Educating Ruby (18 page)

For example, the screen grab above shows the dashboard for teaching strategies that develop metacognition and self-regulation – two of the most powerful habits of mind we have been focusing on. Strategies for building metacognition
involve getting the students to think more explicitly about their own learning. For example, they are asked to set goals, anticipate how much time a task will take, evaluate their own work or step back and check the way they have been working or discussing to see if they can improve their modus operandi. (We looked at some of the strategies for building self-regulation in
Chapter 3
.) For example, they might include learning how to manage distractions or how to use motivational self-talk in the way that athletes and sportspeople regularly do. The evidence for the effectiveness of these strategies is strong, especially (but not entirely) with children who have been making slower progress. Overall, adopting these kinds of strategies in the classroom accelerates students’ progress by as much as eight months. And the costs are relatively low, mainly relating to professional development that shows teachers how these strategies are best implemented. If teachers can help students to get better test scores, and at the same time give them mental habits that are useful in all kinds of real-life situations, how could anyone possibly object?

To sum up: the future of schools, as we suggested at the start of this chapter, is already here, even if it is not yet equally available to all of our children. In the
next chapter
we offer a few suggestions of things that can be done by parents at home and then, in the final chapter, invite you to consider taking action on a broader stage.

Chapter 6

What parents can do at home

Preparing young people to thrive in a tricky world is not just the job of schools and teachers. Parents are educators too. The way we talk to our kids, the kinds of rituals we create for them around mealtimes and bedtimes, the activities we encourage, the role models we provide, the materials we
place within their reach, the kinds of ‘fun’ we lay on for them: all of these carry messages that influence their growing minds – for good or ill. Before we try to think about how we can help to shape the education system itself – what we can all do to encourage the spread of the kinds of schools that our kids really need – we need to look closer to home (literally). What is the informal ‘domestic curriculum’ we are providing for our children, and could we do a tiny bit better?

We should say, of course, that, just as the earlier chapters were written for the purposes of stimulating debate, so this chapter on home learning is meant to do likewise. There are hundreds of excellent books on parenting and parental engagement in children’s learning and we certainly do not intend to duplicate them here.
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Instead, we offer this as a starter-for-ten to get parents and teachers thinking about the ‘how’ of learning at home. Remember Ruby and her seven Cs? We will use her description of the attributes she values as a way of organising our discussion. Naturally, you may not like our seven Cs and might prefer to come up with your own. We’d love you to do that!

The domestic curriculum, as we have implied, is like the one children learn at school; but it is conveyed more by the way things are done than the specific ‘lessons’ we might try to teach. You can play a family game of Scrabble, for example, in a way that models your total engagement in a good game; or as a coach, less interested in winning and more in making suggestions to your children as to how they can
make good words, with all your letters visible to all so that everyone can think through their options out loud; or as a fiercely competitive test of your own verbal ability; or as an exercise in dutiful, half-hearted involvement with your family while you quietly check emails on your phone. It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it!

Being confident involves developing and using a growth mindset, being a can-do person and being able to act independently. A growth mindset, as we saw in
Chapter 2
, is founded on self-belief. Children who believe they can get better at things, it turns out, normally can – with practice and determination. The fixed mindset makes you fatalistic, so you don’t think it is worth doing the very things – practising and struggling – that could help you to improve. The best ways in which you can encourage your child to develop this kind of self-belief is to avoid too much generalised praise (Well done, Guy) or ‘ability’ praise (Guy, you’re just a natural at this), and concentrate instead on giving really specific feedback to your child when he does things well (I really liked the way you spent extra time on your homework, Guy, and used the ideas your teacher had given you for writing interesting sentences). Guy, in this final example, is hearing that his effort paid off and, over time, he will see how valuable it is to go the extra mile. Another important job for parents and family members is to share things with which they are struggling. In this way, children learn that struggling and making mistakes are normal and healthy aspects of learning.

You can’t give a child a magic injection of confidence! For sure, you can make them feel loved and secure, but real inner can-do confidence comes from the experiences of planning and seeing difficult tasks through. A key part of such success involves the ability to set goals and then plan how you will achieve them. So, from an early age it is helpful if you can get into the habit of making plans as a family (What shall we do while we are on holiday? Who’d like to suggest what we do today?). Once children are at school, homework (not always a helpful activity if poorly set) provides a good opportunity to help your child break a task down into its smaller components, think through how long each part might take, make a plan, do it and then, whenever possible, talk about how it went.

When they are very young children want and need you to hold their hand. But as they grow you can help them to practise acting independently. To begin with you can be quietly there in the background – for example, while they cook a simple meal ‘on their own’. Then you can set them simple jobs to accomplish as they grow in confidence – walking the short distance to a local shop and buying you something, taking the dog for a walk (with you seeing them safely over the main road first), getting everything ready for school the night before.

A good read to help you understand more about developing confidence is Carol Dweck’s
Mindset
.

Curiosity is at the heart of all learning. Being curious involves noticing things, reading avidly and, obviously, asking good questions. Young children have curiosity in great abundance, constantly pestering those around them with questions (Where does dew come from? Why does it get dark? Who is God?). But it is all too easy to dampen children’s insatiable appetite to find out more. It can be wearying to answer yet another question, but if you can possibly manage to show genuine interest in the enquiry, such role modelling will be a powerful influence.

Being able to notice things is an essential component of curiosity. For some children (and adults) it seems to come naturally. For others it may need to be actively coaxed into life. If you have ever been to an art gallery you will have an idea of what we mean. Some visitors seem to be able to see things in pictures that others completely miss. It’s the same with children. On a walk to school, for example, some children chatter away naming things as they go. Others talk less but you can tell that they are noticing for they tell you about it later. A third category of child (and adult!) seems to walk through life without obviously noticing what is new or different or interesting. Parents and family members can help by playing games (the obvious one is I-Spy) and explicitly talking out loud as they go about any daily tasks. It can feel very odd, but it helps (Can you see the …? Isn’t it interesting the way that …? What do think that is?). Family walks and car journeys are great ways of practising noticing. And with a smartphone in your hand children can be motivated by taking photos which they can return to later and discuss.

Reading for pleasure is probably the most important habit you can instil in your child. Some children take to it and need little encouragement, just a ready supply of books from the library. Others need lots of patient encouragement. There is nothing more powerful than a whole family reading their books together. Children see their parents engrossed in a book and inwardly record the importance attached to the activity by the grown-ups. Routines help – for example, making uninterrupted time after lunch at weekends and in the holidays can work. Before they go to sleep is a good time to take the opportunity to practise reading together. If your child is reluctant then you will need all your skill to find topics of interest. One neat way of persuading reluctant children to read is to give them the chance to turn off their light really late occasionally at a weekend
only
if they are reading a book. Reading aloud to your children for as long as they will let you is vital. It helps if you can have lots of children’s books at a low height throughout your home.

Questions are the outward expression of our curiosity, and the home is the obvious place to give them full rein. Simple things that work include: watching a wildlife programme together and then talking about it; making sure you have a good supply of simple reference books around the place – dictionaries, atlases, guidebooks and so on; getting your children to create a treasure hunt around your house/garden and make up the clues; sitting beside your child and doing an internet search for something that one of you is curious about.

A good resource for encouraging curiosity is the BBC iWonder website or the Discovery Channel, and a wonderful book is Michael Rosen’s
Good Ideas
.
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Conviviality and collaboration are core attributes of human beings. Conviviality is close to what Malcolm Gladwell helpfully calls ‘social savvy’, and it seems that the home is a really good place to develop it. Young children can be very sensitive about who their friends are, worrying that they are in the wrong crowd or that someone does not like them. In the home we can provide children with a safe environment to practise interacting with people of all ages. We can show them how we are all individual and different and how to value such differences. Whether it’s being part of a tribe, group, team or family, we need to be able to get on with people, even those we don’t like very much. Spotting an acquaintance across a room at a party, Abraham Lincoln famously remarked, “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.” That’s a good attitude to model to our children. Whether on Facebook or in the playground, children cannot help encountering hostility, prejudice and the rush to judge. Being convivial – a good collaborator – requires us to be able to listen empathically, show kindness to others and give and receive feedback well.

Empathy is the capacity of seeing the world from someone else’s perspective. For a parent, learning to listen to your child with empathy is one of the hardest things to do. It is all
too easy either to jump in and give advice or to cut short a child’s distressed explanation because we want to reassure him or her. Much of what empathic listeners do is non-verbal. Short noises like ‘uh-huh’, ‘mmm’, ‘ahh’, with small nods of the head and an absolute focus on what the speaker is saying are important. A useful technique widely used in counselling is to try to paraphrase what you think you have heard and offer it back to your child: “So, it sounds like you’re pretty unhappy about …”, “I’m wondering if you might be feeling …” or “It sounds like you are thinking about …” With some careful listening you can keep narrowing the focus of your paraphrasing until you are pretty confident you have caught the nub of what they are saying. There are various games and activities that you can use to develop your child’s empathy. Examples include pinning names of famous characters on the back of a child with them having to guess who it is, games like What’s My Line? and role play between different real and imaginary people.

You can’t teach kindness. That’s a bold statement, but we believe it to be true in the sense that there is no simple training activity you can employ. Rather, it requires careful choice of language to select adjectives that are more generous than they are critical (“She must be going through a really tough time” rather than “Isn’t Aunty Helen being really cranky?”). As well as modelling it also invites us to correct our children by offering kinder versions of critical statements they may make, as well as looking for examples from your family or in the news of kind behaviour on which you can provide a commentary. And, of course, actions speak louder than words. The way you treat your partner/spouse, as well as your wider family and friends, will be a strong influence on your children. Some homes give reward
systems, for example for chores. It is also possible to use the same system for acts of kindness.

Being convivial does not mean that you can never criticise others. On the contrary, as we have suggested, feedback is one of the most effective means by which we learn and grow. Rather, it’s a question of how you give and receive critical comments. In terms of giving it is helpful to find positive things to notice first, to focus on one or two specific things and to be sure that you suggest a way of doing things differently. When it comes to suggesting different courses of action a phrase we like is: “You might like to …” In terms of receiving feedback the most important gift you can give your child is not to act defensively. By means of both body language and words, show them how important it is just to listen and learn. That’s not to say that all feedback is accurate! You can help your child accept what she hears but also have the inner confidence to be critical of her actions in a different way from the feedback giver. Giving and receiving feedback has to be practised so that individuals find the words and body language which are most suited to them and therefore have the ring of authenticity.

A good book to read is
Raising Caring, Capable Kids with Habits of Mind
by Lauren Carner and Angela Ladavaia-Cox.
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