香港六合彩资料

For Your Hands: Help Teens Learn to Manage Their Increasingly Complex Lives

From "8 Ways to Bolster Executive Function in Teens and Tweens", by Stephen Merrill ()

...Angela Duckworth says, of the term executive functions, “I think the term originally comes from neuroscience, from an understanding of how the prefrontal cortex regulates lower-order areas of the brain, and I think there's consensus that it involves working memory and response inhibition—turning down one part of the brain to turn up another. But the term is a little confusing because sometimes it just means ‘getting your act together.’”

Ethan Kross agrees. “Even among neuroscientists, there are probably eight different definitions of executive function,” he notes. “When thinking about kids in school, moving up one level to the question of self-control—which I define broadly as a person’s ability to align their thoughts, feelings, or behaviors with their goals—ends up being a lot more productive.”

While getting distractible teenagers to focus in school sounds great, especially to educators, the language of self-control can sound uncomfortably compliance-based. But the skills that make up the brain's executive functions involve both cognitive and behavioral domains that are crucial to learning and self-realization—goal setting and long-term planning, for example—and “the connotation should really be one of autonomy and not compliance," Duckworth contends.

“Everyone struggles with their impulses. Across cultures, and across the lifespan, self-control is usually the lowest or second-lowest self-reported capacity,” she says. “Who hasn’t struggled with the desire to procrastinate, or to eat unhealthy food?”

The problem of self-regulation is especially acute for teenagers, who are dramatically expanding their network of friends just as they’re besieged by new, complicated school schedules, increased academic demands, and after-school obligations. It’s a lot to keep track of, especially for novices. Still, there are plenty of evidence-based tools that teens and teachers can use to strengthen executive function, according to Kross and Duckworth.

1. TALKING OURSELVES INTO IT

Talking to ourselves as a form of self-management starts when we’re toddlers, and remains a fixture of our conscious efforts to exert self-control throughout our lives. “Initially, kids learn how to control themselves by repeating what their caretakers say to them out loud,” Kross explains. Eventually, they progress to “silent inner speech” as they confront moral dilemmas, process sticky social situations, or prod themselves to rise to new challenges. To help students manage stressful experiences like tests or arguments with friends, Kross says, we need to coach them in a variety of self-distancing strategies that allow them to “step outside themselves and broaden their perspectives.” That can mean asking them to reconsider a pressing problem from the perspective of a friend—”what would your closest friend tell you?”—to helping them reframe and talk through an issue in “a more positive, challenge-oriented way.”

Consider these strategies:

Recognize pressure points. Social and emotional safety and academic success are tightly linked—and at test time, a period of self-reflection might be as crucial to success as studying is. In 2019, for example, researchers found that when 9- to 13-year-old students took five minutes before a test and “silently spoke words of encouragement to themselves that were focused on effort,” math scores improved. Prompting this kind of inner speech shouldn’t be confined to test-taking. A growing body of research suggests that giving students scheduled time to talk themselves through challenges like study habits, sporting events, or academic projects improves outcomes.

Have kids write about it. Writing activities appear to exercise the same muscles as internal monologues. A 2019 study that also focused on a helpful pre-exam activity—this time an “expressive writing” task— concluded that when high schoolers wrote for a mere 10 minutes about an upcoming test, reframing their anxiety as “a beneficial and energizing force,” course failure rates plummeted. Short writing prompts aimed at building social and emotional resilience also appear to benefit teens and tweens.

Empower peer advisors. Break students into groups to discuss preparation strategies for an upcoming test or presentation, for example, or ask them to write emails to peers (real or fictional!) about how to manage their schedules. Unexpectedly, it’s not just the receiver of the advice who benefits: A 2019 study of almost two thousand high schoolers, for example, concluded that teens who provide written guidance to peers about “optimal study locations and strategies” significantly improved their own grades. When adults tell teenagers to put their phones on mute and hide them when studying, kids often disregard it. But when you ask teens to give advice to other teens, Duckworth explains, they say things like “put your phone on mute and hide it”—and are themselves convinced. The big takeaway: teens who dispense advice are often persuaded by it, probably because, as Kross confirms, “you’re actually wiser when you’re counseling someone else.”

2. LEARNING - DO IT ON PURPOSE

“It is either not possible or extremely difficult to tell a teenager what his or her purpose for learning should be,” wrote a team of researchers, including David Yeager and Angela Duckworth in 2014. In fact, they warned, “doing this could threaten autonomy, a key concern for adolescents.” Instead, the study’s authors asked high school seniors to connect their learning to a higher purpose themselves. Students wrote solutions-oriented essays about an injustice “they found particularly egregious,” then submitted a brief testimonial to future students explaining how learning can make the world a better place. Separately, the same study assembled 9th graders to write about a “self-transcendent purpose” in their future careers, which had some freshmen casting themselves as stewards of the environment or geneticists tasked with increasing the world’s food supply.

Though it all took less than a single class period, students who connected learning to purpose improved their grades (particularly the low performers), attended and finished college at greater rates, and spent almost twice as much time on “boring but important” academic tasks—presumably because they looked forward to a future payoff.

To link learning and purpose, try these approaches:

Ask about interests and passions. It’s good practice to conduct beginning-of-the-year surveys about student passions, or to  (There are some really AMAZING activities here - one is featured in the video below this article). Some educators take “student inventories” (20 sentences that complete the prompt, “I am someone who…”), or assign “Laws of Life” essays (about the values and principles that govern a student’s life). A teenager’s passion for music, politics, or the environment are points of leverage, enabling teachers to reframe assignments in ways the student finds compelling.

Pass the torch to the kids. Include regular exercises that get kids to connect their own learning to real-world outcomes. A  can be found on the Character Lab website—a nonprofit organization founded by Duckworth and two K-12 educators—but any approach that gets kids to regularly make connections will have value: journaling, a brief exercise after each unit which connects the learning to life, or researching and identifying interesting careers linked to ongoing schoolwork, for example.

Make time for (rigorous) projects. School can feel like a bubble, and teenagers “need better answers than something’s going to be on a standardized test” to feel engaged, Duckworth asserts. Good project-based learning (PBL) asks kids to articulate a real-world problem they’d like to solve, often in their own communities, and “wraps itself around” questions of student passion and agency, she says. A 2021 study, meanwhile, concluded that almost half of high school students in Advanced Placement project-based learning courses passed their culminating tests, outperforming students in traditional classes.

3. PLAN TO PRACTICE, PRACTICE TO PLAN

When [author Stephen Merrill] asks Duckworth and Kross whether we should teach kids things like calendaring or making priority lists in the same way we teach traditional subjects, Duckworth nods but quickly adds a disclaimer: “Yes, I absolutely think educators should be teaching students how to make plans and to develop routines, but unless the student perceives that there’s a real need I don’t think it works very well.”

That’s a crucial insight. Self-control, Kross elaborates, actually has two parts: motivation and ability. “There are all these tools and hacks out there: self-distancing, perspective-broadening, calendars, other organizers, and that's one piece of the puzzle. But you can have all the tools that exist—if a student isn't motivated to use the tools they’re not going to achieve anything.” The key lies in making things like calendars and long-term planning an integral part of your curriculum—a habit that’s indispensable to success—Duckworth asserts, so that the “skill or the habit will be rewarded” and students will be more “receptive and eager” to learn the skills.

Keep these tactics top of mind:

Scaffold scheduling, deadlines, and study habits. Model good scheduling and work habits by publishing—and regularly referring to—a master calendar with class assignments, due dates, and upcoming tests. To help students manage busy periods and complex assignments and projects, set up group discussions during which students break down upcoming work into priority lists.

Introduce your tech tools. You can , too, according to high school teacher Ian Kelleher. If you’re using an LMS like Google Classroom or Schoology, set aside class time for a “first assignment to help students learn the LMS fundamentals: how to view an assignment, how to submit and resubmit assignments, and how to access and use feedback,” he advises—and revisit the tools throughout the year.

That’s a lot of strategies—you can't integrate all of them. In the end, though, if we’re going to teach executive function skills to teens as effectively as we teach traditional subject matter, we need to use the same fundamental principles of learning: retrieval, spaced practice, and frequent, low-stakes feedback. Introducing a calendar once or twice during the year is not the same as integrating one into classroom routines, and a great gulf lies between assigning an essay that connects learning and purpose, and asking students to make those connections weekly. To get teens to start “aligning goals with behaviors,” in Kross’ words, we need to find ways to get them to practice, fail, and practice again.

For Your Heart: Getting to Know You Activity - Documenting Life in Photos

For Your Head: Classroom Management

From "Compassion-Based Strategies for Managing Classroom Behavior", by Ki Sung (KQED's )

When Grace Dearborn started her career teaching high school students, she felt confident about how to teach but unprepared for managing behavior in her classroom. During more challenging disciplinary moments with students, she used her angry voice with them, thinking that would work. Instead, on one occasion, an escalated situation led to a student following her around the classroom for 15 minutes while she was teaching until security could come to escort the student out of the class.

It wasn’t until a few years into her job that a colleague saw how she was communicating with her students and suggested a different approach. Dearborn’s colleague noticed that she couldn’t keep frustration out of her voice and body language when she was having disciplinary moments with her students, which only heightened the tension. When her mentor teacher saw what was happening, she told Grace to soften the muscles around her eyes — as opposed to creating tension when furrowing your eyebrows. She said that keeping the muscles around the eyes completely neutral will soften any harsh tones in your voice.

Dearborn started to see her changed approach to behavior management create happier and more engaged students and other teachers noticed, too. She shared her strategies with colleagues at school and then branched out to consulting other schools through . She is also the co-author of “Yeah, But What About This Kid?” and “” She shared some of her strategies at the  conference in San Francisco in Feb, 2019. 

She reminds educators that students of all ages need to be taught appropriate classroom behavior with compassion. She said that educators need many options in how they manage behavior because not all kids respond to the same measures. She listed several tactics in four categories (see image below article).

There’s a saying some educators use: “The best classroom management strategy is an engaging lesson plan.” That may be true, but there are often a few students who act out in class no matter how well the teacher prepares. Dearborn says when she started using compassion to help her students behave in school-appropriate ways, she had far more success. She often found that punishments embarrassed students and caused them to resent her deeply, damaging their relationship.

Tone, Volume and Posture

Dearborn empathizes with students who feel shame when they are called out in front of the entire class. Whenever possible, she tries to discipline privately, but classrooms are hardly private, so she often uses a combination of tone, volume and posture to get students on task. First she adopts a calm and serious tone in her voice. Then, she squares her body to the student. She says this kind of communication can usually do the trick, but there are other steps if needed. For kids who might have oppositional defiant disorder or be emotionally disturbed, Dearborn advises a side posture with averted eyes so as not to trigger a violent response.  

Avoid Standoffs

Dearborn said that in moments of escalation with students, often the best strategy is to offer a few alternative choices to the behavior a child is showing and then walk away. Sometimes a small nudge is enough to redirect behavior, and teens especially may not follow the teacher’s direction if she hovers. Dearborn calls this “drive-by discipline.” “Say the kid’s name superfast and then move on,” she said. “Sometimes it’s the right thing to do. It startles her, and then I move on before she can bait me into an argument.”

Look for the Subtext: I Don’t Care

When kids are acting in a confrontational, dismissive or volatile way, Dearborn suggests looking for the deeper message the student is communicating, whether they know it or not. She imagines an invisible subtitle running in front of the student that communicates what she really needs. When things get tense, “everything out of their voice and their face and their body, that is just interference getting in the way of me reading the invisible subtitles,” Dearborn said. She has had to practice ignoring the loud anger and hostility in order to look for the invisible subtitle.

“If you’re assuming the best about the kid, that they want to learn appropriate behavior, they want to be positively connected to you, but they somehow can’t, there’s something in the way. What can you imagine the invisible subtitle is for ‘I don’t care?’ ” Dearborn asked a crowd of educators at the  conference.

“For me, the invisible subtitle for ‘I don’t care’ is, Mrs. Dearborn, I really, really care, but I can’t tell you that. Do you care?” Reading the “subtitles,” as she calls them, has helped Dearborn to stop perceiving misbehavior as disrespect. That doesn’t make her a pushover, she said. It makes her an advocate for the student.

“So now when kids say, ‘I don’t care’ to me, I say, ‘That’s OK because I care, and I can care for the both of us right now, so let’s do this.’ ” Approaching the student with the assumption that  they want to behave appropriately changes the communication dynamic.

“I’m not doing it because I’m frustrated and now I want to punish them. And even though the words and the consequences I’m giving might be the same in either case, it is the quality of interaction that shifts, and kids pick up on quality and our unspoken intention more than anything else in a disciplinary interaction.”

The subtext could also be simpler. Maybe a student is talking in class, and when the teacher calls her out on it, she denies talking. “For me, the subtitle for ‘I wasn’t talking’ is, ‘Mrs. Dearborn, I was totally talking. You know I was talking. I know I was talking. Everybody in the room knows that I was talking. But I’m embarrassed that you called me out about it right now, so if you walk away, I’ll stop.’ ” Dearborn says to accept the student’s answer and move on.  

The Gentle Press: Head Down on the Desk

High school students often put their heads down in class either sleeping or refusing to participate. A teacher might tell say, “sit up” or “no sleeping in class,” but to Dearborn, those approaches don’t demonstrate care. Instead, she tried to express compassion, saying: “It’s OK to be tired, but you can’t sleep in class. Can you sit up and work on the assignment?” If that gentle reminder doesn’t work, Dearborn knows a more private conversation is necessary. She would spend a few minutes with the student  in the hallway. Sometimes a walk outside is enough to wake the student up, but other times it’s a chance to reaffirm an offer to help or learn about deeper issues that are going on.

“This is called the gentle press — when you gently press forward at a student until either they’re in the academic work or you're in a relationship-building moment,” Dearborn said. “Sometimes this doesn’t end in academic work. Sometimes the gentle press ends in relationship-building.” She recounted a past experience with one of her students who had his head down. When they stepped outside class, the student burst into tears and said his brother had been deployed by the military. “He’s not going to access the academics today. He’s in emotional crisis and we have to have some space for that.” she said. “If I had just gone by him and said, ‘sit up, no sleeping in class,’ what would that have expressed to him? ”

Choice, Timeline, Walk Away

Dearborn said that when people come to her workshops, they arrive with hopes of an exotic new solution that will solve everything. But changing behavior comes down to hard work. And to help students learn appropriate classroom behavior, she presents a series of choices that are connected to consequences, not punishments. Students can be given choices, including ones that lead to undesired consequences.

“The sooner we can get our students to internalize this truth — that their choices matter, that they are in charge of whether they receive the sweet or bitter fruit based on how they choose in any given situation — the sooner they internalize that concept, the better off they’re going to be.” Giving students space to make their own choices means that sometimes they’ll choose to act in ways teachers wish they wouldn’t. But even in those moments, incidents that could lead to an office referral, students are testing whether their teacher cares enough to hold her accountable.

“[The student] understands I can go to the wall without abandoning or abusing, without lashing out,” Dearborn said. “And she for whatever reason needs to learn that lesson, apparently. So I can be that person. It’s not how I want it to go, but if we need to go here a couple of times so she can learn who we are together, that’s OK with me.” It’s counterintuitive, but Dearborn said it would be easier for the student if she lashes out at them because then the student can blame her for how the interaction ends. That way, the student doesn’t have to confront her own actions. “But if I just maintain choices, leave them with her, with kind eyes, in the end, even if she ends up out of the room, she understands at some level, maybe not consciously and right then, later, that could have gone differently,” Dearborn said.

Visual Cues

When kids don’t follow through with a teacher’s verbal command, it might not be because they’re being defiant. Sometimes they’re not listening because of attention issues, learning differences or auditory processing issues. They could also be English language learners or they’re fatigued by a teacher talking too much. “Because they’re hearing my voice too much, they’re tuning me out,” Dearborn said. “If I don’t have another way to communicate with them I’m losing half of them half the time.” This is where she can communicate expected behavior . She has had kids line up, for example, in what they thought was a straight line. When she showed them a photo of how they were actually lined up, they did it again.

Managing a classroom of over 30 students is hard work and no one is perfect. But Dearborn has found these tips keep her in a compassionate frame of mind, looking for the best in her students, and checking her own assumptions before interacting with them. When she can follow her own advice, she finds she’s building students up, rather than tearing them down, and helping them to be accountable for the choices they make.