Category Archives: Book Reviews

Humans are capable of horrifying aggression, dehumanization, destruction, and violence and at the same time inspirational altruism, compassion, and forgiveness. Drawing on an astounding array of evidence from across subfields within biology, neuroscience, psychology, and anthropology, Robert M. Sapolsky explains how people come to display these behaviors. Sapolsky, a Stanford University professor of biology and neurology, has recently written Behave: The Biology of Humans at our Best and our Worst. The book traces behaviors to occurrences in the brain, body, environment, and culture preceding an action on timescales ranging from seconds to thousands of years. Although long and intricate, the arguments are easy to follow because of the captivating integration of interdisciplinary research, the use of an informal, engaging tone, and appendices that aid in understanding basics of neuroscience, endocrinology, and proteins. This book is an excellent choice for those looking for a non-fiction book recommendation and for those committed to understanding how to harness the best of human behavior.

Although our best and worst behaviors do not begin in the brain, in the seconds before we act the factors that enable our actions converge in the brain. Sapolsky describes how our nervous system and particularly certain parts of the brain (e.g., the amygdala) contribute to our aggressive behaviors and how other parts (e.g., the frontal cortex) contribute to difficult but appropriate behaviors. Immediately preceding a behavior there are also cues in the environment that impact the decisions we make. These cues may be subliminal, verbal, visual, or from our body. Hormones such as testosterone and oxytocin impact the way we behave on a protracted timescale and as a function of their ratios relative to one another. Although the interaction between our genes and environment shapes our behavior, our genes influence our behavior to a lesser extent than most think, Sapolsky argues. Nonetheless, he offers an evolutionary perspective on how we have evolved to cooperate (or not).

A human development perspective is helpful in understanding how people behave the way they do. For example, Sapolsky reviews the fact that adolescence is a time during which individuals across cultures (and even species) engage in greater risk-taking, exploration, peer affiliation, and emotional reactivity. The brain’s frontal cortex, which supports engaging in self-regulation, is not yet able to operate at maximal efficiency. This contributes to adolescents exhibiting some aberrant behaviors. However, well before adolescence, during infancy and childhood, people are developing social and moral skills such as empathy, perspective-taking, and the delay of gratification that will contribute to their propensity to act in certain ways as adults. A child’s environment, including the parenting practices, culture, and socio-economic status to which they are exposed, affects their development on both biological and psychological levels. Sapolsky is careful to caution, however, that it is unlikely that childhood experiences will definitively lead to a specific adult behavior.

Sapolsky reviews cornerstone social and affective psychological research about how we identify with others, rank members of our groups, obey authority, act morally, and understand and alleviate other’s suffering. We naturally tend to form groups of “us” and “them,” and we tend to think of “them” more negatively than “us.” We form hierarchies that formalize unequal access to resources, although humans are unique among species in that sometimes those at the top of hierarchies try to serve the common good, and not only their own. All societies have rules about moral and ethical behavior, although there are cultural differences in morality. Religion likely evolved to help us do right, and belief in a judgmental god facilitates strangers interacting cooperatively.  While empathy can help us understand how others feel, it is actually an emotionally distant stance that helps us act more compassionately. Social neuroscientists have made sweeping claims about the role of “mirror neurons”—neurons that activate both when we perform an action and when we see someone else perform that action—in feeling and understanding other’s pain. Sapolsky cautions that the importance of mirror neurons in understanding and mimicking others’ behavior and taking their perspective has likely been oversold.

Sapolsky concludes by expressing his concern about flagrant injustices in the criminal justice system. Although he calls for major revision to the system and to how we treat those found guilty of crimes, on the whole he ends on a hopeful note. Overall, there is a trend towards the worst of human behavior declining (e.g., fewer murders, less denial of rights) and example after example of remarkably inspiring behavior occurring even in the most unlikely of circumstances. People are on average more generous with others than it is logical for them to be. Moreover, we have reason to be hopeful because, as Sapolsky demonstrates, we have an ever-growing body of knowledge about how to inspire the best of human behavior.

Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. New York, NY: Penguin Press.

 

Today’s learners have different needs than those of yesterday. Educators and policy makers, therefore, need to rethink optimal learning environments. Heidi Hayes Jacobs, founder and president of Curriculum Designers, and Marie Hubley Alcock, president of the education consulting company Learning System Associates, help educators and policy makers contemporize education spaces, curriculum, and pedagogical practices with their new book Bold Moves for Schools: How We Create Remarkable Learning Environments.

The authors argue for the need for updated learning principles, enumerate and explain skills of the effective contemporary teacher, and explain options that have emerged recently for expanding learning environments. Jacobs and Alcock offer guidance about selecting and updating curricula and assessments, especially in light of the significant problems associated with current standardized assessments. They advocate for the benefits of more shared leadership in educational settings. Jacobs and Alcock offer a realistic and progressive vision for how the skilled educators of today can push education practice forward to help prepare students for tomorrow. They urge educators to learn and develop themselves always. With the recommended readings and study guide questions in Bold Moves for Schools, this book can help educators do exactly that.

The authors argue that reformers can begin to affect change by considering education practices that are antiquated and should be eliminated, classical and ought to be preserved, and contemporary and ought to be formulated and expanded. For example, while we should discontinue thinking of students as empty vessels and teachers as disseminators of knowledge, we should think of students as budding creative and critical thinkers whom teachers are responsible for nurturing. Today’s learners need to develop skill in directing their own learning process, building social contracts, critiquing and producing media, innovating, and acting as global citizens. Teachers need to model these skills for their students and advocate for effective, contemporary learning practices. The authors offer bulleted lists of action steps to help teachers develop each of these skills.

In addition to changes in the teaching profession, there must be changes made also to the content taught. Experimental learning, learning that takes place outside the classroom, and learning that is organized around a topic or issue rather than an academic subject can help energize students’ learning by allowing them to feel a sense of ownership and offering opportunities for personalization based on students’ needs.

Schools can update the way they think about learning space, teaching time, the grouping of learners, and the group of teachers to improve learning. For example, rather than grouping students based on age, students could be grouped by interest. Similarly, rather than grouping teachers based on the subjects they teach, groupings ought to be more dynamic, multi-dimensional, and collegial. The benefits of strong professional learning communities should be stressed to teachers. A lateral, collaborative leadership structure within schools and the education system might help make it possible for more innovation. Making major changes in schools can be difficult. Jacobs and Alcock suggest setting up planning teams to help with changes, clarifying a school’s mission, and seeking feedback at multiple levels, including from students before implementing changes.

According to the authors one major issue that has stymied learning in a major way is our accountability system. The exaggerated focus on high stakes tests makes teachers feel a lack of trust and respect, diminishes the appeal of the teaching profession, and discourages collaboration among teachers. It leads to untested, but valuable, subjects being eliminated or whittled down, and it stifles creative and critical thinking. Testing and accountability matter, but we need a radical shift in what assessments look like. They should be authentic, based in performance of real-world tasks and skills, based on measuring innovation and student growth and development, take place over an extended period of time, and include input from students.

We are departing from the industrial age for the information age. Learning environments need to change to keep up. With the help of Bold Moves for Schools Educators and policy makers can use the objective of improving learning as the starting point for the modernization of learning environments.

 

Jacobs, H. H., & Alcock, M. H. (2017). Bold Moves for Schools: How We Create Remarkable Learning Environments. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Reading is a complex cognitive task. How is it that our minds are able to read? Daniel T. Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and acclaimed author, tackles that question in his book The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads. He builds a cognitive model of reading to explain how people understand letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, and full texts. He discusses the critical role of motivation to read in gaining skill in reading. By concluding each chapter with bullet point summaries, implications, and discussion questions, The Reading Mind is easy-to-read. It provides good fodder for teachers, parents, education practioners, and policy-makers interested in thinking deeply about how we read and how we support people in reading more and with greater understanding.

Reading is important for individuals and societies because by writing ideas down we create permanent records of information and help ourselves expand what we are able to remember. While the advantages of reading and writing may be obvious, the process by which we read is less so. First, we must understand that letters correspond to speech sounds called phonemes. Being able to distinguish different sounds of speech is associated with success in reading. Unfortunately, distinguishing these sounds is difficult because people pronounce sounds differently, and the sounds can change depending on the other sounds that occur before or after. English has poor matching between letters and sounds. This slows down the process of learning to read English compared to languages with better matching.

Together letters make words. We do not typically read words letter-by-letter. Rather, we read words in letter clumps. Nearly every word has an associated sound, spelling, and meaning, each of which affects how we read. For example: (1) we read tongue twisters silently to ourselves more slowly than equivalent phrases with dissimilar sounding words; (2) instruction in spelling improves reading abilities; and (3) we are more ready to read words with meanings associate with the words we just read than words that are typically not related. Because students encounter about 85,000 unique words in school texts, vocabulary size matters for reading comprehension. Additionally, understanding deeply how words relate to one another and how to use them flexibly is valuable for developing skill in reading.

Willingham explains that an understanding of sentences requires an understanding of how one sentence relates to the next. As we read sentences we build a web of ideas. If readers cannot connect the ideas in sentences, then it is difficult to build such a web. Reading and understanding sentences is also aided by a rich understanding of knowledge about the world. A knowledgeable reader can fill in details a writer omits. Indeed, reading comprehension is much better the more background knowledge a reader has about the topic of the written material.

Beyond being able to read, Willingham argues that having the emotional motivation to do so is important. There is a virtuous cycle in which the more a person reads the better a reader he becomes. The better a reader he becomes the more he enjoys reading. The more he enjoys reading the more he reads. An individual’s past experiences in reading, her sense of herself as a reader, how valuable (e.g., enjoyable, informative) she expects reading to be, and the value of reading relative to other possible activities all impact the likelihood that an individual will read. Making reading materials easily accessible can help people read more. Although many well-meaning teachers and parents try to incentivize reading with rewards, Willingham warns that when the reward is removed the student may actually read even less than before the reward was introduced.

Willingham concludes with a timely discussion of the relationship between technology and the reading mind. He argues that more research is needed to parse out the particular feature of technological interventions that have the power to improve reading. Although there is much concern about technology making youth more distractible, Willingham argues that this concern is not well-supported. It may be the case, however, that students are less willing to tolerate boredom. While teens’ time spent with new technologies has not displaced time spent reading, Willingham still recommends limiting the amount of time youth spend on screens. Doing so may help make spending time reading a more appealing option.

As Willingham notes, it is difficult to translate science research about reading into recommendations for policy or practice. While being careful not to over-interpret research findings, The Reading Mind offers useful suggestions for how policy-makers and practioners can use cognitive psychological literature to inform their work. For additional insightful work by Willingham, see our review of his book Raising Kids Who Read.

 

Willingham, D.T. (2017). The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

As an easy-to-read and engaging textbook or as a scientifically accurate and detailed popular psychology book, David Eagleman’s The Brain: The Story of You is an ideal book for people seeking to teach themselves an introduction to cognitive neuroscience and psychology. Eagleman, a neuroscientist, New York Times best-selling author and an adjunct professor at Stanford, frames each chapter of the book with lofty, existential questions such as “Who am I?” and “Who will we be?” In this book, Eagleman reviews how the human brain develops, how our senses and ability to perceive the world develop, how external factors influence our actions and decision-making, why we are such social creatures, and how technology might augment and extend our lives.

The human brain undergoes substantial development throughout our lives, particularly from birth through adolescence. Indeed, it must undergo more development after birth than does the brain of nearly any other species. Our brains are shaped substantially by the context in which they develop. They need all kinds of stimulation and social support to develop optimally. We are very social creatures. For example, we see social relationships even in inanimate objects; babies can demonstrate a preference for characters who are nice as compared to ones who are mean; and we act like the people around us.

As an incredibly calorically expensive organ, we depend on our brains for a lot of what we do. For example, while we colloquially say that we see through our eyes and smell through our noses, really we perceive the world through our brains’ interpretation of the information received through other organs. This interpretation means that we are not necessarily experiencing an objective relative. Rather, we experience what we expect to sense. Eagleman explains how our brain supports us in experiencing each of our senses. Even seemingly simple and mundane tasks such as walking or sipping a beverage requires a significant amount of coordination across our senses, which our brain orchestrates.

Eagleman explores how we make decisions and how we choose to act. He argues that there are numerous unconscious influences on our actions. While our brains lead us to believe that we consciously make choices, evidence from many sources suggests that we often choose unconsciously, and only generate a justification consciously. Physiological signals can also influence our actions and steer our decision-making. Brain systems compete for the ability to guide our actions and decisions. This has been demonstrated with patients who have had the two hemispheres of their brains severed from one another. In these people we see one hemisphere will lead the person to perform an action that contradicts the action the other hemisphere wishes to perform. Deeply troubled by humans’ evil actions against others, Eagleman reviews work about how on micro and macro scales we decide to mistreat others. He argues ceasing to see others as people (i.e., dehumanizing them) and instead seeing them as objects is a primary mechanism by which we choose to mistreat others.

Our brains are driven both to seek rewards and to plan for the future. People often establish a contract between their current self and their future self to help resist present temptations and increase the likelihood of performing adaptive behaviors for the future. For example, as someone tries to quit smoking, she might give a friend a large check made out to an organization she despises and tell the friend to mail the check if she smokes again. Eagleman reviewed work that he has led in which he attempts to use neurofeedback (i.e., providing people with information about the relative activity of a part of the brain that is involved in seeking rewards versus a part involved in thinking about the more distant future) to help people addicted to drugs regulate their cravings, thereby resisting current rewards to live a healthier life.

Eagleman concludes with a fascinating exploration of the way in which we might use technology to enhance our bodies and lengthen our lives. While it may not be apparent to us, we have already begun to use technology to enhance what our bodies can do. For example, cochlear implants, which provide those who are deaf with a sense of hearing, are a way in which we have shown that our brains and technology can work together. While the human brain cannot be explained entirely by a computer model, Eagleman explores how human-like robots, brain simulations, and attempts to “upload” our brains may all contribute to an understanding of the brain, and of how we can use technology to preserve ourselves for a long time.

The Brain: The Story of You will be of great interest for those seeking to understanding the human brain and how it makes us who we are.

 

 

 

Eagleman, D. (2015). The Brain: The story of you. Pantheon.

Children and adolescents with greater empathy tend to be happier, more successful, more resilient, and more critical in their thinking. Dr. Michele Borba, educational psychologist and psychology expert on several TV programs, argues in Unselfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in our All-About-Me World that we can help students accrue the “empathy advantage” by helping them develop 9 key habits to strengthen and utilize empathy. Given that today’s youngest generation is more self-absorbed than previous ones and is experiencing high rates of bullying, cheating, and mental health issues, it is critically important to help this generation understand the feelings and thoughts of other people, even when those other people are very different from oneself. This book will appeal to parents and educators, who are interested in fostering empathy, not only to raise kind children, but also to raise satisfied and successful ones.

Emotional literacy, or the ability to read cues of others’ emotional states, has been associated with better school performance. Skilled perspective-taking is associated with greater popularity. Kids and teenagers’ heavy digital media use (on average almost eight hours a day) can undermine the development of emotional literacy. Borba suggests that parents model appropriate use of technology, and have times when kids don’t use technology. She suggests also expressing feelings, teaching children a large vocabulary of emotional words, reading books and news stories that make them think about others’ feelings and situations, befriending a diverse group of people, and practicing reading emotions and taking perspective by giving children the opportunity to care for others.

Borba argues also for the importance of developing strong moral identities and moral imaginative abilities. She shows that the majority of today’s teenagers value their personal happiness over their being a good person, and parents contribute to teenagers’ under-valuing moral goodness by rarely praising character, even as they over-praise other accomplishments. Borba suggests parents teach children to value being the type of person who cares about others by explicating the family’s core values, modeling altruism, debating moral issues, reading fiction, and pausing to ask “what if” questions while reading.

Self-regulation, teamwork, and practicing kindness are three skills that help kids utilize their empathy abilities. Drawing on the work of Walter Mischel (reviewed here), Borba shows that self-regulatory abilities are associated with several important professional and health-related life outcomes. Parents and teachers can help by modeling calmness, teaching breathing exercises, and creating quiet spaces. Borba states that teamwork and collaboration make kids happier, healthier, and better academic performers, yet opportunities to spontaneously engage in collaboration are decreasing due to limited unstructured play time and the elimination of recess.

To help students learn to be team players, it is important for kids to see how they are similar to other people and see their success as linked to others’ success. Parents and teachers can praise teamwork above individual performance. To help kids practice kindness, the most important first step is to do something kind because doing one kind deed makes people more likely to do another, according to Borba. Kids should know that their parents value their being kind people. Parents can model kindness for their kids. They can help their children brainstorm ways to do kind things and then do those kind acts together. Borba reminds us that many kind gestures (e.g., giving a sincere compliment) do not cost a dime.

Finally, to experience the transformational power of empathy, children need moral courage and the ability to act as an altruistic leader. They need to develop an internal drive that compels them to help those others, even when they might experience repercussions for doing so. They also need to actively defend their values. Often time kids fail to demonstrate moral courage (e.g., in the face of bullying) because they feel powerless, they are unsure about whether intervening is appropriate, they are concerned about peers’ reactions, they think someone else will address the issue, or they are crippled by their feelings for a victim’s plight. Parents can help children develop moral courage and the ability to lead by modeling moral action, exposing children to heroes who can inspire them, rehearsing with kids what they might do if faced with a moral challenge, teaching kids that their ability to empathize can grow with time, and highlighting for them the impact that their good deeds have on others. By valuing moral goodness parents counter-act popular culture messages that place supreme value on fame and materialism.

With Borba’s description of these 9 helpful empathy habits, stories that illuminate the value of each, an explanation of the science supporting the habits, and a list of creative and age-specific examples of how to foster them, parents can help their children receive the empathy advantage.

Borba, M. (2016). Unselfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-about-me World. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

Imagine your son leaving for school with his homework forgotten on the kitchen table or your daughter’s soccer coach consistently giving her less playing time than you think she deserves. Jessica Lahey, middle school teacher, New York Times columnist, and mother of two, cautions parents against intervening in these and similar situations because protecting kids from their mistakes or mildly difficult circumstances can undermine their competence and autonomy. Her book, The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed, argues that overprotective parenting, which is all too common in today’s competitive culture, teaches kids that failure is bad, when really it can be a useful experience for helping children gain independence and confidence, develop grit, and maintain a love of learning. This book will help parents of toddlers to teens embrace failure in order to increase success.

Popular ideas about appropriate parent-child relationships in the U.S. have changed dramatically over the last few centuries and even in the last few decades. Most notably, Lahey argues that children have gone from being seen as “profitable to priceless” and parents are rightfully worried about the ways in which their parenting can adversely impact their children. She suggests that, to the extent possible in today’s hectic and competitive world, parents allow their children to have a childhood filled with carefree play, exploration, and indeed failure.

We all learn best, Lahey argues, when we are intrinsically motivated to learn. One notable and well-institutionalized violation of this principle is grading school work. Grades can undermine motivation and long-term learning. Parents can help counteract the damaging impact of grades by encouraging children to focus on setting and striving towards personal goals, rather than focusing primarily on grades. Small failures in school, when the stakes are relatively low, can help children avoid larger failures later. Parents can help by modeling for their children how to learn from failure and by teaching them a growth mindset, or the idea that with effort we can improve our skills and ability. They can help children understand the consequences of mistakes, provide feedback about challenging situations, provide emotional support when students encounter failure, praise effort towards addressing challenges, and make sure children know they are loved unconditionally.

The damage from protecting kids from failure is cumulative. On the other hand, when parents afford their children autonomy, the children are more likely to learn, explore, and stay focused and organized. Parents can help their children be autonomous in a number of different realms. Children should be expected to contribute to household work. Although parents can do these chores faster or better, children should understand that they are responsible for helping to maintain the place where they live. Parents should avoid interfering with children’s play and friendships as much as possible. Negotiating playground squabbles, resolving sibling disputes, and experiencing adolescent friendships grow and wane help children develop interpersonal skills that will be beneficial. Parents should avoid pressuring kids about their athletic performance or criticizing coaches and referees. Recently, parent-teacher relationships have eroded, but parents can support their children’s autonomy and learning when they show their children that they trust their teachers, have open communications with the teachers, model enthusiasm for learning (rather than drive for perfection), and encourage students to advocate for themselves to their teachers. Parents of college students should allow and require their children to be almost entirely autonomous, while they continue to show interest and support.

Two skills that undergo significant development during adolescence are executive functioning, or our ability to manage ourselves and our mental resources, and working memory, our ability to maintain and manipulate information in our mind. Parents and teachers can help shape adolescents’ environment to compensate for their not yet fully developed abilities by teaching students to notice the behaviors that proceed acting impulsively, giving students time to transition between activities, keeping a calendar, providing predictability in the teen’s life, writing instructions, setting clear expectations, teaching time management, and teaching active listening.   They can also help children get sufficient sleep and remain hydrated and well-fed.

Throughout The Gift of Failure Lahey acknowledges that letting students fail can be gut-wrenching, but she maintains that it is worth it. At one point as a teacher she realized that, “all of that [student] failure, failure that nearly gave me an ulcer, resulted in a great learning experience for the students.” With the advice in this book and discipline on the part of teachers and parents to allow their children to fail, children may begin to experience more failure, more learning, and ultimately more success—hopefully with fewer parent and teacher ulcers.

Lahey, J. (2015). The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed. New York, NY: Haper Collins Publishing Inc.

“Who you are is more important than what you know.” This principle forms the basis of The Formative Five: Fostering Grit, Empathy, and Other Success Skills Every Student Needs. Author Thomas R. Hoerr, who served as the head of the New City School in St. Louis for 34 years and teaches at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, argues that our schools needs to adapt to shape students into good spouses, workers, and citizens. We need to help students navigate flexibly the rapid changes they are likely to encounter (e.g., in the fragility of our natural environment, ubiquity of computers, and demographic diversity in society).

In an era when accountability and standardized tests dominate, it can be difficult to get school administrators, teachers, or parents to focus on social and emotional skills, but these skills may be what matters most for success. Specifically, Hoerr identifies five skills that make students successful and that students can refine with good teaching. Two of these are relationship oriented skills—empathy and embracing diversity—and three are about how people engineer their own thoughts and actions—self-control, integrity, and grit. This book is a useful guide for helping teachers and school principals foster “the formative five,” as it is filled with practical tips, recommended readings, descriptions of prototypical students who do or do not possess each skill, and quizzes about one’s own beliefs and practices around the skill.

The first of the formative five skills is empathy—adopting another person’s perspective to understand how that person feels. Empathy, Hoerr argues, is not simply taking another person’s perspective; rather it requires learning also to value and respect that person. Beyond shaping people who treat one another well, empathy facilitates success in business. Hoerr suggests teaching empathy by valuing growth in empathic abilities, teaching students to listen closely to others, and creating safe spaces for students to share personal stories.

The second of the relationship oriented skills, embracing diversity, involves appreciating the differences among the people with whom one interacts. Exercising this skill can feel uncomfortable; some may even reject the need for it. Indeed, our evolutionary roots as tribal people may partially explain why embracing diversity does not always come naturally. Nonetheless, in our diversifying world this skill not only is necessary, but also it can facilitate learning about people’s experiences. To fully embrace diversity we need to understand the complex history of discrimination and inequality in our society. We ought to guide students in understanding their own identities and how that shapes their interactions with others. Creating situations in which students can work collaboratively with diverse peers can help students embrace diversity. Schools need to ensure that all students are safe and treated with dignity.

Students benefit from developing skill in demanding the most of themselves. Hoerr cites the work of Walter Mischel (reviewed here) arguing that self-control—one’s ability to modulate one’s own actions and delay gratification—can have a major impact on one’s long-term well-being. Helping students to set goals and to be mindful of their current actions and the implications for their future can help them develop self-control. Hoerr references Angela Duckworth’s work about grit (reviewed here), or tenacity and perseverance, to argue that when we help shift students’ attitudes about what it takes to succeed, we prepare them for success and the rewards that come with sustained effort, deliberate practice, and pursuit of a passion. Especially given that today kids are praised for even minor accomplishments, it is important that students learn that to truly succeed they need to persist through failures. We can help students be “grittier” by touting the importance of grit.

The fifth skill is integrity, which has to do with being honest in one’s public actions, living in accordance with one’s personal values, and working to address social problems. To foster integrity it is helpful to model honesty, define integrity, highlight opportunities to act with integrity, and explain that it can be difficult to act with integrity.

Hoerr concludes by arguing that schools need a cultural shift to foster “the formative five.” Creating the desired schools culture is facilitated by ensuring that teachers, parents, administrators, and students all have strong relations and effective communication channels with one another. That the federal Every Student Succeeds Act requires the measurement of at least one nonacademic skill is a promising move towards focusing on personal skills that help students succeed. By developing students skill in empathizing, embracing diversity, exerting self-control and grit, and acting with integrity we can help raise a generation of students of whom we will be proud not only for what they know, but more importantly, for the people that they are.

 

Hoerr, T. R. (2016). The Formative Five: Fostering Grit, Empathy, and Other Success Skills Every Student Needs. ASCD.

 

What if there existed a secret recipe for curing nearly all of our most serious societal ills? Dr. Anthony Biglan, a Senior Scientist at the Oregon Research Institute and an expert on the prevention of problematic behaviors in children and adolescents, may have that very recipe. In his new book, The Nurture Effect: How the Science of Human Behavior can Improve Our Lives and Our World, Biglan argues that that our social and health problems would be greatly lessened—and we would have a more fulfilled and healthy citizenry—if we had a more caring society. Specifically, we would benefit from our families, schools, and communities being more nurturing and from our economic and political practices being more equitable and far-sighted. He argues that recent advances in psychological, behavioral, and developmental sciences have shown that the root cause of most of our major social challenges is our experiences in insufficiently nurturing environments. Through a series of concrete action items targeted towards parents, teachers and schools, regular citizens, and policy makers, Biglan shows us steps we can take to bring about this improved society.

After providing an overview of recent advances in the behavioral sciences that support the creation of nurturing environments, Biglan argues that families and schools are especially important environments for fostering nurturing relations. In homes and schools, we need to reward those who behave in a way that is considerate of others, help them think flexibly about solutions to challenging situations, teach them to regulate their emotions, and minimize the extent to which they feel coerced. To illustrate the implementation of these practices Biglan discusses intervention programs that have helped individuals and families create habits that nurture.

Biglan espouses B.F. Skinner’s idea that environments shape behavior. Most troubled teens are the product of environments that were insufficiently nurturing. Teens need limits, as well as, healthy relations with peers. They benefit from being around other teens with healthy and productive habits. He argues that we need schools to consistently implement evidence-based teaching practices, reinforce students’ good behavior, and let student learn by engaging in self-directed discovery.

While families and schools are vital places for increasing nurturance, Biglan states that we need also to make more nurturing the larger social structure in which families and schools are embedded. There are many organizations that address a single societal ill (e.g., drunk driving, homelessness, child abuse), but there are few umbrella organizations that attempt to address the root cause of all these problems, which is what Biglan argues we really need. Additionally, we need to curb predatory marketing practices, just as we did so effectively a few decades ago with curbing cigarette advertising, especially to teens. Beyond marketing, our materialistic culture leaves most of us feeling perpetually dissatisfied because we feel that what we have is never enough.

Biglan is concerned about growing economic inequality. He argues that many of us fail to conceive of just how challenging it is to live in poverty and just how easy it would be for even responsible and prosperous citizens to find themselves in poverty. We all suffer when poverty is widespread because such poverty leads to prevalent long-term health and behavioral problems. Biglan urges action to reduce child poverty. He argues that minimizing government spending, including on child poverty, is short-sighted because spending now could prevent much larger expenditures later.

Biglan concludes by sharing his vision for a society in which everyone enters adulthood ready to cultivate nurturing relationships and to create nurturing environments. The four most critical steps to help young people develop into caring adults is to model for them how to: 1) minimize toxic influences; 2) reward prosocial behavior; 3) limit opportunities to engage in aversive behavior; and 4) promote a flexible approach to living in accordance with one’s values in the face of challenging circumstances. Stress can erode a person’s health and the most common source of stress is managing other peoples’ coercive behavior. As such, for the sake of our collective health and well-being, we need to support one another in “turning the other cheek” in response to other people’s bad behavior, developing empathy, and paying attention to the present moment. With the steps Biglan suggests, we can all contribute to bringing about a social movement focused on creating nurturing environments to bring about, in turn, a brighter future.

 

Biglan, A. (2015). The nurture effect: How the science of human behavior can improve our lives and our world. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.

 

In our quest to assess and compare educational outcomes of students, teachers, schools, districts, states, and nations might we be losing sight of the characteristics of a fulfilling educational experience? Counting What Counts: Reframing Education Evaluation, a 2016 book edited by Yong Zhao, argues that this may be the case. He and his colleagues suggest ways to measure what matters so that we can create a more personalized, diverse, authentic, collaborative, and ultimately successful educational system. Zhao, a professor in the college of education at the University of Oregon and a professorial fellow at Victoria University in Australia, is a prolific writer of topics related to changes in education as a function of globalization and technology. Counting What Counts and other works of his like Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon will appeal to those disillusioned by America’s testing obsession, interested in developing students’ talents outside of just reading and math (e.g., in the arts or leadership), and concerned about creating an educational system that will prepare the members of our workforce with the skills they will need to make our economy prosper.

Zhao states that, as nations focus on improving standardized test scores, they may indeed produce better test takers. Yet, they may lose sight of their larger goal of creating a well-educated citizenry and diverse and functional work force. He and his colleagues explain that our current testing system is flawed in several ways. First, motivation and inter- and intra-personal skills matter tremendously for one’s success in life, but these skills are rarely tested. Second, thriving workforces have people with a diversity of interests, talents, and perspectives. Standardized testing, which creates a culture that values a homogenized student body, is counter-productive to creating the diverse workforce in which economies thrive (not to mention, in which individuals feel fulfilled by their ability to develop their natural strengths). In particular, in an era when we are able to spend more of our resources on goods that satisfy psychological, rather than physical, needs there is growing demand for traditionally undervalued skills, such as artistic skills. As such, we neglect at our own peril to cultivate these. Finally, standardized tests dampen creativity and entrepreneurship. They do not test skills that matter for innovation and success, such as working with people of other cultures, communicating with diverse others, thinking complexly about global challenges. They do not measure self-confidence, hopefulness, social capital, teamwork, conscientiousness, openness to new experiences, empathy, curiosity, and passion. Further, the limited skills that are measured by common standardized tests (e.g., IQ tests, SATs, PISA) are only marginally correlated with measures of long term success.

As flawed as current standardized testing schemes are, Zhao recognizes that testing is valuable and necessary for helping students succeed, holding educators and educational institutions accountable, and differentiating among students. As such, Zhao argues for overhauling current accountability systems. A redefined testing system might improve the quality of education that students receive. Throughout Counting What Counts, Zhao and his colleagues discuss the benefits and limitations of several alternative tools that could be used to measure some traits that matter for academic and personal success. He argues that changing the testing culture matters because some of the most important skills we hope to instill in students, such as creativity, may not need to be taught per se, but rather, students need to grow in a culture where those skills are valued.

Finally, Zhao concludes with a beautiful, idealistic vision for education and the role that changing assessment systems play in bring about that vision. He calls for a paradigm shift that: 1) values personalized education; 2) focuses on long-term success, rather than short-term measures of knowledge retention; 3) is mindful of unintended consequences that can result from focusing exclusively on particular outcomes; 4) assesses students in a way that is authentic to how they will use their knowledge and the skills they value; and 5) promotes collaboration among the assessors and the assessed, so that there is comprehensive consensus about whether what is being assessed matters. Although perhaps hard to realize, the educational vision Zhao articulates is one in which students are likely to thrive and feel fulfilled. We would be well served to work towards bringing about Zhao’s attractive vision for our educational system in order to support our students and our work force.

 

Zhao, Y. (Ed.). (2016). Counting what counts: Reframing education evaluation. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.