is far from what they are saying. They are simply pleading for moderation. Praising a child's virtues is different from overpraising their every move. The authors use the obsesity analogy: just as recognizers of the obesity epidemic do not want us to stop eating, but only eat in moderation, recognizers of the narcissism epidemic are only suggesting that we praise in moderation (while also encouraging hard work) rather than going overboard like we have been.

There are also some timely chapters on how narcissim played a key role in the 2008/2009 recession. While everyone is quick to blame the banks, consumers, and the government, we seem squeamish about criticizing what the three groups had in common: unbounded and irrational greed! Consumers were buying houses and things they did not need so as to satisfy increasing desires to live high on the hog (without having to earn it). Banks focused on quick profits rather than prudent investments in their willingness to dupe consumers into predatory loans. The government just wanted to see everyone own a house (which somehow became a right rather than a privilege to be earned). Twenge and Campbell do a great job in showing that for each group, the culprit was greed, narcissism, and a belief that everyone could have everything without having to (as in years past) exercise hard work and prudence.

But how to stop these trends? Unlike the previous book, Generation Me, the Narcissism Epidemic focuses many of its pages to offering suggestions on how we get out of this dizzying mire of narcissism. Most chapters conclude with a section called "Treatment for the Epidemic" and the last sixth of the book is made up of chapters offering "Prognosis and Treatment." Some suggestions are - or should be! - quite commonsensical: teach your children prudence, work-ethic, and that it is not always about them, regulate the credit industry, teach prudence and humility in school, participate, and encourage others to participate, in social clubs that nurture a sense of community. Some are interesting but quite fantastic: tone down the fevered pitch of product advertising, make "less is more" a new societal catchprase, tax luxury items more heavily (as a libertarian, I am not a great fan of government regulation.)

[One suggestion that Twenge and Campbell infuriatingly left off the list is to let irresponsible spenders feel the full consequences of their action. As it stands now, the government is doing the opposite by penalizing those not in debt by forcing them to "bail out" those who are. Message: narcissists are more important and deserving than the average Joe.]

Whereas I gave Twenge's earlier book a three star review, I am giving this book five stars. Unlike the previous book, this book was more cohesive, well-documented, and contained focus not only on the problem but on possible ways out. As an educator, I urge every parent and educator to read this book so that we can see exactly what the misguided self-esteem movement has led to. As a citizen I urge everyone to read this book to get a sense for the import of narcissistic values and how they threaten to make a great country significantly worse.

Social Promotion: The lesser of two evils?

In my opinion as an educator, the idea of social promotion is just about the worst idea in education today. For those unfamiliar, "social promotion" is the idea that we should pass students on to further grades regardless of whether they have met that grade's academic standards. From what I understand, this idea was brought about because it was thought to help students' self-esteem by avoiding stigmatization attached with "being held back."

Is this simply another bad idea foisted onto the education system by those who believe self-esteem is more important than academic standards? In a discussion I had with one supervisor, she eluded to data which shows that "holding kids back" for failure to meet requisite standards not only had no effect on their subsequent academic improvement, but also that holding students back increases the likelihood that those students will fail to get their diplomas.

I have run across an article seconding these arguments, suggesting that "holding kids back" is ineffective and increases the likelihood of drop-out. The authors write:

Grade retention is one of the methods often proposed and used to help poor performing students catch-up to their peers. At best, most research on the effects of grade retention portrays it as a practice that provides no benefit to the students; at worst it is considered a damaging practice.

These authors relay a study which found that "third graders who were retained showed no difference in test scores to those who were promoted and sixth graders who were retained scored worse than those who were promoted." In addition, they also note studies which suggest "that retained students are more likely to drop out of high school," than those who have not been retained.

The first thing I would note is that these results seem almost bordering on circularity to be of any real import. I am not a statistics guy but from what I remember from my Ed Statistics class, this is indeed a very flawed conclusion. Saying that being held back increases one's chance of dropping out or failing to earn a diploma is like saying little more than that those who are not cutting the academic mustard are those most likely not to cut the academic mustard.

The above statistics seem quite tautologous because when looking at students who get held back, chances are that you are dealing with those who are least academically motivated or inclined. So, it is being held back that caused the likelihood to ditch high school, or is being held back and dropping out of high school both due to an underlying lack of academic motivation and/or facility? (In the same way, one can suggest that the more homework one does, the more likely one will be to get an advanced degree, but this would be inaccurate, as inclination to do homework and getting an advanced degree are both symptoms of academic motivation, which is more likely to be the primary factor).

When in discussion with my supervisor, with who's views I disagree, she reminded me of the converse of the above truism: kids who are socially promoted are more likely to get their diplomas than those retained. At the risk of sounding course, no s###! Kids who are pushed through the school system are probably more likely to get diplomas...because they are pushed through the school system! This amounts to little more than saying that those who are not grade on their abilities to cook are more likely to be able to graduate culinary school than those who are retained because they can't cook well.

Good job!

The question is not, as my supervisor thinks, whether social promotion leads to more diplomas than retention. Instead, the question is whether social promotion leads to more DESERVED diplomas than retention. We would, after all, have a 100% graduation rate if we simply handed them out without making them contingent on any standards; all kids would pass because passing would be easy. This "ends justify the means" reasoning that proponents of social promotion use!

But would such a policy be right? The diplomas would be more plentiful, but would they be deserved? I can't see that they would. They would be ill-gotten in the same way that kids who are socially promoted in order that they may be handed (rather than have earned) diplomas would be.

It seems like, at root, educators once again speak from both sides of the mouth: on one hand, we talk about grade levels, passing classes, and graduating to the next grade. On the other side, we are afraid to hold kids to standards because some of them might drop out or get their feelings hurt. I sympathize with kids who are in danger of dropping out, but unlike proponents of social promotion, I am not willing to do away with the notion of standards in order to ensure that these students stay in school under artificial pretense. (That is how we wind up with students in Algebra II that don't know how to multiply, and students who can't read being in English 10).

In my opinion, social promotion is not the lesser of two evils (the other being student retention and possible drop-outs). The lesser of two evils is pushing students through to grades that they have no business being in for the sole purpose of making us educators feel better. THAT is the evil.

Review of Stout's "Feel Good Curriculum"

Here is a review I recently wrote about another highly reccomended book, Maureen Stout's "Feel-Good Curriculum." It is a very good indictment of an overly progressive education, a la ED Hirsch

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Maureen Stout's book, "The Feel-Good Curriculum," would make a good companion to the works of ED Hirsch, author of "The Knowledge Deficit." These two authors' theses are much the same: over the past forty-or-so years, the "progressive" changes in American education have led to the decline of academic standards, the over-valuing of (a misguided view of) self-esteem, and and the turning out of students ill-prepared for the disciplined nature of the "real world."

Stout is a professor of education at UC Berkley, and like her philosophical kin Hirsch, is interested not only in demonstrating these saddening trends but in exploring their ideational roots. While the usual suspects (Dewey, Thorndike), she also links non-educators like psychologist Carl Rogers and Erik Ericksson with the "child-centered," whole child," and "self-actualization" movements in education.

These movements changed virtually everything about schooling. Instead of teaching students basic academics, their primary goals were not wo help the child reach self-actualizaiton (whatever THAT means!). Instead of seeing discipline as necessary for an ordered school, it was now seen as an antiquated stifler of student enthusiasm.

...And, as Stout points out, the movement kept on going, becoming more and more extreme despite yielding worse and worse reults. As an educator, I found myself oscillating between chuckling and containing anger as I read about current trends in educaiton - Vygotskyan cooperative learning, social (rather than standards-based) promotion, educators as facilitators rather than instructors - that I sadly recognize all too well. And as an educator, I can attest that these are trends that need to be rethought and revamped, but never seem to be; Stout hits these problems right on the head in writing about these problems, not only identifying THAT, but WHY, they are problems.

Stout ends with a section on how we can turn some of these effects around (and her suggestions sound much like those of ED Hirsch). She does not advocate a return to the dark ages where students memorize rote passages and are paddled for misbehavior. She advocates a return to standards-based, rather than "outcome-based" educaiton, readjust our views on the value of discipine, and maybe get rid of the "progressive" idea of self-esteem that equates it with "feeling good for no good reason" rather than an earned feeling of accomplishment.

This is a very, very good book. Those who read it will either be challenged to re-examine cherished views or be further outraged by problems they know too well. Either way, it is not a book to be missed.

Positives and Negatives

One of the favorite educational ideas in the past twenty-or-so years has been the all-encompassing power of positive reinforcement. Rather than punish, scold, or take away privleges from a child, it is best to cajole, praise and rewward your child. Far be it form me to suggest that one should not reward and praise children/students when they deserve it, and I would never argue that punishment is the only effective discipline tool. Like so many shortcomings of the "self-esteem movement," the problem does not lie with the method presented, but with the "all or nothing" way it is held. Parents and teachers need to get back to being comfortable with the idea that positive reinforcement goes only so far, and negative reinfofcement is also necessary.

I recently began thinking about this issue when talking with the behavior interventionist at the school. On several occasions, we have talked about what to do with certain out-of-control students that refuse to follow rules, defy authority, and display inappropriate behaviors. The behavior interventionist always reaches the same conclusion: create a positive incentive plan whereby a certain number of x (days without incident, hours on task, completed homeworks) results in a postive reward (everything from "video game time" to free food in the cafeteria).

I always end up arguing with the behavior interventionist over this method. I ask him questions like, "why are we going to reward this student for doing what other students are expected to do?" and "Why can't we try penalties instead of rewards (as they are often more cost-effective and fair than giving bad students rewards for being adequate). The response I get, in so many words, is that "students are motivated best by working for what they want."

I have heard this platitutde many times, and it has been ingrained in us for so long that many think it is the end of the story. Of course, people are motivated by want of reward, but this misses the other half of the coin: people are also motivated by fear of negative cosnequences. To see this duality of motivations, we need only look at why peolpe hold jobs. We work because we need to have income to live and while we are positively reinfoced by our paychecks, we also work because we fear the negative consequences of failing to do so. (If a benefactor immunized us from the possible negative consequences of doing a poor job, many of us would secretly begin slacking, no matter howm much we were "positively rewarded" by high pay.)

There are two main reasons, though, that I dislike positive reinforcement: first, it is not fair to reward some to do what is expected naturally of most; second, it does not reflect how the post-school world works.

As mentioned in a previous post, the special educaiton world has a bizarre notion of what "equal" means. There, "equal" does not mean that rules are applied to all and all alike, but rather, that rules are appplied in proportion to a stduent's abilities and needs. Where some students are expected to do problems 1-12, others wil only be expected to do 1-7 (for the same grade). While some students have 45 minutes to take the test, others get 90 minutes.

Sometimes, these rules can be justified (the second could be justified for students with documented processing delays, for instance). Other times, it is not (even as a special educator, I cringe the "reduced number of problems" rule). Point-sheets offering misbehaving students the chance to earn prizes for following school rules that others are expected to follow simply translates to rewarding those who behave badly. It gets students used to the idea that kids who follow rules are unrewarded, whille those who don't follow rules earn the chance to win free stuff and benefits.

Not only do misbehaving students see this, but the students who behave also see it. Like the child that acts out because his parents only notice bad behavior, these well-performing students see that it may be in their interest to act up, so that they too might earn a shot at being rewarded for doing what has been hitherto unrewareded.

The second reason I dislike overuse of positive reinfocement is that it gives kids the false idea that this is how the world works. Yes, the world rewards us, but it only rewards us for doing well and going above what is expected. Contra the way point-sheets work, the world does not reward us when we only do what is expected. We might get a positive bonus when we do well at our job, but when we merely show up and do some work, the boss will likely threaten our termination. Students raised on point-sheets and incentive plans will likely not adjust to this very inverse reality, because they were taught that the mere act of sitting in their seat and paying attention could earn them a prize. ("You can't fire me. I've showed up at work every day this week and didn't cuss anyone out!")

I am simply worried bcause for twenty + years, education's zeal to promote "good" self-esteem has made it so that we see positive reinforcement as the only option, rather than one of two options. If we are to train students to adjust well to the post-high-school world, we cannot send them off with the idea that doing only what is expected will be rewarded. We cannot send our children off with the message that an exasperated world will bribe them to do basic things, just because it is the only way to get them to be civil. If we expect them to go to college and/or hold jobs, we need to instill in them that doing good work will get you rewarded, but doing the minimum will get you terminated. (Or should we just give the students' employers point sheets?!)

Believe and You Can Achieve? Maybe, and Maybe Not.

My fiancee, a freelance book editor, is currently editing a book that gives advice to teenagers on how to achieve life goals. Occasionally, she reads passages aloud and we both chuckle. I am not allowed to divulge the name, or quote from, the book, but I will say that the reason for our chuckles is that the book endorses the very Oprah-esque idea that believing almost always leads to achieving. Here is an approximation of one chuckle-worthy passage:

The act of believing that one can achieve a goal has a way of alligning the universe in a way favorable to achievement of the goal.

Another...

A goal is a dream that comes true.

Now, I am all for inciting optimism in our youth and telling them that, in theory, they can achieve anything with the right amount of effort and belief in themselves. Unfortunately, ideas like those quoted above take the idea of encouraging youth and "extremize" it by telling them to expect success... and without reminding them that hard work, rather than belief in ones self, is the biggest factor in success.

So, rather than telling bright-eyed teenagers that a "goal is a dream that comes true," it may be better to tell them that "a goal is a dream that can come true with a lot of effort put towards it." Instead of saying that believing that one can achieve "alligns the universe" in favor of the goal coming true, it might be better to tell students that it is they who must allign the universe (as the universe is under no obligation to allign itself to anyone).

And what are the dangers of telling kids that believing equals achieving? What harm does it do to tell our students that the most important ingredient to becoming a famous singer, an NBA superstar, or a successful entrepreneur is belief in ones self?

The dangers to such an approach are as follows: (a) by overemphasizing positive thinking, we are underemphasizing the value of hard work towards achieving goals; (b) by being afraid to tell students that they very well may not achieve their goals - no matter how hard they believe - we are setting them up for probable disappointment; (c) by teling them that the "universe will allign itself" to their goals, we are setting up an entitelement mentality that does not reflect the way the world actually is.

Frankly, I am all the more concerned about the pernicious effects of the "believe and you can achieve" mentality by my work as a school teacher. Per my job as a special educator, I am required to talk with all of my students on their desires after high school. Most of them want to be famous singers, sports stars, or entrepreneurs. On top of this, all but a handful of my students have goals that are well alligned with what tehy aspire to do. (Paritcular standouts are the student convinced of NBA stardom who is a second string on the high school team and the budding entrepreneur who has recently contemplated dropping out of high school.)

I don't wish to sound like a person who would discourage students from having aspirations. I am not going to tell any student that they absolutely cannot be in the NBA, but what I will tell them is that the realistic chance of them being there is small enough that if they are not the very best at what they do, they should not expect the NBA to come knocking. And I am sure that there have been entrepreneurs that never completed high school, but I will tell any student contemplating this path that entrepreneurship requires a whole lot more than a desire to make money and that most businesses (headed by people with college degrees) fail.

The bottom line is that someone needs to tell our students that there is a whole lot more to achieving than believing. Someone needs to tell students that the universe is under no obligation to allign itself to their goals and that no one has give them a job on desire alone. Someone must tell them that they must allign the universe to them and do the work necessary to earn their future jobs, and even then, success is not guaranteed.

I know that "the power of tenacity and hard work" is not nearly as poetic as "the power of positive thinking," but...then again....life is not always poetry.

There is a new study which has found that playing the video game tetris might minimize the number and intensity of post-traumatic stress "flashbacks."

First thoughts: It seems to me that the study is concluding what should have been, but regrettably is not, common sense. It concludes, in essence, that keeping one's mind occupied on other things helps decrease the severity of painful events. For the last twenty or so years, though, we have been told the opposite: that the best thing to do after a painful event is to talk about and obsess over the event. To do otherwise - to play tetris or read a magazine rather than think about the event - would be 'repression' and 'denial.'

I sincerely hope the study is widened to test whether other activities can help minimize the severity of painful memories - maybe playing a card game, reading a novel, or watching a comedy show. It seems self-evident to me that taking one's mind off of painful events would help to reduce their ability to cause pain and I'd be curious to see if other activities besides tetris have similar effects (and which do and don't).

The article also contains this interesting passage:

The Oxford University experiment works on the principle that it may be possible to modify the way in which the brain forms memories in the hours after an event.

In a way, this is a sad revelation because it just shows how wrong the "therapy culture's" current thinking is. We are told that the hours after a traumatic event are precisely the time where we need to talk about and relive the event the most. We are told that those who do not get "counseled" in the hours after a painful event are those most at risk to go through longer periods of denial (which is a stage to be gotten past as quickly as possible).

Christina Hoff Summers and Sally Satel have written a very good book called "One Nation Under Therapy" touching on this problem. Utilizing a strong dose of common sense, they suggest that there is a big gap between "denial" and "refusal to obsess" that psychologists and counselors often don't see. Instead, many psychologists mistake the latter for the former.

As examples of this silliness, the authors point to the flooding in of "grief counselors" to scenes of school-shootings, scenes of accidents and even the events of 9/11/01. These counselors serve one purpose: get people to talk about the event, their feelings about the event, and memories of the event, all in the name of "dealing withi" the event.

If this study is right, though - and I have a sneaking suspicion that it is on to something - the best thing counselors can do in the hours after traumatic events is to show people how to take their mind off the event (without engaging in prolonged repression).

If this article is right, the "therapizers" have been shown once again to be doing more harm than good. Again.

50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School (review)

Bel0w is one of my recent amazon.com reviews of Charles Sykes recent book, "50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School: Real-World Antidotes to Feel-Good Education" [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/031236038X/ref=cm_cr_rev_prod_title

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I work as a high-school special educator and, as such, I can attest to two things: that the advice offered in these pages is GREAT for teenagers, and that they certianly WILL NOT learn it in school! Today's youth grows up an in an "entitlement" world where the prevailing view of self-esteem is "feeling good for no good reason," rather than "earning the right to feel good." They grow up in a fantastical world where they can have instant satisfaction without going though the rigors of hard work that NO ONE is telling them is fantastical. Except for Charles Sykes.

While this book is a collection of maxims such as "Life is not fair. Get used to it," followed by several-page elaborations, the themes of this book can be summed up thusly: live modestly, accept that hard work needs to be put in to get anything out, and live with the knowledge that to get ahead in anything, you have to earn it. Sykes writes in simple and direct language that, while likely meant for adults to read, the average high-schooler could easily absorb.

To be honest, I would love to use this with some of my classes, discussing with them such ideas as "You're not going to the NBS, so hold off on the bling and spare us the attitude," or "You are not immortal" (just two of the mythes prevalent with the high-school crowd that this book so correctly corrects). Students need to hear it, and teachers (and parents) need to say it. I doubt, though, that I would be able to get very far with some of them ("Looking like a slut does not empower you," and "No, you cannot be everything you dream," may get me in trouble with parents.)

Even so, it doesn't mean that YOU can't teach YOUR kids this stuff, and I highly reccomend that you do. If you don't, they certainly aren't going to learn it somewhere like school!