After decades of failing to change education by “fixing schools,” some in the U.S. are beginning to look beyond the closed loop of the classroom and consider the attitudes students bring both directly to school as well as to the whole concept of education and learning.
Researchers have now shown that a student’s conviction that he or she has the ability to be a successful learner, is a key predictor of success. An early researcher, Bandura, called this attitude of control over life’s outcomes “self-efficacy,” as in “it’s within my control to be good at this.”
Since everyone loves to have their own word for something, self-efficacy has been replaced with an array of terms: Grit-Resilience-Agency-Mindset-Motivation-Persistence-Self-Control-Tenacity. I’m going to batch them together and call the collection GRAMMPST. I might consider other terms, but only if they begin with vowels.
Trying to change educational outcomes with school-focused managerial strategies alone is like Xerxes commanding his troops to flog the waters of the Hellespont. Nothing changes, but a lot of energy is wasted.
But lack of results hasn’t stopped the experts. In hotel conference rooms and legislative hearings across the nation one hears the latest Dr. Barnum barking, “Step right up, folks! Behind this curtain you’ll see my Giant Education Transforming Machine.”
Reflecting on my own experience in this area, I realize that, although my ADD gave me plenty of problems in learning, I acquired more than enough GRAMMPST from my educated parents, who would likely have disowned me if I hadn’t finished college. The idea of being on my own motivated me, since they were providing the lifestyle I was accustomed to. And I hoped their funding of my fun would continue at least until I won the lottery. Anyway, they scared me and I went ahead and finished.
But making it in one area of life doesn’t necessarily transfer to another, as we constantly see with hard-working athletes who don’t do their homework because they don’t think they’re the kind of people who can be good at school.
My own experience with the Korean martial art of taekwondo is a great illustration of the importance of GRAMMPST, and also shows that changing attitudes requires persistent support.
My son, Colin, got to the age of eight and wanted to do “karate.” Friends recommended a particular taekwondo school and I signed him up for a one month introductory course. He did well, and I was fine with sitting outside the workout area and reading my newspapers.
Then, at the end of the month, Colin showed a crafty side I hadn’t previously observed. He agreed to continue but only if I joined him. I rather suspected this was a conspiracy with the Master, but I really wanted him to do this, so I agreed.
My first class was on my 43rd birthday—it was the rare exercise where I had a lot of pain the same day, rather than the next. Actually, it was much worse the next. If my body could have divorced its mind, papers would have been filed on the spot.
I thought I’d sign up and go through the motions. I repeated the slogans about “concentration,” “determination,” “persistence,” etc., but they didn’t mean anything to me.
Looking back, I can see I lacked “people precedent” for sport. Neither of my parents was athletically inclined and I was never encouraged to play organized anything. So I never had the experience of being coached—with all the pushing and (sometimes harsh) support that goes into that. Indeed, I grew up with the idea that I wasn’t an athletic sort of person. Some people were naturally good at sports and some not, and I thought I was emphatically in the latter category. I wasn’t necessarily bad; I just really hadn’t tried. Certainly, I hadn’t done the kind of intensive, repetitive practice that builds skill. As a result, I didn’t bring anything like “mastery experience” to taekwondo.
So the slogans flowed past without sticking to me because I was convinced I couldn’t do this stuff. It isn’t that I didn’t think I couldn’t do it; I knew I couldn’t. As Carol Dweck would say, when it came to martial arts I had a “limited mindset.”
Much of my ADD/ not-paying-attention, time in class was consumed by my escape plan—how I’d rationalize my departure in a way that would keep Colin participating. Given decades of practice, I was good at this kind of thing, and soon had some workable options ready to go.
Then a funny thing happened to my exit strategy. People—lots of them--helped and encouraged me.
Many of the instructors and lots of the other students took extra time to help me with techniques, which was very useful.
But what was most valuable was the often repeated “I didn’t think I could do this either, but if you just keep trying you’ll be amazed what you can do.” These statements, combined with the fact I saw people my own age doing well, caused me to actually try.
To my surprise, I passed a couple of tests. I didn’t do great, but not bad either. Soon, I was a green belt. When friends asked my goal, I said I’d like to go to brown (about half way to black), though I always qualified that by saying I knew I’d never be able to do it. This was not an abstract point: I saw brown belts all the time, and knew there was no way I could do those things. Brown belt techniques are a few light years ahead of the stuff you do at green belt.
At this point, though, I really had a family at the martial arts school. There were friends who were the same rank or thereabouts, and also instructors who were especially supportive. One senior (a second degree black belt) was particularly helpful. He was my age and I remember when I first saw him sparring how impressed I was with his very relaxed style. Unlike me, his body wasn’t tense and his breathing wasn’t ragged. He looked like he was having a great time out there dodging, punching, and kicking. This man, more than any, taught me to relax and control my breathing enough that I could focus. It took time, but he was patient and persistent. He was a very good mentor and teacher, but I think the fact that he was the same age and also didn’t seem to be a natural athlete was the most important. He gave me an image of what I could become; it was pretty fuzzy at first, but the focus continually improved.
And the family kept helping and kept telling that effort and persistence pay off.
A key part of the martial arts experience (at least in my school) is the nature of the barriers students have to get over. Specifically, to pass and be recognized you don’t have to do a technique at the same level as an athlete. In other words, you don’t have to get an “A.” Rather, you have to be able to do the kick or whatever effectively. So, my roundhouse kick didn’t look anything like the Master’s; not the same speed, not the same height, not the same accuracy. But if I could do a roundhouse kick that had enough speed, height, and accuracy to be effective (break a board), I could go on. Less than that, and it’s try again. You could call it competency-based kicking.
Ironically, I did by far the best in the most demanding area: sparring. An insightful person has observed that “a moron on a motorcycle is a self-correcting situation.” That’s true with sparring. If you don’t pay attention, you’re going to have problems. Fighting in taekwondo was one of the rare occasions in life when I could really totally concentrate. In the jargon of psychology, I experienced the state of “flow.”
With all that, I still didn’t think I could go on to black belt. After I told a friend and senior instructor, Mark, (a national champion) I was going to quit, he calmly said “no, you’re on your way to black belt.”
I replied that I couldn’t do that. This earned a hard look and a very short conversation.
“Why do you say that?” Mark said forcefully.
I replied, not so forcefully. “Well, I just can’t do it; I’ve watched people and I don’t have the ability.”
“That’s what you said about getting to brown belt. Just do it, you know you can.” Mark delivered this in a tone that suggested no further discussion was needed.
So I stayed.
Taekwondo was in fact much harder after brown belt, at least for me. My problems with concentration became even more glaring as we did more judo-type things, with “throws” that gave me an opportunity to determine the number of holes in the ceiling tiles. Unlike most others, I never learned any complicated hand to hand technique the first time. It always took me lots of repetitions to even get in the ballpark.
I wanted to quit many times, but there was so much pull from my taekwondo family that it would have taken more courage to leave than to stay. I’ve never been particularly brave, so I went on.
The final test for black belt begins with three days of fasting that end with twelve hours of meditation. After that, the main test is usually in a large venue because it includes a number of schools. Mine was in a college auditorium with lots of people watching.
After self-defense (the judo stuff), we did forms, sparring, board breaking, and concrete block breaking. At some point in there I got flow, and I still have a tape in my mind of a shattered board flying through the air after I hit it with a “speed break.” The concrete block wasn’t actually the toughest part, breaking easily on the first try (though I still thought myself fortunate that my hand shattered the block rather than the other way around—don’t practice this at home).
Not all was perfect, though. The issue for me was style. I could do everything, but in many cases looked far from elegant in doing it.
Toward the end, while standing with the group as we were waiting to be judged, I looked at the assemblage of Grand Masters on the stage, arms folded. I wondered if, behind those impassive Korean expressions, they were thinking I was the worst they’d ever seen. I hoped that wasn’t the case. But even if that was in their mind, I knew they’d be thinking something else as well. They saw that I wasn’t smooth, but they also had observed the broken boards and block and knew I could account for myself in fighting. Most of all, they knew that actually doing things despite handicaps mattered as much in some ways as the more spectacular achievements of others.
So I passed. And I still have the block (half of it).
There are, I believe, lots of parallels between my experience in the martial arts and what children from undereducated families experience. They grow up with little or no support or encouragement for school—not because their parents are opposed or don’t care about their future, but because the parents have no experience or affinity of their own. Just as I didn’t play organized sports as a result of lack of parental encouragement, children of these families don’t pay much attention to success in school. They can coast along for a while, but when the going gets tougher, as it does in college, they struggle. Like me in sports, these young people lack the educational “mastery experiences” that help create confidence that new hurdles can be surmounted.
The lesson here is simple. For a great many young people success in education will require more than good teaching and a strong curriculum. Indeed, it will require more than a good school. If we want them to achieve what they’re capable of, we’re going to have to give them an external “family” that’s good at support and encouragement.
