Honor Codes and Morals

The New York Times brings us two articles on topics close to the heart of our work teaching students to visualize and become their best selves. While the article "Raising a Moral Child" is geared toward younger children, it seems applicable to Blair students who tell us how much they learn, grow, and change while living in the Blair community.

 

The Fading Honor Code

Raising a Moral Child

Debating Quitting and Grit

Jason's last post is fascinating and touches on aspects of grit I hope we're courageous enough to address some time in the future.

I happened across an article on The Atlantic in which a mother advocates quitting for her children.  She makes several points, but the one which resonated most strongly with me is that perseverance eliminates an element of exploration in children.  Socal's social and classist critique of grit aside, we may be best served to view 'grit' as one of a multitude of strengths our kids might possess, a unique combination of which make our kids themselves.
The Atlantic: Teaching Kids to Quit: Persistence is a virtue, but there's no need to fetishize it
and
BrainChild Magazine: Should You Let Your Child Quit?

A Response to "Grit"

I've stumbled across a number of online debates recently of Paul Tough's work on Grit and found the blog post at the link below interesting (be sure to read the comments to see some very thoughtful issues raised and read Tough's response to some of them).

http://learningpond.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/does-grit-need-deeper-discussion/

New World, New Education

The Economist offers this interesting article about the changing face of jobs and the role of education in changing societies:

Technology and Jobs

Flourish, by Martin Seligman

Over the summer, I took a few days to read Flourish by Martin E.P. Seligman, the founder of positive psychology and the head of the University of Pennsylvania's positive psychology center.

The book begins with a simple definition of positive psychology, which, paraphrased roughly, is the science of the good life.  Put another way, it's the scientific study of what's right with people, rather than traditional psychology's emphasis on what's wrong.

I won't summarize the entire book, but I do want to draw attention to Seligman's acronym PERMA, which he uses to codify well-being theory:  Positive Emotion: happiness in general; Engagement: flow, or hyper focus; Relationships: think about the worldwide blue zones and the importance of social capital; Meaning: purpose, reason for being; Accomplishment: success in endeavors for its own sake.

I'm interested in how our kids might put each of the five aspects of PERMA onto their own pie graphs.  Would we be surprised?  How does their knowledge of self differ from our knowledge of them?  How much awareness is too much to an adolescent?  Will too much self-knowledge downplay the growth that remains in their lives?

For what it's worth, Flourish may be the most important book I've ever read.

Hans

The Case for Nagging Kids About Homework

This Atlantic article gives a good overview of the current state of backlash against "helicopter parents" and a timely reminder about why teenagers may fail to perform academically. Even better, it reminds us all how to put the responsibility back where it belongs in ways that follow common sense.

The Case for Nagging Kids About Homework

Change and Opportunity at Liberal Arts Colleges

From Maria Bowditch:
The conversation about creating "intentional communities" seems to speak to boarding schools, not to mention the discussion of cost.

Merci et Joyeux Noel!

Haverford and Swarthmore Presidents Explore Change and Opportunity at Liberal Arts Colleges