Identifying passions and teaching the value of hard work July 31, 2009

The past few weeks, I’ve read two books – “The Element” by Ken Robinson and “Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell. Reading these books have raked up many conflicts in my mind about parenting and education.

Ken Robinson in his book talks passionately about finding one’s true passion – whether it is in math, science, history, business, music, art or sports, whatever it maybe. His book is filled with examples of how people who have identified their true passion and pursued them with hard work and determination lead meaningful lives. The book ends with a call for educators and policy makers all over the world to  reform education in a way that children get to explore a variety of interests and identify their true passions. Every child is born and nurtured differently and may not be equally passionate about the popular subjects (like math and science) that the schools teach. Yet, most education systems all over the world, through their rigorous assessment methods, test all children on a narrow set of skills and tag every child with a label called “intelligent” or not.

As a parent, there is nothing more satisfying for me than to raise a child who will not only make meaningful contributions to the society but will also lead a life which will be meaningful to herself. These two things definitely go hand-in-hand because only if work is meaningful to someone will the person be able to make a meaningful contributions to the society. And work can be meaningful only if you are passionate about what you are doing.But this book left more questions in my mind than answers to previous ones.

How does a parent figure out this true passion in a child? What if I completely miss it, given the many many different spheres of influences that a child experiences in her life? A child may say, she is interested in something and a parent can provide the opportunities. What does it mean if the child loses interest in that activity at a later time? What do I make out of it?  Sometimes, a child may become passionate about something only after being exposed to a skill deeply. Until then, the passion may be buried somewhere else. How do I figure out as to which area of interest the child should pursue in depth ? As a parent, am I thinking too much about these issues? Can I leave it all to chance or should I do my due diligence? And how do I do my due diligence in a way not to pressure my child too much?

Wait! My thought process doesn’t end there. It has become even more complex after I’ve read Malcom Gladwell’s “Outliers”.

Gladwell focuses on how demographic advantages, unexpected opportunities, hardwork and ethnic cultures play a big role in achieving something big. He gives examples of many outliers like The Beatles, Bill Gates, the big lawyers in New York City. He even talks about Chinese as a society, who have achieved deep expertise in math that other societies haven’t and why it is so. Most of us parents don’t set out to make our children become outliers. Apart from the priority of their leading meaningful lives, one of the topmost priorities on our minds is to make sure that our children would grow up to be economically self-sufficient.  The lessons that Gladwell imparts in his book would hold good not just for outliers but even to lead a reasonably “successful” life. In today’s world, you would still need demographic advantages and the right opportunities in order to be economically self-sufficient. You only have to look around at a person graduating from college when his/her country is in deep recession to know the value of “demographic advantages” and “opportunities”. And we as parents know all too well about the importance of “hard work”. Gladwell, in his book, talks about how it takes 10,000 hours of practice in total (which usually amounts to 10 years of time) in order to become an expert in any skill. This 10,000 hour rule is not a new concept and has been referred to many times within the realm of scientific research in the field of education.

As a parent, again I’m having a hard time coming to grips with how to have my child understand the value of hard work. The struggle is more to do with having my daughter understand the value of hard work without taking away the “joy of learning” in her. The rule of thumb in the field of education is that if a child is interested and motivated to learn something, the child will work on practicing that skill automatically. Yes, I agree but it is not as simple, is it? For, as the tasks start to become tougher, the natural human tendency is to give it up. This is where the value of “hard work” kicks in. But the more I push my daughter to pursue a skill through “practice”, the more I’m nervous that it may backfire. I’ve had some reasonable amounts of success balancing my urge to have her practice a skill and still retain the “joy of learning” in her. But sometimes I feel this balance slipping away right in front of my eyes and all I can do is throw up my arms in frustration (thankfully, not in front of her).

I guess if the child is “wildly passionate” (as opposed to just being “interested”) about something he/she would be lot more inclined to work hard. I know that some children, begin to exhibit their deep passions at an early age. But many children don’t and I feel that these conflicts that I’ve described are more relevant in these situations.

I want to close this window to my web of conflicts with a final set of questions . As an adult, it is a matter of balancing two things – pursuing one’s passion and at the same time, finding ways to be economically self-sufficient. What if your passion doesn’t fit in well with economic realities of the time that you live in? How do I make sure that my child is able to achieve this balance between these two things, when she grows up to be an adult? The first thing I can think of is that she should definitely have opportunities to pursue a variety of interests so that she develops competency in a range of skills that will help her find meaningful careers. Now, the conflicts in my mind have just multiplied. Identify multiple interests and motivate her to work hard on all of them? This is a full-time job. I’m definitely passionate about parenting but I’m not sure that this will lead me to economic self-sufficiency .

Natural growth versus Concerted cultivation July 28, 2009

I’ve been reading the book “Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell. In one of the chapters, he contrasts two parenting philosophies – natural growth v/s concerted cultivation.

Research has shown that some parents follow the philosophy of natural growth. They think of their responsibility for their children as one where they have to care for their children but let them grow and develop on their own. They are not involved in intensive scheduling in the lives of their children. These children spend a large amount of their time making up games on their own with other kids. The second kind of philosophy is of concerted cultivation. Here the parents are heavily involved in their children’s free time, shuttling them from one activity to the next, quizzing them about their teachers and coaches and peers. The parents also talk things through with their children, reasoning with them.

Gladwell talks about how research says that there is nothing to show that one philosophy is better than the other. The children who experience the natural growth philosophy are more often than not, better behaved, less whiny, more creative in making use of their own time and have a well-developed sense of independence. Where as the children who are heavily scheduled and experience the concerted cultivation philosophy are exposed to a constantly shifting set of experiences. They learn teamwork and how to cope in highly structured settings. Depending on the different environments that they are exposed to, they are taught how to interact comfortably with adults and to speak up when they need to.

With my daughter, I’ve found that I feel the urge to strike a balance between both these philosophies. Since she attends a Montessori school, I feel pretty comfortable that she is getting the freedom to explore her personal interests and hence experience natural growth,  for a significant amount of time within the school setting. At the same time, the structure within the Montessori environment, gives her a good space to  collaborate with her peers on different tasks, interact with the adults to express her needs and pursue academic activities – in short, experience concerted cultivation. She gets off school at 3.00 p.m every day. After school hours, I do take her for after-school classes at least 3 days in a week during the school year. These are pretty structured settings where she has to learn/practice new skills. Alternatively, we also have playdates with other kids quite often where she usually has an unstrcutured setting. At home, again we have a mix of both – unstructured time and structured activities.

I still remember what my professor at my graduate school (of Education) once said – “Children need to get used to boredom”.  When they grow up to be adults, they need to be able to figure out how to make use of their own time. They need to be able to independently figure out their interests and pursue them. What my professor said really struck a chord in me. Since then, I’ve tried to control my urge to engage her in too many structured activities. Even then, I find that my daughter comes to me once in a while and says, – “Now, what do I do? How do I spend my time now?”. I find myself struggling to give her an answer. Sometimes, I try and find an activity that she can do. But most times, her asking me that question is an indication for me that she hasn’t learnt to manage her time on her own . Hence I shoo her off to find something to do. After all, mommies need their own time too – especially time for reading . The best times are when, she decides that she wants to read a book sitting next to her dear mommy. Those are the times when I feel that all my dreams have come true. Mother and daughter sitting cuddled next to each other and reading their own books while the whole world passes by .

Homework for summer June 12, 2009

Summer is a time to enjoy time off from school and nourish the soul with life-enriching experiences. It is a time to spend more time with family and friends than at school, more time outdoors than indoors, more time amidst nature than disconnected from it. I have been looking forward to spending long, bright summer days with my daughter.

In the US, many children get almost three months off from school during summer. I read a statistic recently which said that counting all the vacations, holidays, weekends and the number of hours in a school day, children in America spend only 14% of their time in the year attending school. They spend close to 33% of their time sleeping and the rest 53% at their home and communities. This statistic made me wonder about what I could do to help my daughter be in touch with some of her schoolwork during summer. Going back to school for first grade in September and realizing that she has forgotten many concepts that were fragile in her mind and having to re-learn all of them again would not be a good thing, not just for her academic progress but also for her self-esteem.

Montessori children spend a large part of their school day doing “real” work and practicing their academic skills. As a result, most children in the lower grades don’t get any home work from school. Moreover, Montessori children learn many concepts through real life experiences and play. Hence I knew that it was imperative to use every day life experiences and play to enrich her learning during summer, so that her joy of learning is not compromised. At the same time, I also knew that there were some things that she needed to learn which can only be done through repetition and practice. For example, in order to progress in math, it is very important that the basic math skills and operations become second nature for her. For this, she needs to develop mental math skills. As she starts to write more elaborate stories and experiences in her journals, her handwriting needs to become more refined. She is a prolific reader, but it is also important to make sure that she is comprehending more and more of what she reads and building her vocabulary by understanding the meaning words that she reads.

My daughter loves to learn new things, be it  a new sport, new song, new concept about the world around her – you name it and she will have a million different questions about the things around her. But if it was left to herself she’ll probably not spend time practicing and refining some of the skills that she has newly learned. Her teacher had informed me that her favorite thing is to try new things. She would rather not spend time repeating what she had already worked on.

So, my thinking was that I should help her realize the value of practice and the importance of learning something really well, when it comes to academic skills. I popped the question to her about spending an hour a day during the summer doing “homework”. She knows what “homework” is – it means doing school work at home. To my surprise, she was thrilled with the idea. So, on the last day of her school, we visited a store nearby which sells many curriculum materials to schools in our area. We browsed the shop and I let her choose journals, workbooks and hands-on math materials that she could work on during summer.

The next day (yesterday) I marked a few pages in the different workbooks and journals that she could work on. She seemed very proud to be working on these. She wouldn’t move on to anything else until she finished her “homework”.  Today, before I could come back from the gym in the morning, she had woken up, picked up her journals and workbooks, chosen her homework and started to work on them. When I went to talk to her in her room, she even complained that I was “disturbing her” and not allowing her to “concentrate” on her work.

I’m not certain how long this motivation to do her “homework” regularly will continue. I’m sure that as the summer progresses, I’ll have to find ways to re-motivate her. As is the case with her fascination to try new things, this many be just one of her new fads which may wear off after a little while. But so far, I’m very happy with how happy she is, to be doing her “homework”.

What kind of basic education would I choose for my daughter? May 9, 2009

I recently watched the documentary -” Two Million Minutes”. The time between the moment a student enters ninth grade to when they graduate out of twelfth grade is about two million minutes. The documentary compares how a a few students in India, China and U.S spend these “two million minutes”.

While the documentary doesn’t make any conclusions at the end, it  seems to drive home a message that students in India and China are spending their time more fruitfully. It seems to say that compared to Americans, Indian and Chinese students seem to be  more serious about careers in math and science and are hence better off. It seems to conclude that America is not doing enough to compete with the rest of the world in the areas of math and science.

Ok, I agree that given what I know about education in USA,  the country can do better in preparing it’s students for math and science careers. But given what I know about education in India, I strongly feel that there is absolutely no need to put the Indian education system on a pedestal and say that it is better than the US education system. How much time the students spend on academics and whether they chose a career in math and science is not the only measure of a successful education system. An education system should be measured with many more outcomes – how well-rounded the students are, whether they are able to critically think about issues and make decisions, whether they are able to problem solve, able to think out of the box, whether they are confident, compassionate, responsible and so on.

First of all, I would like to note that I’m very passionate about developments in both India and America. I am a first generation Indian American who lives in America currently and who has plans of living in India in the future. I received an engineering degree in India and after a Masters and a ten year career in the engineering field, changed my career to one in Education after getting a Masters degree in this field. While my daughter is currently getting a K-12 US education, she will in all probability continue her education in India in the future. Given this background , I would like to think of my opinions on both these education systems to be quite objective.

Given what I know about both US and Indian K-12 education systems, if I was given a free choice without any other constraints to choose between these two systems for my daughter, I would any day go for the US education system. Following are the reasons why:

Firstly, I feel that my daughter will have a better environment in the US to explore her interests and pursue a career inline with her interests. She will have an opportunity to explore many options other than math and science – humanities, arts, sports and what not. She will even get opportunities to be competent in more than one field. I know that in India, unless parents work hard to swim against the tide, the society and the environment will put enormous pressure on the children to pursue a career in science and math even if the children are not interested in these careers.

I feel that even if my daughter decides to pursue a career in math/science after doing K-12 education in America, it will be out of her own interest. There is a huge difference in outcomes when someone pursues a career out of passion as opposed to when someone pursues a career because she was pressured to do so. Research studies have shown that people perform at their peak when they are pursuing something out of their own interest.

And secondly, there is the question of how well-rounded my daughter will be if she does K-12 in the U.S. My daughter will grow up in an environment where creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork etc are encouraged in a non-competitive environment. Research studies have shown that these skills are critical to success as an individual. I also feel that these skills are critical for a successful democratic process in a country. There is a reason why the American democracy is as sophisticated as it is today. If the Indian democracy has to reach this level of sophistication, it is crucial to instill these skills in it’s citizens. Research studies have also shown that a non-competitive environment is crucial for developing competencies at their best. The K-12 education environment in India is extremely competitive which puts a lot of pressure on the children to be the best, which in turn could bring-down their performance.

Apart from these academic skills, I also feel that my daughter would have a much better chance of growing up to be a social-minded, compassionate, confident and responsible individual if she completed her education in USA.

While the documentary “Two million minutes” has made a good attempt to bolster the importance of math and science education in K-12 schools in America, people should not confuse this attempt to mean that the Indian education system is better than US or that US education system is inferior to Indian and Chinese education systems in all respects. All these education systems have a long way to go and success cannot be measured on one dimension alone.

Any thoughts?

Towards better education March 23, 2008

A question, I’m sure many of us have asked ourselves is “Should children’s education be merely about imparting knowledge or should the children be taught essential skills including how to acquire knowledge?”.
During the 20th century, it was common practice for schools (at least in India) to follow a didactic method of teaching, which usually meant that the children were expected to sit in a classroom listening to teachers. They were expected to absorb the information/knowledge that the teacher taught and reproduce them in the exams. The exams mainly tested the students on how well they had “accumulated” the knowledge imparted by the teachers and the textbooks. Even my own schooling during the 20th century was this way.
But as I entered the workplace of the 21st century, I found myself lacking many skills that were needed to succeed in the workplace. I needed to think critically about issues, solve problems creatively, articulate my thoughts well and so on. Luckily my parents had taught me how to persevere. This allowed me to work hard and learn the skills that were needed to succeed in the workplace. But I’ve always wondered, what if I had an opportunity to acquire these skills during my school years instead of later on during my work life. Isn’t it one of the jobs of the schools to prepare children to be successful in the work place?
A couple of other important things that I wish that my schooling had taught me are life skills and how to respond to societal issues. My schooling absolutely didn’t prepare me to strike a good work-life balance. All that was important during my schooling years was passing exams which gave me the notion that doing well in the exams was the only thing needed to do well in life. Likewise, my schooling didn’t help me understand the issues in the society around me and how I can play a positive role in solving these issues. I feel that there was an excessive focus on “me” and my personal benefit.
This brings us to the question whether the schools today are addressing these issues? With the advent of new-age technologies, it is easy to search for new information/knowledge at the wink of an eye. Hence, a person who has merely accumulated information/knowledge in the schools is pretty much obsolete. Children need to be taught higher order skills as mentioned in the previous paragraphs. Similarly, with the modern day stresses, attaining a decent work-life balance is one of the most important things, as is caring for the society and the environment. Even with the ever increasing awareness of all these issues, why is rote learning so prevalent in schools (at least in India)? Why are only a handful of schools paying importance to the higher order skills that need to be taught? Why are we not learning from the wide range of issues that we face today as a society and seeking to educating our children to face these issues in a meaningful way? What will it take to break this cycle of ignorance on our part?

Some books to read August 5, 2007

Following are a set of books that I have read/referred to in the past which have helped me to sharpen my sensitivity to childrens’ learning needs and their cognitive development.

Coloring Outside the Lines: Raising a smarter kid by breaking all the rules, Roger Schank
This was the first book I every read on the field of education, back when I was contemplating changing my career to this field – well before even my daughter was born. It helped me to break away from the traditional mode of thinking about schools and education. He starts the book with the sentence – “I am writing this book because I’m horrified by what schools are doing to children”. His emphasis on developing the “life-long passion for learning” in children and what parents and teachers can do to develop it, has lived with me through this day as I struggle to be a good parent for my daughter. He gives very practical tips about how educational theory can be applied to “personal, everyday situations”.

Smart Schools: Better Thinking and Learning for Every Child, David Perkins
I read this book for one of my courses at Harvard and it introduced me to what is important to teach children and some of the methods of teaching them. This book is about how we should move away from teaching “fragile knowledge” and move towards teaching crucial skills like critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, meta-cognition and so on. For, if we teach children these skills, not only will robust knowledge be automatically developed, but skills crucial to navigating this world and making a difference in it will become ingrained in their brains.
Parents who are not familiar with the field of education may find some of the language in this book somewhat “deep”. But overall this book is quite easy to read and I would say that it is good for us parents to really become familiar with this “deep” language in order to understand our children and their learning, better.

How children learn, John Holt
How children fail, John Holt
I have read only parts of these two books, but they are probably the most down-to-earth books that parents can read to understand their children’s cognitive development. In fact, many of the instances that Holt describes in this book are related to his parenting.

Overall, I would say that all these books drive home the message again and again, that it is not knowledge and facts that we should teach our children, but it is the skills to acquire this knowledge, think critically, problem solve, be creative and so on. And that they should be done in a way that they develop a life long passion for learning and NOT for rewards.