Archive for: April 2009

I recently read that closer cooperation between community colleges and business is an emerging trend.  The future job market is going to demand more skilled technicians.  Utility companies are already predicting a shortage of skilled workers when the wave of baby boomers begins to retire.  They are going to need workers to update our electrical grid as well as tap into new energy industries.  All of these jobs will require a particular set of skills not obtained through traditional degree programs. 

At the same time most graduate programs in American universities are producing a product for which there is no market.  Many graduate candidates are seeking positions that do not exist or have skills for which there is a diminishing demand.

The two scenarios illustrate a real disconnect with the present reality.   On one side is the traditional university model with an emphasis on scholarship and on the other the need for a narrower set of skills and expertise with real job applications. 

Reading all of this made me think that perhaps there is a dirty secret of higher education.  The dirty secret is it’s not sustainable.  Years ago when my husband and I attended universities it was possible to work your way through school and graduate without a mountain of debt.  Today students must leverage enormous loans and hope to find a job that will allow them to repay the loan before they retire.  Something is not right.

If we are going to encourage our children to aspire to higher learning than we must at the very least offer them opportunities that will make this financially profitable as well as intellectually enriching.  There has to be a balance between gaining intellectual perspective and the ability to earn a respectable income. 

How can we hope to do this?

First we must find ways to restructure colleges and universities.  Just like Wall Street and Detroit must be regulated so must higher education if it is going to thrive into the 21^st century.   Second schools must adapt to this new thinking.  Students should be encouraged to become life-long learners.  Not just learning for the sake of monetary gain but learning for the betterment of all.   A population of citizens who aspire to know more not just to be more becomes a global asset.  

Informed people seek alternatives, improved ways and demand better for themselves and their neighbors.  Education is the best and maybe the only way to deliver on this aspiration. 

As our schools find their way in our new economic order they must also find the best path to encourage children to be curious, to become seekers and explorers.   Desire is a powerful motivator, just read the biographies of our most beloved scientists and what they all share is a powerful desire to know more.

Sometimes difficulties create the most perfect environment for change.  Maybe that perfect opportunity is now. 

It is possible to ignore stereotypes.  It is possible to accept the unconventional over the traditional.

The part of the brain that feeds us information on stereotypes and biases is linked with memory and goal planning. We recruit stereotypes and ideas and use this information as a way to make plans that are consistent with our goals.  When people and ideas don’t fit in with our preconceived notions we tend to ignore the contradictions until they become too dramatic to overlook.  When an exceptional situation gets our attention  we are confronted with changing  our thinking. 

This was demonstrated very dramatically last week when a dowdy looking Scottish woman named Susan Boyle captured both the attention and admiration of the world when she surprised an audience with her beautiful singing voice.

Susan’s voice was a contradiction to her appearance. The audience was prepared to dislike her based on her unattractiveness. What happened instead was a surprise and a pleasure when they heard her sing.  She made them feel good. It’s possible that the surprise and pleasure of her voice resulted in a rush of dopamine.

That same rush happens anytime we experience a novelty.  The Alliance College Ready Public School in Los Angeles is also a novelty.  In one of the most challenged and depressed urban districts in the county they have a 90% graduation rate.  These disadvantaged students complete  college prep courses and go onto universities despite being surrounded by a culture of violence.  

The school was also in the news when philanthropist Eli Broad donated six million dollars to their 11 schools.  He said the reason for the donation was because it’s time to take notice of the emerging leadership and excellence of charter schools.

In major cities all over the US charter schools are competing with public schools for students because they are demonstrating they are not resistant to fundamental changes.   Instead of just compensating students with learning differences, emotional issues, and  language and cultural barriers they are seeking methods to strengthen weak areas in learning.

Exceptional schools are schools that refuse to accept horrible outcomes year after year.  These schools have adapted interventions and developed evidence based teaching practices that respect their student’s weaknesses while finding new ways to improve. 

The Alliance College-Ready School is one of the 70 international school chains profiled on the School Chain Showcase.  This non-profit organization  (www.schoolchains.org) hopes to raise awareness by profiling successful school chains from around the world and showing the different ways they educate their students. 

On the website schools in Africa, Europe, America, and Asia demonstrate how it is possible to embrace a paradigm shift and create institutional changes.  These schools have looked at problems in a new way and found new possibilities.  Instead of being dumped into the failure category often associated with disadvantage and poverty they are embracing a whatever it takes belief and making systematic changes.

Visit the website – www.schoolchains.org to find ways and partners to improve education

Did you know that the average time between the onset of puberty and the formation of a committed sexual relationship is longer now that it has ever been in human history?

That’s a lot of years to be expected to just say no.  Today our children are quite different biologically from those in the past.  Our improved diets, artificial light, decreased physical activity, and the explosion of sexually provocative material have resulted in earlier puberty and greater sexual activity and fertility than in the past.  Unfortunately it’s almost impossible to keep children from being exposed to the overly sexualized media content.  It is estimated that on average children view about 14,000 sexual references per year.  Sex and sexual innuendo on TV rarely show the adverse consequences of irresponsible sexual behavior.  

My daughter a medical student shadowed an ob-gyn doctor in an inner city clinic.  She was shocked to learn this doctor spent 75% of her day with girls under the age of 18.  These girls were either pregnant, had contacted an STD or had  serious infections.   The doctor told her the best she could do was prescribing appropriate medication and warning these young girls about the dangers of future unprotected sex.  She expected to see most of them back with more serious complications.

Children feel the sex drive in their bodies long before they are psychologically ready to commit to the demands of a mature relationship.  Until we can educate our children that sex is natural but needs respectful and loving expressions  we will be dealing with the consequences of reckless and unprotected sex. 

Today in our schools there is no dedicated funding toward comprehensive sex education.  The type of content presented to our children does not educate them on male and female anatomy, contraceptives and disease.  Children need to understand how their bodies respond sexually and girls need to learn how their bodies are connected both physically and emotionally to all phases of their menstrual cycles.

 Teachers need to become less fearful of these taboo subjects and more outspoken in demanding the right kind of content in our Sex Ed programs.  Leaving this to the vocal minority will doom our children to a lifetime of ignorance and abuse.  The best lesson for children is to learn that their bodies are their own, and to develop respect for this.  Knowledge is power: all children deserve solid sex education because sex is an inevitable part of their lives.  The best kind of program will teach:

• How to value themselves and their bodies.  Children who respect their bodies are better prepared not to compromise themselves with casual sexual encounters. 

• The sexuality – spirituality connection.  There’s a critical difference both biochemically and neurologically between having sex as an extension of an emotional bond and having casual sex with someone you don’t really care about.  Children need sufficient self-esteem to experience this solid loving connection. 

• The facts about male and female sexual anatomy.  Girls need to  understand not just the mechanics of their own menstrual cycle but the different phases and the accompanying emotional and physical changes that occur during the month.  Boys need to be taught female anatomy as well as understanding the role their hormones play in thoughts and behavior. 

• The facts about how to prevent pregnancy and protect themselves against sexually transmitted disease.  This information has never been shown to increase the likelihood of a teenagers having sex. Many teens define sex as intercourse and don’t understand that oral sex is sex.  STD’s can be transmitted during oral sex including HIV and AIDS.  Girls who succumb to the pressure of providing oral sex to earn popularity and acceptance will discover our culture’s double standard and their own devalued status. 

 If we can teach our children to respect their sexuality as part of a miraculous process then it’s possible to help guide them toward making responsible choices.  This is a life skill that will contribute to the greater good and benefit society. 

Currently there are over 7 million patents in the US.  Compare that to the 1.5 million identified species on the earth and what you have is a pretty impressive mismatch between the biological world and the world of man made products. 

It’s no wonder that most of us are confused when presented with the task of decreasing our personal carbon footprint.   I thought that I was making an ecological contribution when I purchased a stainless steel water bottle.  I had kicked the bottled water habit for good.  And then I read the process of making stainless steel results in ten times more pollution than regular steel.  When you factor in the countless steps down the supply chain to get this bottle to me it’s easy to see I’ve only traded one wasteful product for another. 

So what’s the answer?

Some solutions just seem too easy.  Before bottled water and the need to be constantly hydrated there was always a simple way of getting water, the drinking fountain.  I had allowed myself to become a victim of 21^st century marketing.  The fact is I don’t need to carry a bottle of water around with me at all.  There is access to clean water in almost any place I might be.

When I started to think about it that’s really our problem with going green, we have forgotten the simple solutions.   Today we rely on too many products.  They clutter up our homes, our trash and our landfills. 

Earth Day is Wednesday April 22 so this year instead of just taking a walk to pick up trash I’m taking an inventory of what I really need.

It helps when I remember my childhood and how few things I wanted or even needed, the requisite toys were a bike, a baseball glove and bat, jump role and crayons. The best times involved no things at all, it was being naturally happy. Like playing tag in the fading evening light and lying in the grass gazing at the stars.  

If we are really going to change then it’s important to reflect on the words of Albert Einstein, “the problems we face cannot be solved at the same of level of thinking that created them.”

None of us crave a vacation inside a shopping mall.  We all hunger for natural things. We plan trips to the beach, the mountains or the woods.  Technology will never be able to replicate or replace what nature gives us.  Our green world benefits our health and our spirits.

This Wednesday make a pledge to give up some convenience in favor of the greater good.  And let your purchasing power shout.  No more throw away anything.  This teeny individual battle in the much larger war against the environment can be won if millions of us are willing to do this.

Teachers talk a lot about self-esteem, but do they really understand how it is the cornerstone of health and positive behaviors?

A simple definition of self-esteem is having respect and positive regard for yourself.  Children learn to feel right about themselves from the loving attention of their mothers.  If a child basks in the love of the mother the connection between the orbitorfrontal brain and the body is established.   This connection makes it easier for a child to go within itself to feel what is right and to know how to go after it.  This also establishes a connection for empathy.  Without empathy self-esteem becomes self-centeredness and narcissism.

The first way children experience self-esteem is by feeling confident in their body through physical strength, endurance, and flexibility.   Schools can become the primary place to promote this physical poweress.  Unfortunately schools often tap into competitive sports as the measure of physical fitness.  This template sets up a compete and compare mentality that can contribute to failure and low self-esteem.  There is a wide range of sports abilities among children and a wide variation in the rate of development of these skills.  If every child is expected to conform to the same standard then it’s inevitable that some of them will fail. 

Malcolm Gladwell the author of “Outliners” writes about the phenomenon of relative age.  What he and others found is that the cut-off birth dates for participation in all sports was the predictor of success. 

This effect was first observed in Canadian professional hockey players.  Overwhelmingly most have birthdates in January.  Now this has nothing to do with astrology it simply means that in Canada the cut-off for eligibility to play hockey is January 1.   There is an enormous difference in size and ability between boys born in December and one born January 2. 

What happens is that this skewered age distribution favors certain birthdates.  Larger more coordinated players receive more attention and instruction than smaller less coordinated players.  Becoming proficient in sports is a product of a sort of natural selection because who gets to the top is not just the hardest seed but  the one given the most sunlight. 

This phenomenon is also seen in European professional soccer and in American college players.  Schools are victim of this same birth date cutoff because students are not learning with others of the same age and maturity levels.   This selection favors older students in every aspect of learning but is most obvious in physical fitness. 

If a school’s physical fitness class is structured and limited to playing sports than a large number of students will never experience the power of their own body.  The school’s approach and attitude toward fitness must recognize the connection between the mind and the body. 

The best way to do this is make the school a “fit” environment.  Fitness becomes part of every day, not just during gym class.  Walking, stretching, moving are essential to create flexibility and strength and should be incorporated into all aspects of the school day.  As children work through their day they gain energy and appreciation of their own healthy bodies. 

Yoga, Pilates, aerobics, dance, or movement to music can help all students regardless of natural ability achieve fitness.  And this  is accomplished without competition and without fear of failure. 

Self-esteem is an inside job, but schools are a part of the proving ground to promote it.   If children are comfortable in their own skin developing social skills and self-discipline will be easier.

Physical fitness is the first requisite to happiness; the ability to feel strong and capable in your own body is an essential element for feeling safe and secure in the world.  Of all the lifetime factors that have been studied physical fitness is the  most accurate predictor of longevity and health. 

Many schools embrace some sort of character education in an effort to curtail discipline problems.   The hope is for students to stop and think how they would feel in difficult situations and use that feeling as a gauge for their own behavior.  The question is does it work?

The problem with most programs is they are limited in their desired influence.  The best program cannot change a school’s environment.  The best test of character lies in the attitudes of the teaching staff.  Do they embody the values and principles of empathy, kindness and respect?

This weekend I read an interesting article in the New York Times on teaching character.  It seems school districts across the country are spending enormous sums of money hoping to find a program that is comprehensive but does not crowd out the academic mission of their schools.

This sounded like a contradiction to me because what could be more important than helping to shape the character of every student.  The mission of any school need not be limited to academic achievement in fact it should be to nurture the desire to learn in collaboration and cooperation with each other.  If the mission focuses on the narrow goal of promoting individual achievement than it fosters the type of competing and comparing that often threaten acceptance, tolerance and synergy.  

For thirteen years I supervised a disciple program in a middle school.  The purpose of our program was to provide a quality environment and engage the student in a process of responsible decision-making.  The hope was in this process the student would accept responsibility for their actions and choose a better positive way to solve a problem.  The character component was critical.   It was successful in a limited way because it only engaged students with behavior problems.  It was not proactive because it did not reach the greater number of students who helped shape and influence the environment of the school.  Nor did it work to change the attitudes of the teaching staff.  Despite devoted time and energy there was no paradigm shift in the way we looked at solving problems.  What we needed was a critical examination of how each one of us hoped to embody the principles of character. 

As a staff we were an older version of our middle school population.  There was gossip, there were cliques, there was bullying, there was jealousy, there were petty grievances and wasted energy on small things.   I have no doubt that students were aware of these adult relationships and viewed them as a template for their own behavior. 

The best way to teach character is to show love and kindness.  The environment that has a high regard for individual differences, for forgiveness and acceptance is one that allows everything to flourish.  Think of it in terms of providing rich compost that needs little to protect it during times of stress.  The environment itself is the protection. 

This connected integrated view holds true for every system in the universe.  Our own bodies operate so smoothly that we can forget about them until some failure captures our attention. 

Schools can become the best place to be if the adults insist on nurturing an environment of love of kindness.  It will be apparent to every child that character is not just a buzzword, or an inspirational message, it is a practice built on the right foundation.