The words that could unlock your child

As children face their final month of revision before the exam season starts, many parents are looking for the words to motivate their offspring. But could they be mistakenly praising the value of ability over effort, asks Matthew Syed.

Take a glance at these expressions of encouragement:
"You learned that so quickly, you're so smart!"
"Look at that drawing. Are you the next Picasso or what?"
"You're so brilliant - you passed that exam without really studying!"
They come across as precisely the kind of confidence-boosting statements that should be given to children or, indeed, anyone else. Such phrases are used in homes and classrooms every day, particularly with exams looming.
But are they benign? Or could they unlock the reason why so many children are failing at school and elsewhere?

“Start Quote

Intelligence-based praise orients the receiver towards the fixed mindset - it suggests to them that intelligence is of primary importance rather than the effort through which intelligence can be transformed”

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To find out we need to take a quick detour into the science of expertise, and ask a question. Where does excellence come from? For a long time, it was thought the answer to this hinged, to a large degree, on genetic inheritance. Or, to put it another way, it is all about talent.

It turns out that this is mistaken. Dozens of studies have found that top performers - whether in maths, music or whatever - learn no faster than those who reach lower levels of attainment - hour after hour, they improve at almost identical rates.
The difference is simply that high achievers practise for more hours. Further research has shown that when students seem to possess a particular gift, it is often because they have been given extra tuition at home by their parents.
This is not to deny that some kids start out better than others - it is merely to suggest that the starting point we have in life is not particularly relevant.
Why? Because, over time, with the right kind of practice, we change so dramatically. It is not just the body that changes, but the anatomy of the brain.
A study of pianists, for example, showed that the area of the brain governing finger movement is substantially larger than for the rest of us - but it did not start out like this; it grew with practice.
The question of talent versus effort would not matter terribly much if it was merely theoretical. But it is so much more than that. It influences the way we think, feel, and the way we engage with our world.

Continue reading the main story

Mindset experiments

• Computer studies students received lessons on importance of growth mindset. It resulted in a dramatic improvement in test scores after a six-week intervention
• Students at Stanford University were encouraged towards the growth mindset in a workshop. At the end of term, these students had earned significantly higher grade point averages than the control group

To see how, consider a youngster who believes excellence is all about talent - labelled the "fixed mindset". Why would she bother to work hard?

If she has the right genes, won't she just cruise to the top? And if she lacks talent, well, why bother at all? And who can blame a youngster for this kind of attitude, given the underlying premise?
If, on the other hand, she really believes that effort trumps talent - labelled the "growth mindset" - she will persevere. She will not see failure as an indictment, but as an opportunity to adapt and grow. And, if she is right, she will eventually excel.
What a young person decides about the nature of talent, then, could scarcely be more important.
Think how often you hear children saying "I just lack the brain for numbers" or "I don't have the coordination for sports". These are direct manifestations of the fixed mindset, and they destroy motivation.
Those with a growth mindset, on the other hand, do not regard their abilities as set in genetic stone. These are the youngsters who approach tasks with gusto. "I may not be good at maths now, but if I work hard, I will be really good in the future!"

Many schools already praise effort as much as achievement

So, how do we orient our children to the growth mindset? A few years ago, Carol Dweck, a leading psychologist, took 400 students and gave them a simple puzzle.
Afterwards, each of the students were given six words of praise. Half were praised for intelligence: "Wow, you must be really smart!" The other half were praised for effort: "Wow, you must be hard working!"
Dweck was seeking to test whether these simple words, with their subtly different emphases, could make a difference to the student's mindsets. The results were remarkable.
After the first test, the students were given a choice of whether to take a hard or an easy test.
A full two-thirds of the students praised for intelligence chose the easy task - they did not want to risk losing their "smart" label. But 90% of the effort-praised group chose the tough test - they wanted to prove just how hard working they were.
Then, the experiment came full circle, giving the students a chance to take a test of equal difficulty to the first test.
The group praised for intelligence showed a 20% decline in performance compared with the first test, even though it was no harder. But the effort-praised group increased their score by 30%. Failure had actually spurred them on.

Many people believe that talent is a fixed quality

And all these differences turned on the difference in six simple words spoken after the very first test.
"These were some of the clearest findings I've seen," Dweck said. "Praising children's intelligence harms motivation and it harms performance."
Intelligence-based praise orients the receiver towards the fixed mindset - it suggests to them that intelligence is of primary importance rather than the effort through which intelligence can be transformed.
And this takes us right back to those expressions of praise we started out with. They all sounded like confidence-boosting statements. But now listen to the subliminal messages in the background:
"If I don't learn something quickly, I'm not smart."
"I shouldn't try drawing anything hard or they'll see I'm no Picasso."
"I'd better quit studying or they won't think I'm brilliant."
This reveals a radical new approach to the way we engage with children - that we should praise effort, never talent; that we should teach kids to see challenges as learning opportunities rather than threats; and that we should emphasise how abilities can be transformed.
Experiments from around the world have shown that when parents and teachers adopt this approach, and stick to it, the results are remarkable.
Matthew Syed is the author of Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice.

25 Funniest Analogies (Collected by High School English Teachers)

25 Funniest Analogies (Collected by High School English Teachers)

Every year, English teachers from across the U.S. can submit their collections of actual similes and metaphors found in high school essays. Here are last year’s winners:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had it’s two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six foot, three inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.
9. The little boat drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality to it, like when you’re on vacation in another city and “Jeopardy” comes on at 7 PM instead of 7:30.
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped form the pavement, just like grubs when you fry them in hot grease.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 PM traveling 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 PM at a speed of 35 mph.
15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who also had never met.
17. He fell for her like he was a mob informant, and she was the East River.
18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.
19. Shots rang out, as shots are known to do.
20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
22. He was lame as a duck. Not a metaphorical duck, either but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a landmine or something.
23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

source

Page last updated at 01:37 GMT, Sunday, 8 November 2009

Tough love 'is good for children'

The report said parenting style was more influential than income

Children brought up according to "tough love" principles are more successful in life, according to a study.

The think tank Demos says a balance of warmth and discipline improved social skills more than an laissez-faire, authoritarian or disengaged upbringing.

It says children aged five with "tough love" parents were twice as likely to show good character capabilities.

Report author Jen Lexmond said: "It is confidence, warmth and consistent discipline that matter most."

Life chances

According to the report, qualities such as application, self-regulation and empathy were more likely to be developed in children whose parents employed a "tough love" approach.

It found that these qualities made "a vital contribution to life chances, mobility and opportunity".

The report said these characteristics were profoundly shaped in pre-school years.

The most important influence is the quality of parenting Building Character report

The Building Character report analysed data from more than 9,000 households in the UK.

It found that children from the richest backgrounds were more than twice as likely to develop the key characteristics compared to those with the poorest origins.

Additionally, children whose parents were married were twice as likely to show such traits than children from lone parent or step-parented families, the report said.

But it added that when parental style and confidence were factored in, the difference in child character development between richer and poorer families disappeared.

The report concluded that this indicated that parenting was the most important influence - and the same result occurred when the family structure factor was analysed.

The report said that other positive influences included the main carer's level of education, and breast-feeding.

Girls were more likely to develop character capabilities by age five, while no connection was found between paid employment of either parent and children's characteristics.

The authors urged more support and information for families, and for children with disengaged or low-income parents to be given particular focus.

They recommended that the Government's Sure Start programme should be refocused as a tool for early intervention, with less emphasis on childcare and more on development; improved pilots for the Family Nurse Partnership; and for health visitors to be given an early years role to help with parenting.

'Ambitious agenda'

"There is some evidence that lower-income households face more difficulty in incubating these character capabilities," the report said.

"But the most important influence is the quality of parenting.

"Confident, skilful parents adopting a 'tough love' approach to parenting, balancing warmth with discipline, seem to be most effective in terms of generating these key character capabilities.

"An ambitious agenda for equality of opportunity will need to take the development of these capabilities seriously."

Ms Lexmond added: "Far from a 'soft' skill, character is integral to our future success and wellbeing."

Parentline Plus chief executive Jeremy Todd said the charity also supported the call for increased help for families.

But he said different children reacted differently to parenting styles.

"If we are to reduce the strangle hold of cycles of deprivation, the issue of how we support families to raise children must be grasped," Mr Todd added.

"We welcome this report and hope that it stimulates debate among policy makers around how best to support families to transform our society into one where we top the league tables for outcomes for children and well-being."

Page last updated at 01:15 GMT, Friday, 4 September 2009 02:15 UK

Pupils receiving help 'do worse'

There are more than 180,000 teaching assistants in England's schools

Pupils who receive help from teaching assistants make less progress than classmates of similar ability, a government-funded study suggests.

The Institute of Education assessed the impact of the huge expansion in support staff in England and Wales since 2005 by studying 153 schools.

It said such staff tended to look after the pupils most in need, reducing their contact with the qualified teacher.

The government said teacher workloads and class behaviour had improved.

The expansion of the school support workforce, which began in 2003, was also intended to raise quality, giving extra support to children with special educational needs.

The more time pupils had with support staff the less time they had with the teacher Professor Peter Blatchford

The Deployment and Impact of Support Staff (DISS) project surveyed 20,000 teachers and analysed the help received by more than 8,000 pupils in 153 schools in 2005-6.

The researchers were so surprised by the results of their study, that they repeated it for 2007-8 and came to the same conclusion.

Lead researcher Professor Peter Blatchford said the results could not be explained by the lower attainment, special educational needs, family backgrounds and behavioural problems of those pupils who had help from teaching assistants as those factors had been accounted for.

He added: "This is not something that we should blame on teaching assistants - we are not saying they are a bad influence.

"It seems to be about the way in which they are deployed and the way in which they are managed.

"The main explanation seems to be that support staff tend to look after the children in most need. They can then become rather separate from the main curriculum.

"The more time pupils had with support staff, the less time they had with the teacher."

'Counter-intuitive'

Support staff tend to have less training and a lower level of education than teachers.

About two-thirds of the support staff in this study had not been educated beyond GCSE level.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families, which funded the study along with the Welsh Assembly, said support staff were the backbone of the teaching workforce.

"There is clear evidence that there is a positive effect on pupil's progress where teaching assistants are trained and effectively trained to deliver specific support programmes, alongside well-planned lessons - as this research acknowledges.

"And the DISS study found that 14-year-olds who worked closely with teaching assistants were less distracted... followed instructions, were more independent, confident, motivated and likely to complete work."

He added that the research made no allowance for teaching assistants' experience, training or qualifications nor whether the school was high- or low-performing, the extent it had been remodelled or whether the teacher or teaching assistant were teaching as a team or separately.

Head of education at the public service union Unison Christina McAnea said: "Unison has been calling for better pay, training and more paid time for teaching assistants to do their jobs, for many years.

"Teaching assistants are not substitutes for teachers, but what they can do, given the right training and support, is help children with special needs to get the most out of school."

The findings of the study are being presented at the British Educational Research Association conference in Manchester on Friday.

Teachers will also have to be university graduates from 2015

Sep 25, 2008
Single session primary schs
Teachers will also have to be university graduates from 2015
By Jane Ng
AS PART of sweeping changes to be made to all their primary schools which will move toward a single session, all new teachers will have to be university graduates from 2015.

Schools will also get more support in the form of teacher aides.

These changes will affect all 179 primary schools and will be introduced as part of a review to improve primary education to better prepare pupils for the future workforce.

Education Minister Ng Eng Hen who laid out the broad directions of the changes at the Education Ministry's annual workplan seminar on Thursday, said more could be done to inculcate lifeskills and values in the young, for instance, public speaking, teamwork and confidence.

One way is to get pupils involved in co-curricular activities right from primary school as these would help to develop leadership qualities and mould their characters.

In his address, the minister noted that space is a constraint at many primary schools.

Only 40 per cent of primary schools are single-session so they have to free up classroom space in the afternoon for activities.

But 48 per cent are partial single session, meaning Primary 1 and 2s are still in the afternoon session and another 12 per cent of primary schools have double sessions.

These schools find it challenging to conduct CCA when they have to keep noise levels down because other pupils are having lessons. The lack of space also means they have limited time to use a classroom as they have to give way to another class for lessons.

So all schools will move towards having just one session, with the time frame to be announced at a later date.

From 2015, all new teachers will have to be graduates. This is in line with the expansion of university places to 30 per cent of each cohort by then.

MOE now recruits teachers from the top 30 per cent of each cohort.

The proportion of graduates has increased over the last few years, and some teachers have also got their degrees in-service.

Currently, 55 per cent of primary school teachers and 91 per cent of secondary school teachers are graduates.

Dr Ng cited high-performing education systems around the world, which have teachers with high qualifications.

For example, countries like Korea, Britain and the United States require their teachers to be graduates while all teachers in Finland are required to possess a Master's degree.

'Our move towards recruiting graduates as new teachers is appropriate as the educational levels of the population have been rising over the years. There are higher expectations - both from parents and our desired outcomes of education, which are better met by graduate teachers,' he said.

But he also reassured non-graduate teachers that they will continue to be valued, with assessment based on performance and not their educational level.

To ensure that students have the financial means to take part in CCAs or other enrichment activities, MOE will add $11 million to increase the contribution to pupils' Edusave accounts - from the current $180 to $200 per year for primary pupils and $220 to $240 for secondary students next year.

Page last updated at 13:05 GMT, Thursday, 7 August 2008 14:05 UK

Bad spelling 'should be accepted'

The professor says he corrects the same mistakes year after year

Common spelling mistakes should be accepted into everyday use, not corrected, a professor has said.

Ken Smith says the most common spelling mistakes should simply be accepted as "variant spellings".

He lists the 10 most commonly misspelt words, which include "arguement" for "argument" and "twelth" for "twelfth".

The professor says his proposal, outlined in an article in the Times Higher Education Supplement, follows years of correcting the same mistakes.

Why can't 'truely' be accepted as a variant spelling of 'truly'? Ken Smith

Mr Smith, a criminology lecturer at Bucks New University in High Wycombe, listed the 10 words most commonly spelled wrongly by his students.

He said: "Instead of complaining about the state of the education system as we correct the same mistakes year after year, I've got a better idea.

"University teachers should simply accept as variant spellings those words our students most commonly misspell.

HAVE YOUR SAY

"Mediaeval" and "Medieval" - both correct, but many people consider the latter to be the dumbed-down American spelling.

Mahatma, Stirling

Send us your comments

"The spelling of the word 'judgement', for example, is now widely accepted as a variant of 'judgment', so why can't 'truely' be accepted as a variant spelling of 'truly'?"

Mr Smith also suggested adding the word "misspelt" to the list and all those that break the "i before e" rule - weird, seize, neighbour and foreign.

The professor said he was not asking people to learn to spell words differently.

"All I am suggesting is that we might well put 20 or so of the most commonly misspelt words in the English language on the same footing as those other words that have a widely accepted variant spelling," he added.

School-Within-School for Dynamic Learning

School-Within-School for Dynamic Learning

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Pupils set their own weekly targets and determine their own pace of learning.

Mention “progress charts”, “target setting”, “conferencing” and most people will probably think about the workplace. However, for Pri 1 and 2 pupils at Cedar Primary School, these are part and parcel of classroom activities.

That’s not all. Pupils also take part in “peer coaching”, sit for “Mastery Tests” and are given “reward time” if they can stick to a task for at least half an hour. What’s more, all these activities are conducted in “multi-aged classrooms” where children from different levels learn together.

Personalised learning for each pupil

Welcome to “School-Within-School” (SWS), a radical approach that Cedar Primary School has adopted in response to the call to “Teach Less, Learn More”. This programme is undergirded by the concepts of Human Dynamics and multi-aged classrooms, which Principal Mrs Shirley Ho-Woo introduced when her teachers wanted to find ways to address the different learning needs of the pupils.

Mdm Maimon Abdul Samad providing feedback to a pupil, while also taking time to know the pupil better.

Human Dynamics offers an understanding of how individuals learn, develop and function. Specifically, there are nine “personality dynamics” where the mental, emotional and physical systems interact in unique ways to express how people function individually as well as a member of a collective. More importantly, each personality dynamic is of equal value and has its distinct path of development. Understanding the various personality dynamics allows teachers to cater to the different learning styles of their pupils.

The conception of SWS began in November 2005 when three Cedar Primary School teachers spent two weeks in Lindsfor Skola, a Swedish school that applies Human Dynamics in a learning setting with pupils of different ages. This Swedish model of self-paced learning seemed to be what the teachers were looking for. Back in Singapore, they began developing the SWS programme, adapting the teaching methods and pedagogies to suit the local context.

Aiming for mastery

In SWS, teachers conduct some frontline teaching, but this is where the similarity with normal lessons ends. SWS pupils are each given a learning plan that states what worksheets are to be completed for the various topics under the different subjects. The relevant textbook pages, workbook pages and materials needed are listed.

The "School-Within-School" programme aims to develop self-directed learners in a multi-age environment.

Even though SWS has targeted the school’s youngest pupils - one class each from Pri 1, 2 and 3 in 2006, and all Pri 1 and 2 classes this year - pupils take a tremendous amount of responsibility for their own learning. They do weekly “target setting” based on the learning plan and decide how much work they want to do to meet the target. The work is done during “independent learning” sessions, either on their own or with schoolmates. Pupils who are academically stronger may be asked to coach those who are weaker. During fortnightly “conferencing”, teachers check on the pupils’ progress according to their targets. This is also a time for teachers to get to know their pupils better.

To see how well pupils have understood a topic, a Mastery Test is held after the topic is covered instead of at the end of each term. They sit for the test individually, not as a whole class. Those who obtain “Mastered It” (scores of 80-100) and “Got It” (60-79) will move on to the next topic whereas those graded ‘Getting There’ will be taught the concept again. Furthermore, instead of showing parents a test score, teachers write their observations about the pupil in learning that topic.

In addition, the pupils in different levels form multi-age groups work on a 10-week long Interdisciplinary Project Work (IPW) where they learn about teamwork in the process.

All-round enthusiasm for SWS

“I like IPW and being able to mix with other classes,” enthused Pri 2 pupil Siti Hanani Bte Mohd Hussain. “We discuss what we are supposed to do and how we can do it.” Another Pri 2 pupil who is equally happy learning the SWS way is Nabeela Nadeem. “I like doing ‘target setting’ and when I forget something I haven’t done, I can look at my timetable,” she quipped.

One parent observed that while his son used to procrastinate at homework, he has become more motivated and tries to finish his homework quickly. He attributed the positive change to SWS.

As for the teachers, they appreciate the new ways in which their pupils are learning. “I’ve become more reflective as a teacher,” said Ms Maimon Abdul Samad, one of the teachers who pioneered SWS. “When the pupils are used to the routines, they begin taking charge of their own learning and deciding for themselves how much they want to do. I can see improvement in them, not only in terms of their academic performance, but also in their behaviour, and this gives me great satisfaction.”

非礼三女学生 教师坐牢挨鞭

Pub Date: 15/08/2007
Headline: 非礼三女学生 教师坐牢挨鞭
By: 林晓玲
Page Heading: 新加坡新闻

中学男教师违背女学生对他的信任，在学校和住家先后非礼三名女生，昨天认罪后被判坐牢19个月及鞭打6下。
　　32岁的被告闻判后显得镇定，他的妻子则哭红了双眼。
　　为了保护受害人，法官谕令媒体不得报道任何足以泄漏她们身份的资料，包括被告的姓名。
　　被告共面对10项控状，指他于2005年8月11日到2006年3月8日之间，在组屋住家和一所中学内，非礼三名13岁至16岁的女学生。16岁女生声称被非礼了八次，15岁和13岁女生各被非礼一次。
　　控方以其中三项控状提控被告，余项交法官下判时一并考虑。

邀女生上门看NBA
借口按摩乘机非礼

　　其中一项控状案情显示，2005年12月8日，被告通过手机简讯邀受害人到他家观看他录下的NBA篮球赛。隔天上午9时，受害人上门，他却声称家里停电，不能看球赛。
　　他于是建议替受害人按摩，说他刚从互联网上学到新的按摩法，还指出按摩能使她在下午的篮球训练中表现更出色。
　　被告把受害人带进房里，要她把校服脱下，换成T恤、短裤。他原本还要她把短裤脱下，但她不肯。被告要她躺在床褥上，然后用消除肌肉酸痛的药膏开始在她的大腿和脚上按摩。不一会儿，被告突然把她的裤子脱掉，继续按摩。吃惊的受害人不敢反抗。
　　接着，被告要她到客厅的沙发、还拉她坐在他的大腿上。他说她应该报答他按摩的“好意”，接着把手放在她的胸部，然后还用手触碰她的下体。受害人把他的手推开。
　　被告并没就此罢休。他叫受害人到房里换回校服，正当她扣上纽扣时，他进房、拉开她的上衣，还把手放在她的胸部。
　　另一项控状的案情则显示，去年3月8日傍晚6时，受害人在一场篮球赛后到教室见被告。被告拉她坐在大腿上，说他对她在球赛中的表现非常失望，接着便亲吻她的脸颊。受害人感到害怕，开始哭泣，告诉被告时间不早了，她必须回家。被告跟着她走到教室门口，途中
还紧紧拥抱她，多次触摸她的胸部。受害人无法反抗。
　　被告的代表律师求情时说，被告在父母去世后，需要接受心理治疗以消解痛失双亲的压力。被告若能得到妥善的心理治疗，他有望康复，重犯的几率也不高。
　　律师还说，被告婚姻美满，育有两岁的女儿，他被革职后，和女儿的关系密切。
　　被告也在事发后开始接受教堂牧师的辅导，他还写了道歉信给受害人，并有意将5000元交给她作为赔偿，不过，查案警员还无法和受害人取得联系。

主控官：被告不仅有预谋
而且还屡次犯罪

　　主控官指出，受害女生年纪轻，没有反抗能力，被告的行为侵犯到受害人的私处。被告不仅有预谋干案，而且还屡次犯罪。
　　法官下判时说，被告是初犯，他事后立刻认罪，让受害人免去上庭供证及受审问的过程。被告的心理报告显示，他患有反应性抑郁症（reactive depression），其中两项控状也是在他母亲病逝后的两星期犯下的。
　　不过，她后来指出：“尽管我考虑了这些对你有利的求情因素，但是你对这些年轻受害人所犯下的罪行非常严重，我所判处的刑罚也必须反映这一点。”

Teacher gets jail, caning for molesting teenage students

Offender, 32, abused his position of trust, says judge
By Elena Chong, Court Correspondent

THE school teacher lured his 16-year-old student to his home on the pretext that they watch taped American basketball games together, but he ended up molesting her.

Yesterday, the 32-year-old father of one was packed off to jail for 19 months. With the teacher's wife sobbing in the background, the judge also ordered that the bespectacled man be given six strokes of the cane after he pleaded guilty to molesting the girl three times.

Seven other similar charges involving the victim and two other girls were considered. The teacher cannot be named in order to protect the identity of his victims.

The court heard that the teacher had invited the 16-year-old victim to his house in December 2005.

He is believed to have been working with her basketball team in school. But when she arrived, he claimed there was a 'blackout'. He then suggested that he try out a new massage technique he had read about on the Internet.

He told her to change into a T-shirt. She complied, but baulked and refused when he suggested that she remove her shorts.

The student lay face down while he applied an analgesic cream - meant to relieve pain - and started massaging her legs and thighs.

Suddenly, he pulled down her shorts and continued to massage her. The student reported that she was too afraid to protest.

After the massage, both of them headed for the sofa where he pulled her onto his lap and molested her by touching her breast and crotch.

Later when she tried changing back into her school uniform, he pulled down her blouse and touched her breast again.

A few months later, in March last year, the court heard that the teacher met the victim in a classroom after her basketball game and complained about her performance.

He then pulled her onto his lap, kissed her several times, making her cry. While leading her to the door, he hugged her and touched her right breast a few times.

Yesterday, the teacher's lawyer pleaded for a minimum sentence. She told the court he had been depressed and had to have treatment to deal with stress and the deaths of his parents. His mother died some two weeks before he molested the victim on Dec 9, 2005.

She also pointed out that he had written a letter of apology and made out a $5,000 cheque to the victim. But Assistant Public Prosecutor Eugene Kwang pressed for a deterrent sentence, saying this was a clear case of abuse of trust.

District Judge Wong Choon Ning agreed. She lambasted him for abusing his position of trust and said these were 'very serious crimes' against 'very young victims'.

Each charge carries a maximum jail term of up to two years or a fine or caning, or any two such punishments.

Wisdom comes with age? Not true

Wisdom comes with age? Not true

By Stephen S. Hall
May 08, 2007
The Straits Times
IN 1950, the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, in a famous treatise on the phases of life development, identified wisdom as a likely, but not inevitable, by-product of growing older.

Wisdom arose, he suggested, during the eighth and final stage of psychosocial development, which he described as 'ego integrity versus despair'. If an individual had achieved enough 'ego integrity' over the course of a lifetime, then the imminent approach of infirmity and death would be accompanied by the virtue of wisdom. Unfortunately for researchers who followed, Erikson did not bother to define wisdom.

Wisdom has historically been studied in the realms of philosophy and religion. It is only in the last three decades that wisdom has received attention from social scientists. Erikson's observations left the door open for the formal study of wisdom, and a few brave psychologists rushed in where others feared to tread.

In some respects, they have not moved far beyond the very first question about wisdom: What is it? Thirty years after embarking on the empirical study of wisdom, psychologists still don't agree on an answer. But it is also true that the journey in many ways may be as enlightening as the destination.

Certain qualities associated with wisdom recur in the academic literature: a clear-

eyed view of human nature and the human predicament, emotional resiliency and the ability to cope in the face of adversity, an openness to other possibilities, forgiveness, humility, and a knack for learning from lifetime experiences.

The formal study of wisdom as a modern academic pursuit can legitimately trace its roots back to the 1950s, when an observant young girl named Vivian Clayton became fascinated by qualities she attributed to her father, a furrier named Simon Clayton, and her maternal grandmother.

There was something that distinguished them from everyone else she knew. Despite limited education, they possessed an uncanny ability to remain calm in the midst of crises, made good decisions and conveyed an almost palpable sense of emotional contentment, often in the face of considerable adversity or uncertainty.

'My father was 41 when I was born,' she said recently. 'By far, he was the oldest pa-

rent among all my friends, almost the age of my friends' grandparents. He had emigrated from England but had lived through World War II there and experienced the Blitz and had to care for his dying mother, who was so sick that she refused to go down into the shelters during air raids in London.

'She lived in the East End, where the docks were, and they were always getting bombed. So he would sit with her while the bombs were falling, and when it was over, she would say, 'Now we can have a cup of tea!'

'He was a very humble man, and very aware of his limitations, but he always seemed to be able to weigh things and then make decisions that were right for the family. He knew what to respond to quickly, and what you had to reflect on.'

Clayton recalled pondering this as a graduate student at the University of Southern California, working with gerontological psychologist James Birren, one of the leaders of an effort to investigate positive aspects of ageing.

Empirical studies

BETWEEN 1976, when she finished her dissertation, and 1982, Clayton published several groundbreaking papers that are now generally acknowledged as the first to suggest that researchers could study wisdom empirically. She identified three general aspects of human activity that were central to wisdom - the acquisition of knowledge (cognitive) and the analysis of that information (reflective) filtered through the emotions (affective). Then she assembled a battery of existing psychological tests to measure it.

Clayton laid several important markers on the field at its inception. She realised that 'neither were the old always wise, nor the young lacking in wisdom'. She also argued that while intelligence represented a non-social domain of knowledge that might diminish in value over the course of a lifetime, wisdom represented a social, interpersonal form of knowledge about human nature that resisted erosion and might increase with age.

One of the people who grasped her work's significance immediately was Paul Baltes, a legendary psychologist then at Pennsylvania State University. Baltes helped pioneer life-span developmental theory, which argues that in order to understand, say, a 60-year-old person, you need to take into account the individual's biology, psychology and sociological context at various stages of life, as well as the cultural and historical era in which he or she lived.

Baltes closely monitored the initial wisdom studies, Clayton recalled, and regularly peppered her with questions about her progress.

The working definition of wisdom next acquired a German accent. The Berlin Wisdom Paradigm, as it came to be called, was built in part on research using hypothetical vignettes to discern wise and unwise responses to life dilemmas.

'A 15-year-old girl wants to get married right away,' one vignette suggested. 'What should one/she consider and do?'

A wise person, according to the Berlin group, would say something like: 'Well, on the surface, this seems like an easy problem. On average, marriage for 15-year-old girls is not a good thing. But there are situations where the average case does not fit. Perhaps in this instance, special life circumstances are involved, such as, the girl has a terminal illness. Or the girl has just lost her parents. And also this girl may live in another culture or historical period. Perhaps she was raised with a value system different from ours. In addition, one has to think about adequate ways of talking with the girl and to consider her emotional state.'

That reply may seem tentative and relativistic, but it reflects many aspects of wisdom as defined by the Berlin Wisdom Project, which began in 1984 under the leadership of Baltes, who, along with Birren, had championed the search for late-life potential. He had established a reputation as a leading quantitative psychologist by the time he returned to Germany in 1980 to become director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin.

Defining wisdom

BOILED down to its essence, the 'Berlin Paradigm' defined wisdom as 'an expert knowledge system concerning the fundamental pragmatics of life'. Heavily influenced by life-span psychology, the Berlin version of wisdom emphasised several complementary qualities: expert know-

ledge of both the 'facts' of human nature and the 'how' of dealing with decisions and dilemmas; an appreciation of one's historical, cultural and biological circumstances during the arc of a lifespan; an understanding of the 'relativism' of values and priorities; and an acknowledgment, at the level of both thought and action, of uncertainty.

The Berlin group focused more on expertise and performance than on personality traits because such an approach lent itself to more rigorous measurement than the typical self-report tests of psychological research. 'Wisdom in action', as the Berlin group put it, might manifest itself as good judgment, shrewd advice, emotional regulation and empathetic understanding; it could be found in familial interactions, in formal writing and in the relationship between a student and mentor or a doctor and patient.

The Germans were among the first to reach what is now a widespread conclusion: There's not a lot of wisdom around. They found no evidence that wisdom necessarily increases with age. Rather, they identified a 'plateau' of wisdom-related performance through much of middle and old age; a separate study by the group has indicated that wisdom begins, on average, to diminish around age 75, probably hand in hand with cognitive decline. Nonetheless, the Baltes group suggested in one paper that there might be an optimal age and that 'the 'world record' in wisdom may be held by someone in his or her 60s'.

No one really knows what wisdom is. Yet many of the emotional and cognitive traits that rank high on current research agendas - resilience, positivity, expert knowledge systems, cognitive processing and especially the regulation of emotion - closely overlap with qualities that have been consistently identified by social scientists as crucial to wisdom.

One of the most interesting areas of neuroscience research involves looking at the way people regulate their emotions and how that regulation can change over the course of a lifetime. Laura Carstensen of Stanford University has produced a substantial body of research over the past two decades showing that the ability to focus on emotional control is tightly linked to a person's sense of time and that older people in general seem to have a better feel for keeping their emotions in balance.

What Carstensen and her colleagues have found is that despite the well-documented cognitive declines associated with advancing age, older people seem to have figured out how to manage their emotions in a profoundly important way. Compared with younger people, they experience negative emotions less frequently, exercise better control over their emotions and rely on a nuanced emotional thermostat that allows them to bounce back quickly from adverse moments. Indeed, they typically strive for emotional balance, which in turn seems to affect the ways their brains process information from their environment.

Carstensen and her colleagues believe that this motivation to focus less on the negative is probably unconscious and shaped by one's sense of time. 'According to our theory, this isn't a quality of ageing per se, but of time horizons,' she said. 'When your time perspective shortens, as it does when you come closer to the ends of things, you tend to focus on emotionally meaningful goals. When the time horizon is long, you focus on knowledge acquisition.'

As time horizons shorten, she added, 'things become much clearer, because people are letting their feelings navigate what they do, who they spend time with, what are the choices they're making in life, and it's about right now'.

Carstensen called this 'socioemotional selectivity theory' and said that in the shortened time perspective of old age, people are motivated to focus on the positive in a way that registers as a difference in cognitive processing in the brain.

This is all of a piece with life-span development theory (Carstensen got her PhD in a programme founded by Paul Baltes), which has as a central precept the idea that the decisions one makes at each stage of life involve trade-offs. She and her colleague Corinna Loeckenhoff have speculated that there may even be evolutionary reasons for this division between knowledge acquisition and emotional fulfilment. Acquiring knowledge increases the likelihood that young people will survive to reproductive age; emphasising emotional connection and kinship at an older age may increase the survival ability of one's children and grandchildren (and their genes) in the future.

Effects on health

THIS 'positivity' effect may even have long-term health consequences. In 2002, Becca Levy, a psychologist at Yale University, collaborated with researchers for the Ohio Longitudinal Study, who have been following ageing in a cohort of people since 1975, and they made a very surprising finding: Older people with a more positive attitude towards old age lived 71/2 years longer.

Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, has been looking at patterns of brain activity associated with emotional regulation in a small group of older people who have participated in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. In a paper published last year, the Wisconsin team reported that older adults (the average age was 64) who regulated their emotions well showed a distinctly different pattern of brain activity from those who didn't.

These people apparently used their prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that exerts 'executive control' over certain brain functions, to tamp down activity in the amygdala, a small region deep in the brain that processes emotional content, especially fear and anxiety. In people who are poor regulators of emotion, activity in the amygdala is higher, and daily measurements of the stress hormone cortisol follow a pattern that has been associated with poor health outcomes.

'Those people who are good at regulating negative emotion, inferred by their ability to voluntarily use cognitive strategies to reappraise a stimulus, show reductions in activation in the amygdala,' said Davidson, who added that such regulation probably results from 'something that has been at least implicitly trained over the years'.

Where does wisdom come from, and how does one acquire it? Surprisingly, a good deal of evidence suggests that the seeds of wisdom are planted earlier than old age, often earlier than middle age and possibly even earlier than young adulthood. And there are strong hints that wisdom is associated with an earlier exposure to adversity or failure. That certainly seems to be the case with emotional regulation and is consistent with Carstensen's ideas about shifting time horizons.

Karen Parker and her colleagues at Stanford have published several striking animal studies showing that a very early exposure to mild adversity seems to 'enhance the development of brain systems that regulate emotional, neuroendocrine and cognitive control' - at least in non-human primates. Some researchers are also exploring the genetic basis of resilience.

This notion that wise people might have been 'vaccinated' earlier in life by adversity reminds me of Vivian Clayton's father, sitting next to his frail mother in London while the German bombs rained down around them, celebrating their survival each time with a cup of tea.

The writer is the author, most recently, of Size Matters: How Height Affects The Health, Happiness And Success of Boys - And The Men They Become.

Copyright: New York Times Syndicate

The shape of schools to come?

Last Updated: Friday, 19 January 2007, 14:39 GMT
The shape of schools to come?

By Hannah Goff BBC News education reporter

Ask 10 different experts what schools of the future will look like and you will get 10 different answers.

But one thing upon which they all agree is that the way that pupils are taught and the technology that is used must have a central role in the design.

Hellerup School has no fences

So planners have to understand what the education of the future will be like to prevent them designing something that will soon become outdated.

Education consultant Les Watson says there is a danger that those planning schools for the future create something that "constricts the learning of the future".

Instead of planning a new school with rows of 1940s desks in them, those involved in the process must "think outside the box".

Mr Watson says: "Currently we run education like a railway - everybody has to be at a particular place at a particular time to catch the learning train.

"With new technology it does not have to be like that."

Lessons can be beamed into classrooms by absent teachers podcasting on the interactive whiteboard.

No corridors

Pupils can use their laptops for independent study in wi-fi zones in the open air - weather permitting of course.

What was once a playground could become a highly technological learning area as well as a place to play and chill out with friends.

Learning consultant Professor Stephen Heppell sees the constant movement from class to class, that characterises today's schools, as a huge waste of time that is preventable.

He says: "When kids are working with new technology they put their head down and really go for it.

"And yet in so many schools we come to the end of the lesson - we ring a bell, we stop them doing what they are doing and then we take them into another box."

Passing a large volume of children through a narrow opening like a corridor or stairwell is bound to create friction and problems, he says.

All the major incidents of children being injured or stabbed in schools have occurred in corridors, he claims.

Corridors can make people feel penned in

But as technological advances allow children's learning to become more varied and complex, he argues, they will become more focused and will enjoy longer lessons.

And so they will not need to change classrooms as much.

"School design stops being about moving large volumes of children efficiently.

"Many corridors can disappear; learning space grows significantly and discipline improves too," says Prof Heppell.

Western Heights College in Victoria, Australia, saw a dramatic improvement in pupil behaviour after they removed walls between classrooms.

This has not only allowed more freedom of movement for pupils, but for teachers too who are now able to collaborate in lessons more easily when they want to.

Copenhagen's Hellerup School has developed a much more open plan approach than the typical Victorian or Edwardian secondary schools that pepper this country.

The wide staircase doubles up as an assembly hall and theatre

A wide, wooden staircase doubles as a central assembly hall and a lecture theatre where children use the stairs as seats.

The flexibility with which such a space can be used is key to its success, Mr Watson argues.

"When I think about what is the future of learning, what will education be like in 50 years' time - although I've been in education for more than 30 years - I have to admit that I don't know," he says.

This means schools of the future have to be large-scale open spaces with multiple uses and furniture that can be moved, re-shaped and tucked away, for when it's not needed, he argues.

His redesign of the library at Glasgow Caledonian University features inflatable igloo-like offices which can be blown up when a little bit of privacy is required.

Likewise movable canopies can be wheeled over tables temporarily for all-important acoustic protection from the noise that comes with open-plan space.

Director of the British Council for School Environments Ty Goddard agrees the key to planning schools for future generations is much more complex than just smashing down the walls.

His organisation has produced an Ideas Book to give a helping hand to teachers and officials involved in the process.

"To knock down walls is very refreshing - but it can be a nightmare acoustically too."

Today's pupils have IT-rich lives

Schools like Hellerup work, he says, because they and the pupils were at the heart of the design process.

He says: "Allowing them to have an input means the spaces are relevant and there is a sense of co-creation."

Interestingly there is no fencing around the school site - is the sense of community ownership that keeps it safe.

Mr Goddard says: "I am not saying let's create a 1,000 Hellerups, the design has to be relevant to where we are at."

"But if you give respect you get respect."

Another key feature of defining the shape of tomorrow's schools, he says, has to be the technology of tomorrow.

'Never finished'

"The internet generation already have ICT-rich lives, they have a sophisticated understanding of technology, and sophisticated gaming devices, but it is a sophisticated job harnessing technology for learning."

For Professor Heppell, the answer is not to compete with that technology but to allow it into the school and use it in a productive way.

"It isn't about the ICT system that we have built - it's about reaching out to the systems that are already out there," he says.

As the technology changes, so will the school.

As the headmaster of Hellerup School, Knud Nordentoft, puts it: "The school building is never finished; experience it and rebuild it over time."

Perhaps that is the key lesson for the future.

Those Who Can't Do, Teach

Written by Shari
Published September 12, 2006

Most people are quite familiar with the saying, “Those who can’t do, teach.” This statement suggests that people who have failed or would be failures in the world outside of academia end up as teachers.

The origins of this quote and various permutations of it are unclear. An early quote of similar meaning comes from George Bernard Shaw in "Maxims for Revolutionists" in Man and Superman (1903). The history of viewing the teaching profession with contempt or at the very least disregard may date back to the origins of the apple for the teacher custom.

In the Middle Ages, knowledge was viewed as God’s gift. Since it was God’s gift, it was seen as wrong to charge for it. As a result of this view, teachers at many institutions were not paid at all for their work. They had to rely on the gifts and charity of appreciative students.

Sometimes, a teacher was lucky to receive an apple so he’d have something to eat. It’s rather difficult to develop a mindset that a profession is pursued by people of high capability if that service is offered free of charge.

The value of the work being done as well as the education level required to perform that work is reflected in the salary, yet teachers are still relatively low-paid compared to other jobs with similar educational requirements. Additionally, teaching is one of the few professions that require a higher education, yet people commonly suggest those who take that career path are deficient in some fashion.

Being a teacher requires more than a standard Bachelors degree, but many people still view teaching as a profession for lazy or unskilled people. A favored chestnut among those who hold such views is the anecdotal story about the incompetence of teachers who teach topics related to professions in which they have never engaged.

For example, a business teacher who has never successfully run a business can’t possibly know real world business well enough to teach the topic effectively.

The attitude that a teacher must have worked in the profession that his students will eventually pursue is a reflection of ignorance of the point of education. There is a difference between receiving an education and attending vocational school. A vocational or technical school teaches specific skills that a student carries over to a job.

Education is about equipping students with a broad base of knowledge they can draw on to become successful in the occupations they pursue.

It is up to the student to digest the information he receives and find an application for it in his life, not for the teacher teach him each individual step. Considering that each company and job demands a customized set of skills, this is certainly a more reasonable approach. Even similar jobs may require different approaches at different types of businesses.

The sales tactics for selling computers requires a different approach than selling cars. Also, companies in the same industry often adopt their own approach. Marketing at Apple, where the focus is on design and limited numbers of models, would be a very different job than marketing at Dell, where the emphasis is on frequent sales, different equipment combinations, and low price.

Universities need only teach the fundamentals of each discipline and the companies can do the rest.

If you feel teachers don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to the real world, then you’re missing the point of education. The point is not to memorize a sequence of steps to be regurgitated as needed at a future job. Teachers are there to help you learn how to be smart enough to figure out those steps on your own.

Those Who Can, Do… TEACH!

Those Who Can, Do… TEACH!

In Front of the Class

by Max Fischer, EducationWorld.com

Max Fischer recently attended a local Chamber of Commerce meeting. The evening's motivational speaker got Max thinking about how successful businesspeople and successful teachers have much more in common than either of them might think.

Some of the harshest critics of education can be found in the business world. Steeped in the highly competitive atmosphere of business, local entrepreneurs are way too focused on overcoming competition and other obstacles, and on the almighty bottom line, to possibly comprehend what goes on in the classroom. Drop any business leader from your community in a classroom, and watch them flail!

The converse is also assumed true: Educators could not possibly understand what running a business is like. "Those that can, do; those that can't, teach," business people have often said with an air of disparagement.

Just a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the annual awards ceremony of my local Chamber of Commerce. That evening's presenter was a motivational speaker whose main bread-and-butter is business-training seminars. The guy -- an absolutely engaging speaker, I must say -- focused his comments on the most critical elements of successful businesses. As I listened to him talk, I was I was amazed at how closely his thoughts about successful business people paralleled my take on the skills it takes to be a successful classroom teacher. Let's see if you agree…

• Relationships are key.
  Customers don't buy products from people they don't like. A condescending capitalist will struggle to turn a profit.

A teacher who expects respect from his students -- or parents or colleagues -- without giving any in return is bound to fail.

• Business marketing must excite the customers; they are your bottom line.
  Successful businesses effectively market their products or services by linking them to positive feelings. Slogans, jingles, attractive models, and celebrities are tools of the trade for accomplishing that goal.

Being able to motivate and engage learners is of paramount importance for any teacher. Our paying customers -- parents and other taxpayers -- really do take note when their children come home from school engaged and excited.

• Being able to deal with change with a positive attitude is a key to success.
  What ever became of the tech exec who proclaimed in 1979 that home computers would never be practical?

While many teachers might not be endeared by "No Child Left Behind," most of us are able to strain its vital message: the status quo isn't good enough. Thinking outside the box to reach under-performing students is a cause whose time has come.

More In Common Than You Think

• Experimentation -- and, yes, failure -- is a part of every business; it is at the root of almost every success.
  Thomas Edison once said, "I have not failed. I've just found ten thousand ways that won't work." A certain level of that adventurous spirit is required to succeed at developing new products and services to woo customers.

Teachers must honor the best of education's established practices, but they can't shy away from investigating new methods to reach students. Instructional methodology must be perpetually evaluated and improved upon -- or tossed aside as ineffective.

• Sweat the details, and go the extra mile.
  Our speaker regaled his audience on how movie actor Jim Carrey goes to great lengths to choreograph his antics in each scene of a movie. Similarly, he said, business people must anticipate and have a plan for meeting their clients' needs; they must always be willing to go the extra mile to accomplish that.

The most successful teachers take time to write students congratulatory notes, dissect the pace of each day's lesson, and give concerned parents timely updates. And they use their summers to develop new skills. Successful teaching, like a successful business (or successful acting), is not a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants operation.

• Lead your people; don't push them.
  The speaker's most animated comments were reserved for the relationship between a boss and the worker bees. A business manager who can appreciate and capitalize on the strengths of each employee is one who can develop a well-rounded team and a business that will thrive.

One of a teacher's primary objectives is to recognize and build upon each student's strengths. Often a student's strengths can be used to improve skills that might not be so strong. Our aim is to engage all students -- one student at a time -- in achieving our learning goals.

With One Big Difference

While I was one of just a handful of non-business leaders in the audience, I found little in our speaker's remarks to which I could not relate. I found myself nodding in total agreement until he made one last comment. "I've never gotten angry with my personnel," he said. "I've only gotten angry with the suppliers of inferior material. I really let those suppliers have it for jeopardizing my business!"

And therein lies the difference between teaching and business: Teachers may rage internally at the dysfunctions of families and society that our students endure. We cannot, however, unleash our anger at the materials we are expected to transform. Businesses can reject inferior material; we embrace our "materials" and nurture them.

I left the awards ceremony wondering how many of the movers and shakers of local business in that audience really understood how closely their best practices relate to those of teachers. With such significant common ground, I have to wonder how much more could be accomplished for students if members of both professions worked together more closely. If business leaders connected with schools in their communities they would quickly learn what you and I know: Those who can, do… teach!

About the Author
A teacher for nearly three decades, Max Fischer currently teaches seventh graders the marvels of ancient and medieval history. A National Board certified teacher in the area of early adolescence social studies/history, Max has authored nine resource books for teachers in the fields of social studies, health, and math. You can read a previously published article about Fischer: Simulations Engage Students in Active Learning.