Module 6 Reflections

Alfred Adler, the father of individual psychology, gave us the work which would one day serve as the basis for aspects of a parenting book I found extremely helpful. I read it as my wife was pregnant and keep revisiting it as my son reaches certain developmental milestones. Without getting too much into my personal history, I needed a model which would allow me to separate my own feelings and reactions regarding my child's behavior and filter them through a system which would provide discipline strategies in the healthiest way possible. The Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP) model is one that adopts the Adlerian construct that each (human) child is an individual worthy of the full esteem and respect of adults (Dinkmeyer and McKay, 1982; Fisher, 2001).

 Through this methodology, I am (better) able to distinguish and recognize my son's behavior as a temporary condition as opposed to confusing what he has done relative to his worth as a human being. I therefore consistently reward good behavior, mainly by recognizing the desirable things he does while at the same time either ignoring bad behavior or providing consequences that match those bad behaviors. I never tell him he has been good or bad. He is a child and therefore inherently good and worthy. He may have done something that is not desirable or against the family rules. In these cases he has essentially made a choice which will garner appropriate consequences directly related to the action.

While discipline is not the focus of this week's readings, the commonality is that we help people become self-realized and competent by acknowledging their worth as capable human beings through engaging them in activities that are challenging, intriguing and rewarding and then acknowledging their successes in unmistakable and significant ways that serve as proof to them that they are worthy in the first place (Dweck, 2006). I would go on to say that as part of acknowledging their worth, we hold them accountable for their actions in ways that underscore that they have a choice in all things.

There are myriad examples of this. However, my favorite is an HBO documentary which takes place in Louisville and New York called The Music in Me: The Leopards Take Manhattan: The Little Band that Roared. It is the story of a  percussion group led by Louisville teacher Diane Downs who, through determination and practice, is invited to perform at an international Jazz convention. The takeaway in this story relative to the discussion at hand is that these elementary and middle school children are going way beyond the standard expectations of classroom learning and performance. In fact, they are members of what is ostensibly an after school club.

Listening to the student comments in the documentary made me realize that many days Ms. Downs is doing something which I think is relatively uncommon in a person's academic life; she is validating her students' worthiness by connecting with them on a very personal level and asking for a very high level of performance. The group of children in this video seem driven and fulfilled, even when the going gets rough.

Some of these Louisville Leopards have gone on to study music. However, I am confident all of them have created such deep meaning from this experience that they will link future learning to the moments shared through this experience the rest of their lives. It is as close to magic as I have seen in education.

The more practical aspects of this module as presented by Pajares (2006) give us some advice on engendering positive theories of self belief relative to social constraints. I found three very compelling constructs with regard to this postulate. 

Firstly, all students are capable of being both models and receptive to modeling. Moreover, the teacher is also a very influential model and must be ever aware of the verbal and nonverbal messages he or she sends every day. It seems that issues of group dynamics and modeling could be very complex. This is something that if I were a K-12 teacher I would want to investigate further.

Second, as I mentioned relative to my attempts at becoming a better parent, teachers must make a concerted effort to separate human dignity from human behavior. They must therefore praise effort and individual outcome relative to a starting point in lieu of ability. This is due to the fact that one's true ability may not be completely evident to the teacher, let alone the student and making presumptions about these things without serious attention may be tantamount to setting up students for failure.

Third, teachers have to teach students not only the subject matter at hand, they must also teach students how to accurately view themselves relative to the educational process. They should teach students how to be flexible in their self concepts relative to learning and performing challenging tasks. Students must learn how to recognize their feelings and emotions, deal with them in constructive ways and then sometimes put them aside in order focus on the work at hand. Teachers must highly fixate on fostering optimism and confidence by accentuating and recognizing their students' growing capacities and skill sets as they mature and potentiate their ability become more self-actualized.

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House. [Excerpt]

Dinkmeyer, D., & McKay, G. D. (1983). The Parent's Handbook: Systematic Training for Effective Parenting. Circle Pines Minnesota: American Guidance Service.

Fisher, M. (2001). Alfred Adler Retrieved December 6, 2011, from http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/adler.htm

Pajares, F. (2006). Self-efficacy beliefs during adolescence: Implications for teachers and parents. In F. Pajares & T. Urdan (Eds.), Adolescence and education, Vol. 5: Self-efficacy beliefs of adolescents (pp. 339-367). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.

The Graduate School "A"

I would really like some feedback if anyone is reading. In reading Pajares, I am reminded of something. Please consider the following passage:

"The student accustomed to receiving As is likely to have her academic confidence bruised; the C-acquainted student is sure to have her confidence boosted.Context is not always everything, but it colors everything" (p 342).

I am not bragging when I say this, because Dr. Usher mentioned something to this effect in a post. Graduate students are supposed to be A students. University policy compels it. I have a 4.0 graduate GPA both here and  in my master's program, one of just a fraction to accomplish that.

This article brought up several thoughts, but most prominent in my mind is that there are different levels of A. In my graduate school experience, I believe there are three types.

The first is what I call a marginal A. It is really a B but a B has become socially unacceptable. You get this A when your work is competent, but not excellent. Giving a B might either demotivate the student or the professor is not interested in engaging substantively the reason for assigning a B and so it is the most expedient action to assign the A.

The second kind of A is acceptable. To earn an acceptable A means that you maintained satisfactory progress but added only a little to the class or to yourself as a result of metabolizing the material. This is the kind of A most faculty give. However, it also probably means that the professor will not remember you as a student in class a year or two down the road.

The last is the masterful A. This is the A that says you own the material. You have processed it, making deep connections. You have compartmentalized or discarded what is less useful and weaved what is important into your personal schemata. Masterful students make an impact on the class and leave the teacher with an impression, even if they do not agree with the student on philosophical points or if the student shows his or her novice.

Why we are so loathe to assign and accept less than an A grade was something of a mystery to me. However, Pajares says that it has a lot to do with how we see ourselves relative to our own personal self-beliefs and the environment in which we operate. Additionally, we live in a world where relative performance is of utmost concern. We have to rank individuals. I understand the need to do this in certain contexts, but in others it is perplexing.