by Todd Rose
120 psychologist Carol Dweck: See Dweck’s website: http://mindsetonline.com/.
Chapter 6
132 Gabrielle Rappolt-Schlichtmann: Here is Rappolt-Schlichtmann’s profile, at CAST: http://www.cast.org/about/staff/grappolt-schlichtmann.html.
132 even if their “rational” brain networks: See, for example, http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~immordin/papers/Immordino-Yang+Damasio_2007_RelevanceofNeurotoEdu.pdf.
134 their resources are at least roughly equal to the demands: Blascovich and Tomaka updated their work most recently in 2008: J. Blascovich, “Challenge and Threat,” in A. J. Elliot, ed., Handbook of Approach and Avoidance Motivation (New York: Erlbaum, 2008), pp. 431–46. This description is also based with Ellison’s phone interview with Blascovich, May 27, 2011.
136 enough to make anyone more confident: Interestingly, the psychologist Sian Beilock has found that too much audience support can be counterproductive for sports teams. Home teams may be at a major disadvantage during playoffs or championship games because the cheering raises the pressure to perform, and leads to players becoming anxious. http://discovermagazine.com/2010/the-brain-2/06-science-reveals-how-not-to-choke-under-pressure.
137 African-American students to reaffirm their values: Gerardo Ramirez and Sian L. Beilock, “Writing about Testing Worries Boosts Exam Performance in the Classroom,” Science, vol. 331, January 14, 2011.
137 The “stereotype threat” research: See for instance, this interview with one of the field’s founders, Stanford University professor Claude Steele: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/interviews/steele.html.
138 decreased bullying by up to 23 percent: See, for instance, Catherine P. Bradshaw and Tracy E. Waasdorp, “Effective Strategies in Combating Bullying,” Johns Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
138 Olweus Bullying Prevention Program: D. Olweus, “The Olweus Bullying Prevention Programme: Design and implementation issues and a new national initiative in Norway,” in P. K. Smith, D. Pepler, and K. Rigby, eds., Bullying in Schools: How Successful Can Interventions Be? (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 13–36. The program has been touted by experts including the American Academy of Pediatrics. See http://www.clemson.edu/olweus/aap.pdf.
139 David Farrington and Maria Ttofi: David P. Farrington and Maria M. Ttofi, School-based Programs to Reduce Bullying and Victimization, Campbell Systematic Reviews (Oslo: Campbell Collaboration, 2009).
139 “Just Say No”: In 2006, a ten-year study by the American Psychological Association, involving one thousand D.A.R.E. graduates, found no measurable effects of the program. The researchers compared levels of alcohol, cigarette, marijuana, and illegal substances use before the D.A.R.E. program (when the students were in sixth grade) with the post-D.A.R.E. levels (when they were twenty years old). Although there were some measured effects shortly after the program on the attitudes of the students toward drug use, these effects did not seem to carry on long term. http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=1999-03346-017.
139 zero-tolerance policies: In recent years, there has been mounting concern about the prejudicial impacts of such increasingly harsh school policies. See for example this report on a recent study of Texas schools: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/education/19discipline.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print.
140 In 2011, the first major analysis of these programs: Joseph A. Durlak et al., “The Impact of Enhancing Students’ Social and Emotional Learning: A Meta-Analysis of School-Based Universal Interventions,” Child Development 82, no. 1 (2011). See also http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110204091243.htm.
141 High Tech High: http://www.newschools.org/about/news/articles/future-schools. Ellison visited High Tech High and interviewed Larry Rosenstock in March 2011.
142 “with teachers becoming”: The interview with Rosenstock is available at http://dp.hightechhigh.org/~lrosenstock/prs_converge1.html.
145 they tend to excel: Several studies have found that schools that provide a positive culture and healthy challenges for students have less bullying, whereas poorly managed schools have more. See, for example, Stephen Brand et al., “Middle school improvement and reform: Development and validation of a school-level assessment of climate, cultural pluralism, and school safety,” Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, no. 2 (Sept. 2003): 570–88.
Chapter 7
152 being kind to oneself: See, for example, http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/go-easy-on-yourself-a-new-wave-of-research-urges.
152 more happy and optimistic than others: K. Neff, “The role of self-compassion in development: A healthier way to relate to oneself,” Human Development 52 (2009): 211–14.
152 dieting to lose weight: So says a book by a Harvard colleague of mine, Jean Fain, in her book The Self-Compassion Diet (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2011).
157 Strong relationships between fathers and children: These findings and more can be found documented at www.theboysinitiative.org (Among the most interesting of the studies on this site, published in June 2010, and involving more than a million Swedish children six to nineteen, found that both boys and girls were 54 percent more likely to be on ADHD medication if they were raised by a single parent. Fewer than half the cases could be explained by socioeconomic factors.)
161 the importance of mentors: See, for example, “Supportive Non-Parental Adults and Adolescent Psychosocial Functioning: Using Social Support as a Theoretical Framework,” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21384233, and Katy Butler, “The Anatomy of Resilience,” Psychotherapy Networker, March–April 1997, http://www.katybutler.com/publications/psychnetorg/index_files/psychthernet_anatofresilience.htm.
163 federally sponsored researchers have found: See, for example, E. H. Nieweg, “Does ADHD medication stop working after 2–3 years? On the surprising but little-known follow-up of the MTA study,” Tijdschr Psychiatry 52, no. 4 (2010): 245–54, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20503165.
167 I actually enjoyed learning: Of course, there were still times when my impulsive “wit” got me into trouble. For example, on the first day of my sociology class, the professor asked everyone to stand and introduce themselves. On my turn, I stood up and said, I suppose just for fun, “Hi, I’m Todd Rose, and I’m an alcoholic.” Some people laughed, others shrugged it off. But one woman, whom I’ll call Nancy, looked furious. After class, she cornered me and told me that her husband was a recovering alcoholic and that had wrecked her family to the point where she was coming to school to try to start over. “What kind of person makes jokes about something like that?” she asked. I knew she was right, and felt so embarrassed that I went a bit overboard in my reaction. “Actually,” I replied somberly, “I know what you are talking about. But I have been clean for almost three years. And I’ve found that humor allows me to get on with life in a way that taking things too seriously does not.” Nancy became my best friend in that class, and if she’s reading this now, I sure hope she forgives me.
Chapter 8
176 “syllabuses”: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/syllabi.
184 suppressing unwelcome bits of reality: This explanation, and the story of Kevin Dunbar’s research, comes from a fascinating story in Wired magazine: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/fail_accept_defeat/
187 the immediate aftermath of any error: Malcolm Gladwell has written a particularly insightful story illustrating the value of thwarting the habit of denial sufficiently to learn from one’s mistakes. It’s at http://www.gladwell.com/1999/1999_08_02_a_genius.htm.
187 strategy known as reframing: A nice overview is at http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/eyes-the-brain/201104/seeing-yourself-differently-through-reframing.
Epilogue
198 science notebook: The ungainly early name for the notebook prototype is the SNUDLE. The Science Notebook team has been headed by CAST scientist Gabrielle Rappolt-Schlichtmann and created with financing from the U.S. Department of Education. You c
an find out more about the notebook at http://www.cast.org/research/projects/snudl.html. Of course, the notebook is just one of a large number of innovative classroom technologies starting to come into use. I’m also excited about innovations such as the new smart-pen system developed by a company called LiveScribe, http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/, which simultaneously takes notes and records audio content, with an option by which you can tap on a note and hear all that was said that you forgot to write down.
199 “unimpeded excellence”: See David George Ritchie, Natural Rights: A Criticism of Some Political and Ethical Conceptions (New York: Macmillan, 1895), available at http://books.google.com/books?id=o0OFAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA274&lpg=PA274&dq=happiness+unimpeded+excellence&source=bl&ots=QvNQkLhDeO&sig=SKewNVJzORSne9_6FRhm8SXhaZw&hl=en&ei=ritVTqvrOMfjiALpi_ngDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=happiness%20unimpeded%20excellence&f=false.
203 Diane Ravitch: Ravitch is the author of, among other works, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education. Her quote comes from a radio interview with Democracy Now, http://vimeo.com/28201779. The transcript is available at http://www.alternet.org/news/152182/%22poverty_is_the_problem%22_with_our_public_schools,_not_teachers%27_unions?page=5.
203 In the decade beginning with the year 2000: Heather Staker et al., “The Rise of K–12 Blended Learning Profiles of Emerging Models,” Innosite Institute, May 2011.
203 At this writing, more than half a million: http://www.cnbc.com/id/44255406/Online_Grade_Schools_Becoming_a_Popular_Alternative. Furthermore, nationwide, an estimated 1.03 million students at the K–12 level took an online course in 2007–2008, up 47 percent from two years earlier, according to the Sloan Consortium, an advocacy group for online education.
204 thousands of U.S. schools: See also this New York Times story: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/education/06online.html. A related development, by the way, is that some private schools, at this writing, have been using new memory-training programs to help their students sharpen their minds. The two leading companies in this burgeoning new field are Cogmed and Lumosity, both offering programs developed by cognitive scientists. See: http://www.cogmed.com and http://www.lumosity.com. Of the two, Cogmed has an impressive number of supportive studies, suggesting the program can help kids with working memory deficits. Cogmed is substantially more rigorous and also more expensive than Lumosity, requiring a coach and costing about $1,500.
204 School of One: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-littlest-schoolhouse/8132/07/21/2009.
205 Rocketship Education: See: http://newlearningonline.com/2011/05/11/series-focuses-on-rocketships-success.
205 DSST: For more background, see the editorial in the Denver Post: http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_18471934.
205 close to half of all students: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Arti cles/2010/10/28/High-College-Dropout-Rate-Threatens-US-Growth.aspx#.
205 America’s rapidly declining rate of college grads: The United States in recent years has dropped from first to ninth place in the world in college graduates. See this interview with U.S. education secretary Arne Duncan: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/04/05/am-arne-duncan-on-the-future-of-education-in-the-us.
206 Schwarzenegger’s switch: http://www.clrn.org/fdti/; http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/06/open-source-digital-textbooks-coming-to-california-schools.ars;http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2009/0611/p02s14-usgn.html;http://www.convergemag.com/edtech/Digital-Textbook-Run-Down.html.
207 In 2010, the foundation partnered: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nasa-teams-with-ck-12-foundation-on-physics-flexbook-103465599.html.
207 Even my own home state, Utah: Here’s a description of the Utah Online Education project by one of its promoters: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-vander-ark/utah-poised-to-lead-in-on_b_822298.html. On the other hand, a more critical report called this venture “the full employment act for online (for-profit) education providers serving high school students”: http://utahgravytrain.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/howard-stephenson-and-pces-judi-clark-pushing-the-vouchers-you-cant-refuse.
207 firm called K12: http://www.k12.com/; http://kpk12.com/blog/2011/04/s-b-65-poised-to-change-online-learning-in-utah/.
208 the school has been cutting costs: http://educationnext.org/future-schools.
208 the nightmare vision that Ravitch suggests: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b4232076996440.htm. This might be a good opportunity to address another common worry about more computers in classrooms—along the lines that they will be an impossible distraction for students. For instance, a 2009 Stanford University study showed that students who regularly multitasked with technology were more easily distracted—not just in the moment but long after they put their devices aside. With this peril in mind, several universities at this writing have been banning laptops in some classes, after professors complained that students were shopping for shoes and socializing through Facebook and Twitter rather than joining in discussions of the material. See, for example, http://articles.boston.com/2011-04-24/news/29469460_1_mit-social-networking-laptops. I certainly recognize that distraction is a danger that must be addressed, but don’t think the answer is banning laptops altogether.
209 “high touch”: The expression “high-tech and high touch” has been used in several contexts, including as the title of this book: http://www.amazon.com/High-Tech-Touch-Technology-Meaning/dp/0767903838.
210 Rosenstock recently rejected: Rosenstock talked with Katherine Ellison in San Diego in March 2011. He also discussed his wariness about increasing high-tech in this interview with NewSchools: http://www.newschools.org/news/future-schools.
210 Big Picture Learning: http://www.bigpicture.org/big-picture-history.
213 being provided with frequent and relevant feedback: A study supporting this idea made big news in January 2011: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/01/19/science.1199327.abstract. See also http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/science/21memory.html.
214 Salman Khan: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121978193; http://blogs.forbes.com/bruceupbin/2010/10/28/khan-academy-a-name-you-need-to-know-in-2011/;http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121978193.
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