Common Core Before Character

I often wonder about the driving motivation behind the educational policies of the United States. A free K-12 education is guaranteed to every child but what's the goal of that education? Are we trying to create well rounded, educated citizens who can participate in society or are we creating cogs in the economic machine?

I read an article recently called "Children Need Social & Emotional Skills For School Success" which states that "Elementary school teachers report that it is hard to teach children who are not interested in learning, lack confidence in their own abilities, and have trouble cooperating and controlling themselves."

The article was written for child care professional encouraging them to teach social emotional skills in order to help prepare children for kindergarten. The skills they mentioned were things like following directions, focusing attention, self control, taking turns, working alone and in a group and problem solving without aggression.

Those who decide on our national education policy often refer to social emotional literacy (SEL) and character education as soft skills. "Soft skills is a term associated with Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ), the personality traits and habits that characterize one's relationship to themselves and others. These experts contend that while EQ does compliment "hard skills" like IQ and occupational requirements, it can't be tested or quantified so it should have a secondary role in the education of our children.

This is a classic example of putting the cart in front of the horse. Basic character traits are needed for learning to take place. Learning how to read, write and do arithmetic requires that students have a foundational understanding of respect, responsibility and resiliency. A cart without a horse is essentially useless, as it trying to force feed children a curriculum without first teaching them the character traits they need to sit still, focus and pay attention.

There is an ongoing debate about the malleability of IQ but there is no such debate about EQ. IQ represents potential while EQ represents the skills necessary to turn potential into reality. If IQ is basically a fixed point, why not spend more time and treasure on the soft skills a person needs to be a functioning member of society at whatever level they're capable of participating and contributing.

IQ or EQ, which is the cart and which the horse?

Rights vs Responsibilities

Garth Thompson, principle at the Eden School in South Africa, made a comment on my last blog post, Victim Mentality, which really resonated with me. Garth said, "The problem is that people are more focused on their rights than they are on their responsibilities".

That comment reminded me of a magazine I read called The Week. Each issue has a section called "Only in America" which reports on individuals who have brought lawsuits for one reason or another. Here are some examples from the last few issues:

• A model who is suing a radio show host for $500,000 for bruising her bottom after she agreed to allow him to hit a golf ball of of her rear end at a Playboy Mansion publicity stunt.
• A Florida teen cost her father the $80,000 he won in an age-discrimination lawsuit but gloating about it on Facebook, thus violating the confidentiality clause. She posted that the former employer was "officially paying for my vacation in Europe - SUCK IT".
• A Colorado man, who flipped his car while driving on flooded roads, is suing the First Responders who saved his life for $500,000 because they should have gotten there sooner. The man said, "I'm glad to be alive but I'm looking for some help in paying my bills".

We hear things like this more and more these days and it concerns me that the kind of individualism that made America great is slowly being replaced by a more narcissistic notion of individual rights. Parents often foster this idea by being overly attentive and involved in their children's lives at school.

As educators, I believe we have a duty to continuously encourage personal responsibility and resiliency in our daily interactions with the young people in our care. We can do this in a number of simple ways:

• Take time to talk with your class about what responsibility is to you and what it looks like in your classroom.
• Take responsibility for all your decisions in class and admit when you make a mistake.
• Use "responsible" language when talking to students like "I like the way you took care of your responsibility by doing your work."
• When students are rewarded, attribute it to them being responsible and doing what you asked them to do.

It's the little things we do everyday that make the biggest difference in our student's lives. The more we focus on and reward responsible behavior in our classroom, the more we can help them understand that "life, liberty and the pursue of happiness" comes, not at the expense of others, but with great personal responsibility.