REPOST: Why education needs more radioactive spiders

"...every single day, extraordinarily talented and creative individuals sit in our classrooms bored out of their minds."  Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD, shares his thoughts in his article for the Huffington Post about the huge potential of learning-disabled children.

Education needs more radioactive spiders.

Stay with me.

Consider Peter Parker. His childhood wasn't easy. Both his parents, Richard and Mary, were killed on a mission as double agents. Raised by his Uncle Ben and Aunt May in Queens, Peter spent most of his childhood without an identity.

Now, Peter was a good student. He had a real knack for chemistry, mathematics, mechanics, biology, physics, and photography. But he lacked confidence, drive, and self-belief. He was bullied constantly by the other students. He was lonely, shy, and socially isolated.

One day in high school, he attended a science exhibition about radiology. In a moment, something happened that forever transformed him.

He got bitten by a radioactive spider.

This changed everything. He suddenly realized he had all these powers. He was much stronger and quicker than he ever realized. He could climb walls effortlessly. He discovered he had finely tuned sense perceptions. He even used his extensive science knowledge to design a special kind of "liquid cement" that could shoot out of a "web-shooter."

With his newly discovered abilities, he immediately went for fame. But it went to his head, and when placed in a position to catch a thief, he did nothing. Later, he found out that the same thief had killed his Uncle Ben. If he'd done something earlier, his Uncle Ben would have survived. He realized that with great power comes great responsibility.

But in this moment he also realized something else: For the first time in his life, he had an identity. Who was he? He was Spider-Man.

 

Video Source: www.youtube.com

Now more than ever, education needs more radioactive spiders -- figuratively, of course. What we need is for more teachers to show students just how much possibility resides within them, and to then provide them with a safe space to find their identity.

Unfortunately, every single day, extraordinarily talented and creative individuals sit in our classrooms bored out of their minds. What we must realize is that potential is not enough. Potential needs a catalyst, a reason for expression.

Positive expectations matter. So many kids with with a specific learning disability (e.g., dyslexia, autism, ADHD) -- who have areas of strengths and weaknesses -- are labeled "learning-disabled." They are fed a steady stream of negative expectations on a daily basis, and this has a major impact on their performance.

Elisha Babad found that the expectations that teachers bring to the classroom have systematic effects on their grading and also affect their students' performances on standardized tests. Kathleen Cotton found that teachers with lower expectations of their students offered fewer opportunities for their students to learn new material, gave insincere praise (which the students were quick to pick up on), provided less stimulating and lower-level cognitive questions, and gave less effective but time-consuming instructional methods.

Children are very sensitive to the overt and covert signals they are receiving from their friends and teachers. While teachers may try hard to suppress their low expectations, they still display a fair amount of communication "leakage." Jan Pieter Van Oudenhoven and Frans Siero found that even though teachers gave students thought to be learning-disabled twice as much overt verbal praise, they simultaneously gave more negative nonverbal feedback, such as exhibiting discouraging head movements.

This expectation leakage has serious effects on brain development. Kenneth Kishida and his colleagues had people take an IQ test alone as a measure of their baseline level of ability. Then they gave the participants another IQ test in a small group setting. Importantly, after each test item, they were given feedback on their performance ranking within the group. While everyone performed worse in the group setting, those who suffered the most were those who were told they were "low performers." Not only did these folks perform significantly worse than their baseline level of performance, but they also showed brain changes in areas associated with fear and working memory (the amygdala, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the nucleus acumbens). These results suggest that the lowered expectations brought about anxiety, which prevented them from showing their true colors. Low expectations literally shut down their brain.

* * * * *

What about the other end of the spectrum: those with high ability? Well, they too can be heavily impacted by expectations. Like Peter Parker, there are so many children with an incredible knack for something -- whether it's science, math, writing, photography, art, music, dance, theater, etc. -- who fall between the cracks. So many of these children don't flourish because it is expected that they will automatically do everything brilliantly just because they have a knack for something. Unfortunately, there is often little effort to help students with high ability figure out how their rapidly developing abilities fit in with their simultaneously developing self.

Consider a study by Jennifer Fredricks and colleagues, in which they conducted in-depth interviews with gifted and talented adolescents. Their gifted sample consisted of students aged 17 to 21 who were identified as gifted by their elementary school and were also in the top 25 percent of GPA. These college students were asked to recall their high school experiences in gifted education. In contrast, the talented sample included students in grades 9, 10, and 12 who were perceived (by themselves and by parents and teachers) as being highly competent in at least one nonacademic activity, who valued engagement in that activity, and who spent considerable time in the activity after school. Nonacademic domains included sports, instrumental music, vocal music, drama, and dance.

The researchers found striking differences in the responses between the two groups. The students in the talented sample reported a great love for their domain, a strong sense of identity, more frequent flow experiences, and the desire to engage in their domain all the time. In contrast, the gifted sample didn't appear to be nearly as wrapped up in academics as much as the talented adolescents were in sports and the arts. Many of the students in the gifted sample were depressed and had a bleak vision of their future.

The researchers speculate that there was more passion for nonacademic domains because individuals' need for challenges, autonomy, competence, and relatedness were more likely to be met in athletics and the arts than in academic domains. Youth in the talent sample talked more about having opportunities to make choices, receiving public recognition for their ability, and being supported and encouraged by teachers and peers. Tellingly, the researchers found that when students in the gifted sample were given greater freedom of course selection, they reported greater enthusiasm.

This study highlights the fact that passion isn't an automatic consequence of performing well on an IQ test or getting good grades in school. Passion is activated by a clear set of conditions, and these rules apply to everyone; no one is immune. We're all human, with fundamental needs, even if we may differ in our level of development in any one slice in time.

* * * * *

Those who are often the most vulnerable to having an identity crisis are those with advanced ability in some area who also have a specific learning disability. On the one hand, these students are constantly being told that their identity is "learning-disabled." On the other hand, they know they are capable of amazing things. This creates conflict and confusion at a crucial time in their adolescent development, when they are in the throes of figuring out who they are and just how they would like to contribute to this world.

I personally witnessed the power of the radioactive spider. Prior to ninth grade, I had no identity other than "learning-disabled." I was placed in special education very young due to an auditory processing disability that constantly left me one step behind the rest of the kids in the classroom. Despite coming home and writing elaborate fantasy stories, or acting out soap opera plots in my head, it never dawned on me that any of that counted as smart or creative.

Until I got bit.

One day in ninth grade, a special education teacher who I had never seen before came into the special education classroom. She looked past my label and saw my boredom and frustration. But most importantly, she saw possibility.

Taking me outside the classroom, she asked why I was still in special education and why I wasn't taking more challenging courses. This seemingly simple question snapped me out of my ordinary state of awareness. Everything suddenly clicked as I realized I had no good answer to her question. I suddenly realized that I was holding myself back.

From there, I signed up for everything I possibly could sign up for. I tried out various identities, from Latin scholar to actor to opera singer to cellist. Some things didn't click. But some did. Slowly but surely, with a new-found belief in my abilities, I found my identity. As a result, I went from a C or D student to a straight-A student. The grades naturally followed from my new-found identity.

I wonder how many children we judge too soon. I wonder how many we write off as "stupid" or "slow" when all it would take is a radioactive spider bite to show us all what they are really capable of achieving. I also wonder how many high-ability children fall between the cracks because of bullying by classmates, or because of the messages they receive from teachers that indicate that high ability is all they need and that identity, purpose, and perseverance don't matter.

Unfortunately, in this standardized testing culture, the teachers who inspire and enable others to see what's uniquely inside them are about as rare as radioactive spiders. But hopefully someday I can change my analogy, because there will be so many teachers transforming students that they will become an entirely common species.

I'm convinced that there is so much more possibility in all students than we realize. Imagine what would happen if educators helped all students see in themselves what is possible, and then helped them integrate that into the core of their identity?

I bet we'd have a lot more superheroes.

Psychologist Yul Whitney is committed to addressing the needs of children with learning disabilities.  Follow this Twitter page to get the best advice in guiding children with learning disabilities.

REPOST: The biggest problem for parents of a child with special needs? Other people

The Guardian’s Joanna Moorhead writes about mothers who have inspired a new Mumsnet campaign in England to change people's attitudes towards children with disabilities.

Claire Champkin with her son Toby, who has autism. (Image source: theguardian.com)

Jane McCready is used to her 10-year-old son being gawped at "as if he were a circus freak" but she will never be reconciled to it. "Children are one thing, they don't know any better. But these are adults. They look at Johnny and their mouths fall open and they just stare. And I think: didn't anyone ever tell them how rude that is?"

Johnny has severe autism and learning disabilities. "He looks like any other child, but he behaves oddly – for example, he might sit there banging two toys together – and he sometimes makes strange noises." Especially when he was younger, he might have a massive meltdown – at the supermarket checkout, for instance. "I'd feel 300 pairs of eyes on us – all watching us, all judging us for being disruptive and difficult," says Jane. Perhaps the worst day was when, at the swimming pool, another mother pulled her child away from Johnny "as though he had something catching".

This, she says, is what you are up against when you have a child with special needs: other people tend not to be very kind. Which is particularly awful "because you've already got so much on your plate as it is. The odds seem stacked against you, and if people just gave you a bit of space and support, it would go a long way. But the opposite is more often the case: you're struggling to start with, then people knock you down further. They make assumptions about you, they find you wanting, they treat your child as though he or she is dangerous or badly behaved. It's soul destroying. It's so bad, so hard to deal with, that I have friends with special needs kids who don't even take them out any more."

Jane, 49, who lives in south London, turned to Mumsnet to vent her feelings; and she was not the only parent in her situation to do so. Mumsnet members who didn't have children with special needs were shocked at their stories, and so too were the women who run Mumsnet. "We realised how incredibly hurtful some of the behaviour they were describing was, and realised we should do something," says co-founder Justine Roberts. "It's about letting judgmental feelings go and stopping all the tutting from the sidelines.

"The truth is that it's incredibly tough to have a child with a special need such as ADHD or autism. In many cases, it's a 24/7 job and to have to suffer the prejudices of others on top of that is just too much. There's a strong feeling on Mumsnet that how we look after our most vulnerable says a lot about our society and you don't get much more vulnerable than children with special needs. So we need to up our act a bit, as a society."

To that end, Mumsnet this weekend launches This is My Child, a campaign aimed at getting us all to think a bit more about the realities of life for families with children who have special needs and to check our behaviour accordingly.

"A little bit of help goes a long way," says Jane. "One time Johnny was melting down and this woman approached me. I thought she was going to complain – you get people who say things like, all he needs is a good slap. When she said 'What can I do to help, dear?' I could have hugged her. It must have taken some bravery for her to do it, but it made such a difference to me. I felt someone was on my side rather than the usual wall of hostility."

Claire Champkin, 40, who lives in Twickenham, Surrey, knows just how Jane feels. she says the biggest difficulty about life with six-year-old Toby is the negative attitudes of others. Her son has moderate-to-severe autism, and is largely non-verbal, but dealing with the realities of his condition pale next to dealing with the unkindness she encounters from strangers who decide for themselves that he is simply a badly behaved child with an inadequate mother. "One day we were in the park, and a father who was sitting on a bench pushed his glasses down to the end of his nose and sat there staring at Toby in evident disapproval. I felt like heading across to shout and swear at him, but you can't do that.

"What do people think gives them the right to behave that way? And the irony is, they think they're making a judgment on my child's bad behaviour."

Amanda Marlow, 43, who lives in Milton Keynes, says she has survived by growing a skin so thick she doubts anyone's disapproval could penetrate it. "Sometimes I think if I marched through the shopping centre with 'fuck off' written on my forehead, I couldn't be more obvious about it," she says.

She has four children, twins Elizabeth and James, 13, Oliver, seven, and Alex, six. Elizabeth has Treacher Collins syndrome (which causes craniofacial abnormalities); James has Asperger's syndrome and Alex has severe autism.

"What I'd like people to understand," she says, "is that these are my children. This is my life. It's not a bed of roses, but we try to make the best of every day. What would be nice is if people were kind and considerate once in a while, and gave us a bit of space. We're dealing with issues that most people haven't got a clue about, and it's intrusive when you get someone coming up to you and saying, he needs a clip round the ear when one of them has a tantrum."

If Amanda, Claire and Jane could ask the rest of us to do just one thing, it would be to stop staring. "It's fine to do a double take, but once you've taken in that our children have a disability, get on with what you're doing. It doesn't give you the right to gawp," says Claire.

Beyond staring, what angers Amanda is when strangers ask about Elizabeth. "They say, what's wrong with her? And I say, nothing's wrong with her. She's fine."

Claire agrees: it's not a tragedy, she says, that her child has a disability. "We don't need pity; we're a very happy family and we just want to get on with our lives. I hate people calling me 'special' or thinking I somehow have extra qualities that enable me to deal with all this. The truth is that when it happened to me, I thought I couldn't cope.

"But a very wise person said to me: 'You'll cope because you have to.' And that's what anyone would do. Calling us 'special' or alluding to our great qualities makes us different, sets us apart, and we don't want that at all."

What is also irksome to many parents is when other people take it on themselves to reassure them that all will be well. "I get that all the time," says Ellie Grant, from Wiltshire, whose three-year-old daughter Roberta has the chromosomal disorder Kabuki syndrome. "Roberta had hip dysplasia and, when she was in plaster, people would say: 'She'll be walking soon enough and you'll wish she wasn't.' That's so hurtful – the idea that when she does one day walk, I'll wish she couldn't."

The other thing they often say is how gorgeous and cute Roberta is, as if that is somehow incompatible with a disability. The people you value most are those who just treat you as they would any other family. I love it when people meet us and they try to engage with Roberta, just as they would any other child; that's so good. What I don't need is sympathy; I'm hugely proud of my little girl and all she's achieved. She and her baby brother are the centre of my world and the idea that people feel sorry for me is just so misplaced."

There are around 770,000 disabled children in the UK and, says Justine Roberts, their families deserve better. "A lot of it is about raising awareness about the reality of their situation, and busting some of the many myths. There's a myth that some disorders, such as autism and ADHD, are a fashionable excuse for bad behaviour and bad parenting. Wrong: these conditions are real and disabling and it is terrible that the parents and families of those with them are stigmatised.

"Another myth is that children with disabilities are given the help they need. In fact, Mumsnetters tell us time and again about how little help there is, how much they have to fight for everything they're given and how long it takes even to get their child's condition diagnosed."

Another myth, says Justine, is that language around disability doesn't matter. "You get a lot of people who use words like 'retard' and 'mong' and for some reason that's tolerated, while language that's racist or sexist or homophobic definitely wouldn't be. We've learned how hurtful it is to families where there are disabilities, and now we clamp down on it on the site – and we'd like others to do the same. It really is important. It really does make a difference."

As a school psychologist, Yul Whitney assesses students for any learning disability and oversees programs for students with special needs. Get regular updates on learning and learning disabilities by subscribing from this Twitter account.

What university rankings tell about a school's performance

Image source: ei-ie.org

A new international testing system called Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) has recently been proposed to gauge the learning habits that college students acquire from their respective schools. Standard academic measurements, such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), were generally used for high school students to determine their dexterity in specific subject areas. Giving university students a similar exam to test their mathematics, science, and reading comprehension skills has polarized analysts, critics, professors, and students. The system might be considered a good thing by some, but it can also be seen by others as unnecessary.

Universities are often ranked in terms of their research excellence or influence, publications, success demographics, number of programs offered, size of the faculty staff, and the number of prestigious awards they have achieved. However, placing well above the charts does not necessarily make a top-ranked institution better than its rivals. Rankings tend to value reputation over the actual quality of teaching, which can be considered unfair in some perspectives.


Image source: unews.ca

It would be difficult to measure the academic aptitude of students, especially since universities offer a myriad of programs and a wide range of teaching systems. But if the new testing system proves to be an efficient measure, world university rankings could change dramatically.

Those who are against the new system, however, argue that it will only serve to criticize faculty members at hard-pressed universities. They also point out that a very expensive multilingual, multinational exam that tries to test immeasurable criteria is simply impractical.

Universities around the world differ in many aspects, such as their approaches to the curricula and arrangements for access to higher education. Whatever rankings global organizations make to measure university performance, the fact would still remain that high-quality education lies in the hands of a well-founded system of instruction.


Image source: theguardian.co.uk

Psychologist Yul Whitney supports a range of causes that cater to the needs of students and teachers. Read updates on this Facebook page to learn more about him and his education advocacy.

The marginalization of children with disabilities

Image Source: welfarenewsservice.com

 

















When a kid has a disability, it is very likely that he would be treated differently. His teachers would consider him special—not in a very positive way—insofar as he is weaker than his peers or he needs unique attention because he learns slow or he might not understand things as quick as his other classmates do. Hence, he is being separated apart, considered not normal.


But a child with disabilities has feelings, too. Like his peers, time will come that he would be aware of how he is perceived by others. He might ask: Why am I being treated differently; or simply: Am I different?
 

Image Source: straitstimes.com

UNICEF knows this. That’s why it urges the world to put a stop on marginalizing children with disabilities. In a report, UNICEF says that children with disabilities are more than capable of becoming normal and equal participants in society provided that the government would create solid programs and policies that would focus on health and education, since there are still countries that do not have a comprehensive approach on dealing with disabled children, especially in classrooms. These policies and programs should aim to give the aforesaid children equal opportunities in health care and education, as this is the beginning of their being one with the world and with other kids that receive “normal treatment” from society.

Image Source: trust.org

 

















Indeed, according to UNICEF, equality should begin with the government, with its aggressive stance on providing equal opportunity to these children, and then the society’s acceptance of the disabled would just come naturally.


Psychologist Yul Whitney supports and promotes programs that empower people with learning disabilities to help them thrive and participate fully in the society. More information about him can be read on this Facebook page

Building up a child’s confidence—the right way

Much buzz was the self-esteem movement during the 1990s, when it was believed that children can unlock their potentials if they believed in themselves. While an admirable idea, the concept of building up self-esteem before developing a skill set was then showed to be very flawed, with children being showered encouragement and praise but not as a reward for accomplishment.

Image Source: Blogging4jobs.com

In a similar way, studies have shown that the manner by which children are given praise by their parents or guardians has a profound effect on child development. The studies point out that praise with feedback on the children’s behavior and the choices they made as toddlers had a deeper and more lasting positive impact on their development than children who were praised based on their own merits (for instance, “you’re a good boy”). The children who were praised based on their choices and behavior fared better five years when faced with difficult problems.

Image Source: Modernmom.com

These researchers, from the University of Chicago and Stanford University, point out that their findings confirm their suspicions about how praise works with children, and seeing it in action in the real world is an exciting discovery. Temple University professor Elizabeth Gunderson adds that praising efforts help children develop long-term persistence and a desire to be challenged and work hard.

The findings can be viewed here.

Image Source: CCLCChildCare.wordpress.com

School psychologist Yul Whitney contributes to organizations that support children with learning disabilities. Visit this Twitter page for more updates.