What Schools Don't Teach

20 Ways to Help Students Excel in School and Life

Brad Johnson, Julie Sessions

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138802988
• eBook ISBN: 9781317622659
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Are we adequately preparing students for life beyond school doors? Schools teach students not to be competitive and never to fail. Yet in the real world, people compete for jobs, and they often fail many times before reaching success. In this thought-provoking book, authors Johnson and Sessions describe 20 skills that are overlooked in schools and in educational standards but that are crucial to real-world success. They describe how you can develop these skills in your students, no matter what subject area or grade level you teach.

You'll learn how to

• promote leadership;
• allow competition;
• encourage meaningful engagement;
• help students find their voice;
• incorporate edutainment and pop culture;
• motivate towards excellence
• hold students accountable and responsible;
• foster perseverance and the ability to learn from failure;
• teach effective communication;
• and much more!

Each chapter includes insightful research, thought-provoking stories, and practical strategies that you can take back to your own classroom.

1
Promote Leadership

“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.”

Ralph Nader

Our Thoughts and Some Research Too

I (Brad) would like to start off this section with a question. Do you see your students as leaders? If so, then what talents or strengths do you think they possess that are leadership skills? Don’t worry, this isn’t a quiz but hopefully it does raise the question of how many people really understand leadership. The reality is that everyone has the potential to be a leader. We are all born with talents or traits that can be developed into effective leadership skills. But developing these skills has not been a priority of education or society in general. In fact maybe the first question I should ask is, as teacher or parent, are you aware of your leadership skills? Do you know what leadership skills you possess? And if you are aware of them, do you maximize those strengths in your professional and personal life?

The development of leadership skills in students is almost nonexistent. It is often neglected because realistically, we are educating our students to follow, not to lead. Think about it, in the typical school day, we train students to follow directions, follow a schedule, follow a straight line, and follow the 20 rules on the classroom wall, but when do we ever focus on leading? Everyone is aware that leadership is an essential quality for the real world; however, it is usually not a priority when it comes to students. In fact, rather than producing more leaders as the quote above suggests, we seem to be focused only on producing followers. Learning to be a follower is not a bad thing, but the problem arises when we teach students only to follow.

I asked earlier if you knew your own talents and leadership strengths. Sadly most adults are not aware of their own leadership strengths, much less how to help students develop their own leadership skills. Developing and utilizing your own strengths in your professional life will result in much higher job satisfaction and productivity. Research by Gallup indicates that when adults are able to use their strengths in their careers, then they are six times more likely to be engaged in their jobs and three times more likely to report having an excellent quality of life.

By contrast, studies show when people work in jobs where their strengths aren’t utilized, they are not emotionally engaged in their jobs. Sadly, two-thirds of respondents don’t feel like their strengths are utilized in their jobs. This means two-thirds of adults are not fully engaged in their work, have lower productivity, and do not view themselves as having an excellent quality of life. When students’ leadership traits are discovered, developed, and utilized, they will be exponentially more successful in their careers, more productive, and this will carry over into their personal lives as well.

Unfortunately, in education and in society, we focus more on improving areas of weaknesses rather than developing strengths or leadership abilities. As leadership expert Sarah Davis explains, “The conventional approach is about maintaining an individual’s strengths and work on fixing weaknesses. It’s about identifying improvement areas and developing an improvement plan.” You have to look no further than any job performance review or teacher observation to see that our approach is all about “fixing” weaknesses. While it is all right to improve areas of growth, the focus is never on developing our talents or strengths. However, she explains, “Instead we should focus on strengths, while also managing any weaknesses. … It’s really about identifying a person’s talents and developing them into strengths.” So, imagine the strengths that we leave underdeveloped in our students.

Talents are our natural aptitudes or skills which, when developed become our strengths. The use and development of these strengths allow us to produce positive/successful outcomes. There are five traits or talents that are considered key components of leadership. These include intelligence, integrity, determination, self-confidence, and sociability. Being able to identify one or more of these traits within students is the starting point. From there, these skills need to be developed and encouraged to grow to become leadership qualities. Beyond these five traits there are also traits that many recognize as being innate. These include body size, intelligence, honesty, the ability to inspire, charisma, self-confidence, and even ambition. While these can be traits we are born with, it doesn’t mean that they are fully developed at birth. Take, for instance, the example of body size. Arnold Schwarzenegger was born with great genetics, but he had to develop those genetics to reach his potential. He did not become seven-time Mr. Olympia simply because of his raw talent, but he had to train hard and develop his strengths to optimize his potential. On the other hand, what if he had decided to be a marathon runner? He could have trained hard, but his large frame would have never been advantageous to long distance running. He never would have been a world-class runner because it wasn’t part of his strengths.

Another example may be a student in your classroom who possesses the positivity trait. You know the child, the one who is always encouraging others and making the best of every situation. These are people who always see the glass half full. Well guess what, that can be cultivated into a leadership skill. Would you rather work for an administrator who is positive, energetic, and always encouraging you? Or would you rather work for someone who only appears when there is a problem and only communicates what needs to be fixed? You know the type; they look like they are always sucking on a lemon. Which would you rather choose as a leader? Yet, if their enthusiasm and optimism are stifled because the teacher only has time to cover items for the test, then we aren’t helping develop their strengths.

Fortunately, you don’t need a formal assessment to recognize some of the leadership traits that your students possess. Students who seem to thrive on achievement or competition are the ones we tend to recognize because they seem to stand out. But what about the students in your class who love to tell stories and be the center of attention? Instead of cultivating these traits, we want them to sit down and be quiet. What about the student who is highly inquisitive? They always want to know who, what, where, when, how, and why. Yet, in our fast paced educational world, we usually only have time for the what before we move on to another standard. Or even the student who is good at making and maintaining friendships? Do we recognize and help develop these traits? Typically, the answer is no.

Being a leader also means knowing how to deal with adversity. People often become confrontational and feel that their voice is not being heard. A leader must know how to listen to everyone and be able to make everyone feel valued. Confrontation is an area in which all students and most adults can improve skills. Females tend to shy away, boys are taught that as well. A good leader can help others to learn how to properly deal with issues. They can help others to see that it’s about the issues, not the individuals. Once the issues are the focus then they can be resolved. Peer mediation is a perfect example of this. With peer mediation the mediator, or leader, facilitates the listening to both sides and helps all of the parties involved feel validated, but also the focus is on the issues and not the people. By going through the peer mediation process, all people involved feel that they are a part of the solution. By having ownership in the solution the people have buy-in and will more than likely be able to resolve the problem. Being a leader during a peer mediation session takes training and skills, the type of skills that are sought in the job market today.

These types of concepts help alleviate issues in the classroom such as bullying. Bullying is not an issue that is corrected with a lesson or workbook on bullying, but it has to do with the respect and value that students place upon each other and themselves. Students who work together towards similar goals while respecting each other’s differences and feelings will be better teammates and leaders. A good leader will not bully or will not allow bullying to take place within the group. The leader will lead by example and model respect and in turn expect respect among the teammates. If not, then a peer mediation process can take place. A leader always keeps everyone’s feelings in mind and encourages the team to meet the set goal.

Remember there is an array of talents which students may possess. Some of these may not even seem like they are strengths, but when developed they can help students be more successful. Some of these talents include confidence, organization, the passion to discover, dependability, the ability to relate, team building, and risk taking. When these talents are identified and developed then they become strengths which help students maximize their potential. Students would improve their professional and personal relationships exponentially; allowing them to enhance their opportunities for success and improve every area of their lives.

Did you know?

US businesses spend around $14 billion dollars annually on leadership development because students aren’t entering the world prepared to be leaders. www.bersin.com/blog/post/2012/07/Boosted-Spend-on-Leadership-Development-e28093-The-Facts-and-Figures.aspx

Personal Experiences and Stories

The lack of leadership development in our schools really resonated with me (Brad) during my first year of teaching leadership courses at the graduate level. My students were professionals in the field of education who were seeking their master’s degree in leadership/administration. The course I teach focuses on developing leadership strengths. The feedback I have received from the students was an eye opener. Many students confess that they had never focused on what they do well (strengths) but had always been taught to work on the weaknesses. Almost unanimously they say this course is the most useful and helpful college course they have ever taken. Remember these are teachers and teacher leaders with 10, 15, and even 20 years of experience in education. Most of them had never thought about having leadership strengths, much less having them utilized by their administrators. If their talents/strengths aren’t being maximized, how do we expect students to maximize their abilities? What I find ironic is that we expect to develop transformational leaders for the next generation, when the leaders of this generation have never fully developed their own leadership skills.

Therefore, we even miss the opportunity to fully develop the leadership potential of teachers because the focus has been on developing followers, not leaders. Remember the teacher observation I mentioned earlier? What is typically the focus of it? You guessed it, areas of growth or improvement. Very little attention is given to what teachers do well and where their strengths might be best suited and/or developed. Here is one more interesting bit of information that may help you rethink how we ourselves lead and especially how we develop leadership in our students. People are nearly 100 percent actively engaged in their jobs when their administration/managers focus upon their strengths. When the focus is on improving weaknesses or areas of growth, then the number drops to 78 percent of people who are actively engaged. Even worse is when administrators/managers ignore their employees, such as with poor management. Then only 60 percent of employees are actively engaged in their work.

These statistics remind me of the mother who had difficulty getting her son up every morning for school. Each morning she would have to call him multiple times to wake up. One morning she had had enough and stormed into his room and yelled at him to wake up. Her son said, “I hate school! The students make fun of me and the teachers don’t like me!” He said, “Give me one good reason why I should go to school?” The mother looked at him and said I will give you two good reasons … number one you need to go because school is very important, and number two … you’re the principal!”

This story always gets an eruption of laughter when I share it at conferences, but it does reinforce the point that leadership is important. If the principal didn’t like school, can you imagine the environment he created for his teachers and even students? A lack of leadership skills affects everyone in an organization!

A good example of how to develop leadership in the classroom involves my science class where we use groups to conduct labs and do activities. All students have the opportunity to experience all of the different jobs within the lab setting at some point throughout the year. I make a point of telling the job expectations for each group member before each lab or activity. Students are able then to rate themselves as well as teammates in regards to how well they did in particular jobs. Even though everyone will do each job, there are times when I let them choose the one they feel strongest in in order to further develop those skills. They continue to gain confidence and become even better in an area that they already succeed in and enjoy. They are becoming masters, or leaders, of that particular job.

Earlier this year when I (Julie) was reviewing the expectations of a leader, I had a student raise his hand just as I was beginning my discourse. I stopped and asked if he had something to share. The student explained that he saw a poster the day before at his mom’s work and thought of science class. It had two pictures, one on top of the other. The top picture was of a man standing to the side and yelling at people to pull a cart. The second was a picture of a man pulling along with the others and yelling in encouragement. He said the poster was about leadership. The class was silent and seemed to hang on every word he said. He ended the explanation by saying, “So, I think we should be the kind of leaders that pull the cart with our group’s members and encourage each other.” All I could do was nod with a smile on my face. I said that was a better explanation than I was about to give. I thanked him and asked if I could use that example in the other classes that day. It was obvious that this particular student already had leadership qualities because he could recognize what it took to be a good role model. I knew that would be a position he would grow in throughout the year. I truly feel that by allowing students to experience being leaders in a safe environment, such as a classroom, that it will help them to become leaders within the community and among their peers.

Did you know?

People who focus on their strengths rather than their weaknesses are less frustrated and exponentially more successful. http://workinginsync.com/category/team-dynamics

Ideas to Try

• • Hand-writing activity: This activity allows kids to experientially compare a strengths-based approach versus a conventional approach. This activity is provided by ReCreate, a strengths based company.
  1. For this activity, take out a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle of the page.
  2. Choose a statement for kids to write like, “I use my talents every day.”
  3. Tell them the activity will be timed and to raise their hand as soon as they complete the assignment. (**End clock once last student has completed task.)
  4. Instruct them on the left-hand side to write the phrase – “I use my talents everyday” with their NON-DOMINANT HAND.
  5. Time class.
  6. Once completed with non-dominant hand instruct them now to write the same phrase “I use my talents everyday” with their DOMINANT hand.
  7. Time class.
  8. Ask the class how Round 1 felt. You should hear comments like “weird,” “hard,” “awkward.”
  9. Ask the class how Round 2 felt. You should hear comments like “nothing,” “fine,” “normal.”
  10. Ask the class about the: Quality between the 2 rounds? Consistency between the 2 rounds? Ask them what the point of this activity might be?

• The Responses:
  This is what it feels like to work at something using our greatest talents vs. using your...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Meet the Authors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Promote Leadership
• 2 Allow Competition
• 3 Help Boys Become Readers
• 4 Inspire Creativity
• 5 Encourage Meaningful Engagement
• 6 Help Students Find Their Voices
• 7 Incorporate Edutainment and Pop Culture
• 8 Motivate Towards Excellence
• 9 Hold Students Accountable and Responsible
• 10 Foster Perseverance and the Ability to Learn from Failure
• 11 Don’t Childproof Education
• 12 Instill Vigor
• 13 Model Flexibility
• 14 Create Kids of Character
• 15 Integrate Technology
• 16 Promote Teamwork
• 17 Teach Effective Communication
• 18 Instruct the Individual
• 19 Authenticate Relationships
• 20 Merge the Real World into the Classroom
• Bibliography