April 2005
This month’s newsletter starts with a piece on locus of control followed by a short case study from Somerset and some observations about role models. If you have ever had an irritating tune in your head which seems to stay with you all day we may have an explanation. Finally, Alite is launching its own unique Learning to Learn Programme for schools and we have some information about it.
Locus of Control
“The likelihood of a classroom teacher being faced with a group of young people who are extrovert in their outlook but less ‘responsible’ for the consequences of their actions is on the increase...”
Children ages 9-14 and college students increasingly believe that their future is not in their control and nothing they do matters, according to a study described in Professor Raj Persaud’s new book The Motivated Mind. These same children are also more extrovert than their parents who, in turn, were more extrovert than theirs.
The research which Persaud cites was led by US Psychology Professor Jean Twenge. It shows that 30 percent more young Americans now believe their lives are controlled by outside forces rather than by their own achievements as compared to the beliefs of young people in the 1960s and 1970s.
“These findings are very disturbing, because previous research found that young people with these beliefs are more likely to be low achievers in school, exhibit delinquent behaviour, cope poorly with stress, and become depressed,” Twenge said. “Our generation has given up. We’re looking at ‘Generation Whatever,’ with many kids feeling like they can’t make a difference. Most feel that luck is a stronger determinant of their future than their own power to make things happen.”
Titled “It’s Beyond My Control: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis of Increasing Externality in Locus of Control, 1960-2002,” the paper measures changes in children’s and young adults’ “locus of control,” or beliefs about what controls their lives. The results show a strong increase in cynicism, helplessness and general negativity among young adults of this generation as compared to children 30-40 years ago.
The project studied nearly 25,000 young people from two age groups (children ages 9-14 and college students) who completed questionnaires in the years between 1960 and 2004.
Children are now more likely to agree with items such as “Most of the time it doesn’t pay to try hard because things never turn out anyway,” and “When bad things are going to happen they just are going to happen no matter what you try to do to stop them,” but are less likely to agree that “When good things happen they happen because of hard work.” Children are also more likely to agree with items such as “Are you often blamed for things that just aren’t your fault?” and “When you get punished does it usually seem it’s for no good reason at all?”
If you believe that success comes from luck rather than hard work, why work hard? It’s not surprising that this trait is linked to poor achievement in school.
Similarly, college students are now more likely to agree with items such as “Getting a good job depends mainly on being in the right place at the right time,” and “The world is run by the few people in power, and there is not much the little guy can do about it.” They are less likely to agree that “Becoming a success is a matter of hard work; luck has little or nothing to do with it,” and “The average citizen can have an influence in government decisions.”
Dr Raj Persaud, The Motivated Mind: How to get what you want from life, Random House 2005.
Raj Persaud is delivering a keynote address at Alite 2005
Role Models – good or bad
Don’t underestimate the impact of role models on the lives of our children or how confusing it gets when you start to talk about footballers!
In the space of a fortnight two leaders of prominent teacher associations in the UK both lamented the effect of the behaviour of top players on behaviour in school playgrounds whilst a psychologist said they were good role models for the 11 to 14-year-olds.
According to the deputy leader of the Secondary Heads Association, football matches should only be screened after the 9pm watershed because of players' violence, swearing and dissent. Within a week an on-pitch scrap between Newcastle's Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dyer was screened for all to see.
But, Kairen Cullen, a psychologist who works for CEA@Islington, sees it differently. Coaches from Arsenal spent one afternoon a week with 38 troubled pupils in north London and helped reduce truancy rates and classroom disruption.
"Their behaviour improved markedly when they had the football coaching. It's exciting and could be extended."
One session at the pupil referral unit - for children who have been excluded from mainstream schools - had to be cancelled because of poor behaviour. However, one of the Arsenal coaches spoke to the children to explain why this had happened.
Ms Cullen said: "They listened when they were told the sessions would return if behaviour improved.
"A lot of the kids have trouble with authority, or dealing with their peers, or following rules. The training seems to have a good effect."
The group's behaviour and attendance were compared during a six-week period without football training and a six-week period where it was offered once a week. The improvement, according to Ms Cullen, was marked. She has plans to extend the project - funded by the Home Office's Positive Futures programme - to pupils aged 14 to 16.
Last week English Premiership footballers named their favourite books in a drive to encourage families to read together. Stars such as John Terry, Ryan Giggs and David James have teamed up with the National Literacy Trust in a scheme involving all 20 top flight clubs. Each club is adopting at least one library and will offer incentives to encourage people to take part, such as match tickets and ground tours.
Manchester United's Ryan Giggs chose Nelson Mandela's life story, A Long Walk To Freedom, while Chelsea captain John Terry chose the children's book Cool!, by Michael Morpurgo, the author who has worked his own love for Chelsea into the storylines of a number of his novels.
A Citizenship lesson last week on ‘role models good or bad?’ threw up some interesting insights. It involved youngsters being asked to think of examples of role models of good and bad behaviour and write their names down. Then in groups of four all examples were thrown in before three examples of good and three of bad were agreed upon. The names are written onto cards and then handed in. The cards are mixed up. The teacher then invites individuals to come out, pick a card and position the card on the good-bad continuum. This is a masking tape line on the floor. Amongst the names we had the usual mix of pop stars, footballers and celebs but also someone’s dad, someone else’s nan, a teacher at the school, Adolf Hitler, the Pope, Princess Di, Saddam Hussayne (sic) and Jamie Oliver. Each youngster had to justify his or her choice. Interestingly, some role models were seen as bad by some and good by others!
Never underestimate the power of role models in our lives. When Princess Diana died suicides in the UK rose by 17% in the month afterwards with the rate increased to 34% amongst women. Tiger Woods’ performance in golf tournaments directly affects the share price of Nike. When celebrity chef Jamie Oliver took part in a programme about the lamentable state of school dinners, and then went to No 10 Downing Street with a petition - a further £280 million was released by the UK Government the following week!
Science sorts that tune in your head
A US team from Dartmouth College, played volunteers tunes with snippets cut out.
The Dartmouth team asked volunteers to listen to excerpts from familiar and unfamiliar songs with lyrics or instrumentals. These included the Rolling Stones' Satisfaction and the theme tune from The Pink Panther. Snippets of the music were removed at different points during the songs and replaced with silent gaps. The researchers used a brain scan called functional magnetic resonance imaging to see which parts of the brain were active while the volunteers listened to the tracks. The auditory cortex remained active even though the music had stopped .
After the experiment, the volunteers reported hearing a continuation of the song during the silent gaps when the tune was familiar, but not when the song was unfamiliar to them. The researchers also found whether the music had lyrics or not affected brain activity to different degrees.
If the music went quiet during an instrumental song, like during the theme from The Pink Panther, individuals activated many different parts of the auditory cortex, going farther back in the processing stream, to fill in the blanks. When remembering songs with words, however, people simply relied on the more advanced parts of the auditory processing stream.
The researchers said their findings confirmed that sensory-specific memories, those linked to sight, sound or smell for example, are stored in the brain regions that were involved in processing that information in the first place.
However, it is unlikely that memories were stored in only one particular brain region because they often involved more than one sensory pathway. When you are recalling a particular song that will activate auditory brain regions but that may, in turn, lead to you having a very vivid visual memory as well. For example, you may picture yourself at the school dance when you first heard the song.
A greater understanding of how memories are formed and recalled could help researchers investigating conditions that affect memory.
Transitional Learning
When secondary teachers start to say, “We are not paying enough attention to the work of our KS2 colleagues and the gulf that exists between the learning cultures of a smallish primary school and a large, busy comprehensive,” you know that there has been a lot of reflection on the experiences, learning and emotional, of new Year 7s, not to mention the respect given to fellow professionals.
Ladymead is that large, busy comprehensive, situated in Taunton, Somerset, complete with a mixed urban, rural and socio-economic catchment area. Their dream was to build on the excellence achieved at KS2 and harness the considerable skills and abilities of their new students whilst at the same time recognising the effects of transition on them. They wanted to implement clear strategies for helping children deal with this, involving many associated with Accelerated Learning, and create an environment for learning that Ladymead’s teachers had been impressed by on their visits to the feeder schools. The plan was to transfer a culture for learning that the children had been used to in the primary schools into their new secondary.
One of the main innovations to come out of this is a distinct induction period at the start of Year 7, where students are introduced to and practice some of the skills for learning at Key Stage 3. It is totally different from what they previously did in Year 7; it focuses on practical, interactive and brain-friendly learning opportunities that deliberately shift the emphasis from content to skills as an investment in future learning. The accent is firmly on group work, talking to learn and meta-cognitive activities. Writing is minimal and used as a thinking tool rather than an end in itself.
Ladymead School will be giving a presentation on how they went about constructing this course and what else they did to help the transition of their new students at Alite 2005 on 24 June in London. Full details of their experiences will be published on the website in September.
Watch out for these pitfalls!
Are you planning a Learn to Learn programme? In June we launch our own programme, L2 – the future of Learning to Learn. Here we pass on some advice advice from our own experiences along the way.
Do:
Have a plan for progression
Ask from the outset, what do we want our learners to become? Look at the best learners in your school. What do they have that we would want for the others? Drill down into the key knowledge, skills and attributes of learning. Focusing entirely on area – for example, dispositions – is not enough. Think KSA and plan for progression year by year.
Plan ahead for appropriate rooming, resourcing and staffing
Give the programme status by finding the right spaces, places and faces!
Think about learner outcomes and processes before determining content.
Learning to Learn is often treated as a body of knowledge, covering topics such as the brain, intelligence, memory and emotions. This then becomes a teaching cul-de-sac with no wider impact on learning.
Ensure that Learning to Learn is connected to and relevant to what’s happening in the rest of school and in everyday life
Put your best people on your biggest opportunities. L2L could transform learning in your school provided it is given legs. To do so, involve a critical mass of key players and use material from the world beyond the school gates.
Make sure everyone knows what’s going on
Make it public knowledge where the programme comes from, what it will do for everyone and how they can help.
Don’t:
Don’t buy in study skills sessions which offer a quick fix and not much else
We are in the middle of the study skills season. Nothing wrong with teaching study skills per se, but the practice of buying in outside agencies to lead a study skills experience is likely to end in disappointment. Unless you are 100% sure that what is done integrates with what students have and will experience in classroom learning, save your money.
If you appoint a Learning to Learn Co-ordinator, don’t then forget about the role
Participants in the Alite Train the Trainer programme often include individuals who have ‘been given’ Learning to Learn as part of their brief. Often they are instructed to provide a ‘course’. There are a number of problems in this. Firstly, it invests a great deal of faith and places no small amount of pressure on one individual who often works in isolation. Second, it assumes that L2L is a course and deliverable as such.
Don’t Timetable Learning to Learn as part of PSHE or Citizenship or Tutor time
Put it into these slots and keep it there only if you want it to have little or no impact. If you plan to grow it from there, then treat this as an interim and trial phase and let everyone know it.
Assuming that teachers – however good they are – will be able to deliver Learning to Learn without some training
Properly delivered Learning to Learn offers some radical and transformational possibilities but time for development of materials and people is needed.