What does a School Counselor do

I really enjoyed this chart because it clearly explains the roles of a school counselor at your school.  A huge thank you to The School Counselor Kind for putting this together!
 

Spring Groups at ACGC

Come Learn about Lee's Leadership Academy

Come join us in the library at 8:30am on Tuesday, December 2 to learn more about our 6th Grade Program!

Learning about Cyberbullying

In 6th grade we've had increasing reports of inappropriate behavior happening on cell phones and online after school.  In order to prevent cyberbullying and help students be aware of the dangers of cyberbullying, I found a great lesson on CommonSense Media called "Cyberbullying: Crossing the Line.  This lesson helped students learn to distinguish good-natured teasing from cyberbullying by analyzing online bullying behaviors that "cross the line," learning about the various ways that students can be cyberbullied and adopting the point of view of teens who have been cyberbullied and offer solutions.

We started by discussing,

1. What are some of the ways that you and your friends tease each other online for fun?
2. When does teasing "cross the line" and become harmful?
3. What are some signs, and what does it feel like to be in that situation?

We then watched the video "Stacey's Story - When Rumors Escalate."  After the video I mixed up the students into small groups and had them discuss the following:

• Why did the girls start to harass and threaten Stacey online in the first place?
• When do you think the girls' behavior "crossed the line"?
• Stacey says, "People talk really big, when there's like, miles between you." What do you think she means by this statement?
• In what ways might the online context make the situation worse than if the bully had harassed Stacey offline?
• Stacey's mom says that Stacey should call the school and report the incidents.  Stacey responds that it would "just make it worse." Do you think this is true?  Why or why not?

Afterward we shared our discussions with the group.  We expanded our discussion to how cyberbullying is different from bullying and what steps to take if something sent to us "crosses the line."

Finally we watched this informational video from stopbullying.gov:

Holiday Resources in Austin

Middle School Planning Dates

List of Important Dates for 2014-2015 Middle School Planning

AISD Middle School Magnet Choice Fair

Saturday, December 6, 2014, 9:00 am -12:00 pm Ann Richards

Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders

Showcase:  Saturday, January 24, 2015, 10:00 am – 12:00pm

Application Due:  February 6, 2015

Bedichek

Einstein Jr. Advanced Academic Program

Choice sheet Showcase:  January 20, 2015 6:00 pm-8:00 pm

Application process begins in January.  Application due February 6, 2015 by 4:30

Covington

Fine Arts Academy

Waiting for updated application

Fulmore Magnet for the Humanities and Law

Parent Info Night:  November 5, 2014, 6:00-7:00

Shadow Request Due:  December 18, 2014 at 4:00

Evening of Wonder Showcase:  Wednesday, January 14, 2015, 5:30pm – 7:30pm

Testing Sessions:

Session 1 January 10, 2015  8:00am – 10:00am or 11:00am – 1:00pm at Fulmore

Session 2 January  31, 2015  8:00am-10:00am or 11:00 – 1:00pm at Fulmore

Session 3 During shadowing

**Essay must be completed during shadowing or by appointment in the Fulmore Office.**  No outside essays will be accepted.

Application Due: February 6, 2015, by 4:00

Kealing Magnet for Liberal Arts and Sciences

Showcase:  January 15, 2015, 5:30pm – 7:30pm

Application due if shadowing:  January 23, 2015 by 4:30pm

If not shadowing, application due:  February 6, 2015 by 4:30pm

Testing Sessions:

Session 1:  Saturday, January 17, 2015, 8:00 am-10:00 am A-L or 11:00 am -1:00 pm M-Z

Session 2:  Saturday, January 24, 2015, 8:00am – 10:00 am M-Z or 11:00am-1:00pm A-L

Session 3: During shadowing

**30 minute essay to be completed during testing session or shadowing**

Lamar Fine Arts Academy

Application/Audition Workshop:  December 6, 2014, 10:00 am-12:00 pm at Lamar Cafeteria

Lamar Open House:  December 11, 2014, 8:30 am – 11:00 am

Application Due:  December 12, 2014

Letters for Auditions go out:  January 5, 2015

 Auditions:  January 17, 2015, 9:00 am-3:00 pm Lamar

Shadowing:  During month of February

Small

Online applications available for Green Academy and Tech Academy for students not in attendance zone

Register for essay test by January 15, 2015

Application due:  January 16, 2015, 4:00 pm

Essay Requirement:  Saturday, January 17, 2015, 10:00am -12:00pm

                               Saturday, January 24, 2015, 10:00am -12:00pm

Free Parent Workshop: Gaining Cooperation

KnowBullying App

Research shows that spending at least 15 minutes a day talking with your kids can build the foundation for a strong relationship, develop their resilience to peer pressure, and help prevent bullying.  In honor of National Bullying Month in October, SAMHSA is offering this free app for download on your iPhone and iPad.

Fall Groups at Austin Child Guidance Center

18 Questions to Ask on Back to School Night

Check out "18 Questions to Ask on Back to School Night" on CommonSense Media.  Get the answers you need about how media and technology will be used in your kids' education.

 

Talking to Your Child About A Tragedy

Tragedies happen every day around us in our world, countries, cities and schools.  Addressing death and the emotions that accompany tragedy can make a profound, positive impact on our children.  Parents, counselors, teachers and other school staff are key adults in many students' lives.  We must be ready to meet this challenge with knowledge and skills that will best serve our children to cope with these sad experiences.

Challenges for adults discussing tragedy with children include:

• We are unsure what to say
• We are uncomfortable about it ourselves
• We feel the need to protect and shelter
• We believe talking about it will create fears/anxieties

Even if we fail to talk to children and youth about tragedy, they learn about it from the world around them.  These "learnings" don't always promote the best understandings.  Cartoons, books, movies, fairy tales and video games, all present tragedy as reversible and avoidable.  In cartoons, death is a fate that only happens to the "bad" guys.  Honesty is the best policy when discussing tragedy, yet we are often afraid we will say "the wrong thing." 

Here are some guidelines that are important to discuss when it comes to explaining tragedy:

1. Tell the truth.  Talk to your children about what happened in terms that are appropriate to their cognitive and developmental levels.  Accurate information is central to the child's ability to analyze events and draw personally relevant conclusions.
2. Avoid giving unnecessary information that would only serve to distress or confuse the child.  Young children think very concretely.  Therefore, explain concretely what happened.  Out of their own anxiety, children will need to talk about the tragedy.  If they don't have accurate information, they may distort the truth.
3. Allow for expression/affirm all expressions.  Offer your children the opportunity to share their feelings about the tragedy.  A child may say, "I'm glad it didn't happen to me."  That is a very honest response.  It should be affirmed, not as self-centered, but as honest.  If a child begins to cry, let them know that feeling sad at a time like this is very normal.  Crying over something that is very sad is different from acting like a baby.
4. Set aside time for written expressions for the bereaved family/children.  Notes, letters or pictures created for the bereaved children mean a great deal.  Screen these projects.  Children's anxiety and fear can result in insensitive expressions.
5. Plan for the bereaved children's return.  Guide your child in deciding what to say and how to act when the children return to school or activities within the community.  Although classmates and friends should not expect the bereaved children to want to talk about it, the subject should not be ignored.  In addition to a death in a family, it is devastating for the bereaved child to be abandoned by friends at school or community organizations, resulting in another loss.  Classmates and friends might acknowledge it with a statement like, "I'm glad you're back.  I am really sorry ___ happened" and then treat the children as they did before the tragedy.
6. This loss may remind your children of losses they have experienced.  They may need to tell and retell the story of what has happened to them.  This helps them process, piece by piece, until they form their own developmentally realistic understanding.
7. Maintain or assure daily activities and routines.  Regular activities help children pace their energy and feel safe.  Maintain rhythm, patterns and routines while tempering your expectations with kindness and understanding.

Please remember these difficult times affect everyone differently.  Please contact me if your child needs additional support coping with a loss.

11 Ways to Conquer Separation Anxiety in Children

11 Ways to Conquer Separation Anxiety in Children

Make Sure They Know What to Expect – Prepare your child for what will happen so that there are no surprises. Read books about school. Visit the playground. Talk to him about what it will be like. Let him know that you won’t be staying with him and how the drop off process goes.

Read Children’s Books – The Kissing Hand is a classic book and can be wonderful for young kids going to school for the first time. The Invisible String is also wonderful. It’s a great way to teach the concept of being connected even when we are physically separated.  **The counselor has both of these books in the office, if a family would like to borrow!

Sing a Goodbye Song or Have a Good Bye Saying - Another way to deal with separation anxiety is to have a special goodbye song or saying, after which the child knows they have to go. I like, “Goodbye for Now, Hello Again Later!” Or, try “The Kissing Hand” yourself –  kiss the palm of your child’s hand, and they will know your love is close by!  They can kiss yours too in case you start to miss them!

Wear A Special Bracelet or Carry a Special Token– One thing that might help is if your child wears a bracelet for her parents to remind her that they are thinking about her. Some kids like to carry a token in their pocket, or a hankerchief sprayed with mom’s perfume. They may also like to carry a picture. For some children, this is comforting.

Plan “3 Special Steps” – On the show “Special Agent Oso”, James Bond-type friendly bear uses ‘three special steps’ to solve problems and do basic tasks, such as getting dressed or making a salad. The 3 special steps is something you can use and adapt it for just about any situation that causes anxiety. Talk about the situation before it happens, and then give small tasks to focus on while it is happening. Step one: Get in the car and drive to school. Step two: Walk in to class. Step three:  Say ‘hello’ to teacher and start your day!

Check Your Emotions – Parents should try to be as positive as possible during drop off, too. Kids definitely sense parents’ anxiety and sadness, and this can make the transition into the classroom even more difficult for the child.

Let Them Walk In – Act confident and be joyful for your child! If you are hesitant of letting go kids WILL pick up on that. Make sure they walk into school; when they are carried in it might send the message that you are hesitant.

Don’t Go In the Classoom –  It helps if parents don’t walk into the classroom during the first few weeks of school. It helps delineate home from school. It also really helps with separation for both parents and children and makes the transition so much easier for the children. Yes, there are tears sometimes, but not nearly as often when parents walk into the classroom the first week or so of school. Likewise, it may be easier to have the child get on the bus.

Don’t Linger – Before departing from the door, give a quick kiss or hug, maybe a silly song or funny handshake to say goodbye, but don’t linger. And if your child is crying, know that 99% of the time kids are feeling better and actively engaged in the classroom within moments.

Give Praise – Rewards! Try a “No Cry Goodbye” Punch Card or Sticker Chart for your child and reward them!  Not only do things like ice cream or a special toy work for making it to the car without tears, to the classroom without tears and through the day/week, but VERBAL rewards. Silly celebrations and top of your lungs ‘YOU DID IT’s’ 

Try A Transition Activity - In situations where all other tricks and tips have been tried, work with the teacher or counselor so that your child has a task/job/privilege to complete immediately upon getting to school. That becomes the transition activity and something to look forward to in focusing on rather than dreading the separation.

Tears & Cheers

Back to School Bash

Screen Free Week

I found this great website with 50 ideas you can do as a family instead of watching tv!  Check it out:

Screen Free Week is May 5 – 11!
 
This annual, international initiative was created in 1994 to encourage families, schools, and communities to embrace screen-free entertainment for a week. Hundreds of organizations such as the American Medical Association, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and the YMCA, support the movement.
Here are some fun ways to shut off the screens and have a blast — outside or inside — with your family.  These ideas are also good to think about as we all begin planning for summer! 

1. Get the imagination going by helping your kids write & illustrate their own book.
2. Take a ride and ask the kids to paint what they saw.
3. Go for a family bike ride.
4. Gather some yummy goodies and take the family on a picnic.
5. Take your kids to read to patients at nursing homes.
6. Visit the local humane society to give love and attention to the animals waiting for new homes.
7. Draw out your family tree.
8. Spend an afternoon sorting through old clothes and toys that can be donated to a shelter.
9. Play cards! 
10. Prepare and plant a garden – even if it’s just in pots! 
11. Go on a nature hike & have your kids journal what they see.
12. Learn about your local culture and history.
13. Attend a local event, play, or musical performance.
14. Spend some time at a local bookstore.
15. Visit a new restaurant.
16. Visit a museum.
17. Create costumes out of old clothes and craft scraps. 
18. Build a blanket fort and tell camp-style stories.
19. Play hopscotch or freeze-tag.
20. Draw portraits of each other.
21. Go on a nature scavenger hunt.
22. Play in a creek and discover what lives there.
23. Help your child complete random acts of kindness.
24. Go tree climbing.
25. Visit a “pick your own” farm.
26. Visit a local farmers market and get to know the farmers.
27. Go bowling.
28. Visit a local park and help pick up trash if you see any.
29. Put on a play.
30. Help the kids plan a meal that they can make.
31. Play board games.
32. Take an art class.
33. Plan a living room ball and dance the afternoon away.
34. Make mud pies.
35. Create crafts from upcycled items like toilet paper rolls, milk cartons, etc.
36. Go camping. 
37. Blow bubbles.
38. Build a sandbox.
39. Explore local landmarks.
40. Spend an afternoon picking wildflowers.
41. Grab a blanket and watch the clouds – what shapes do they see?
42. Get up early, grab a cup of tea, and watch the sun rise.
43. Prepare a freezer meal for a neighbor, new mother, or pantry in your area. 
44. Jump rope (and teach your kids the classic songs and rhymes).
45. Rearrange the furniture.
46. Build a town with blocks or Legos.
47. Roll down a hill.
48. Organize a classic neighborhood game like tag, capture the flag, or Red Rover.
49. Take a boat ride.
50. Go on a nature / critter walk before bedtime with a flash light.

Start College with Free Minds

Start College with Free Minds

Hi there, Parents and Guardians of Lee students—

If you’ve been thinking about returning to school, either to pursue a degree or to explore your intellectual potential, here’s a chance for you to do that for free! Free Minds offers a two-semester college course in humanities for adults who want to begin a new chapter in their lives. Applications are available now and are due July 7. 

Free Minds offers a supportive environment for nontraditional students. Classes are held in the evenings in Central Austin, beginning in August and ending in May. Tuition, books, and support services are provided free of charge, and child care is available. Faculty from UT and ACC lead classes in literature, philosophy, history, and writing. Students who complete the course earn six credit hours from ACC.

Many Free Minds students are parents who aim to model the importance of higher education for their children; a sizable portion of Free Minds students have gone on to pursue degrees at schools, including ACC, Concordia, and St. Edward’s. If you think you’re ready to make a fresh start in the classroom, please consider applying.

You are eligible if you:

1.    Are at least 18 years old

2.    Have a high school diploma or GED

3.    Don’t have a college degree and haven’t been enrolled in a degree program in the past two years

4.    Have demonstrated financial need (income no more than $23,340, if living alone, or $47,700 if living in a family of four)

5.    Possess the ability to read challenging books in English

6.    Ready to commit to attending class regularly and complete all assignments

For more information or to download an application, visit the Free Minds website at freemindsaustin.org, write to us at FreeMinds@foundcom.org or call 512-610-7961.

"This intellectual awakening has changed how I view myself, my place in the community and in the world. It is especially exciting to be able to share this new view with my children." —Abbie Navarrete, Free Minds graduate 2007, ACC graduate 2010

A Positive Spin on Bossy by Amy Arndt

A parent of one of our fifth grade students wrote an excellent article on the Huffington Post that details the stress our young students go through when applying to middle schools.  I agree with her opinion that this is a lot of pressure to put on our fifth graders and it makes me wonder how I, as their school counselor, can help alleviate this unnecessary stress while also supporting our students and their goals for the future.  

A Positive Spin on Bossy
Written by Amy Arndt

"Earlier this semester, my fifth grade daughter started deciding what to do about middle school. Her elementary school offers an optional sixth grade year, a gentle, loving cocoon that my husband and I found extremely appealing, mainly because we love the school and the teachers, but also because it felt safe and familiar. For kids ready to leave elementary school behind, they have the option of attending the appropriate feeder. For kids looking for a more challenging academic experience, they can apply to a magnet or fine arts program. These are competitive programs that require academic excellence, teacher recommendations, entrance tests and essays.

If you ask me, this is a lot to put on a 10-year-old. When I was going into sixth grade, my biggest concern was which fluorescent earrings looked best with my pinstriped jeans and if my friend Courtney would be willing to wear her matching fluorescent earrings on the same day.

Never one to take the easy route, our daughter boldly announced that she wanted to apply for all four of the magnet/fine arts programs. I supported the decision, but also informed my daughter that I was not filling out a single application. If she wanted to apply, this was her gig. Together, we created a project schedule on a poster board to log each school's deadlines. My husband and I agreed to cart our daughter where she needed to go, and to help her work through her essay topics, but we both agreed that this was her journey.

One evening, while typing one of the entry essays, my 10-year old looked up and said, "What's that word that's a positive spin on bossy?"

Before I had a chance to answer, she said, "Leadership. That's it. Leadership skills!"

I had an immediate flashback to kindergarten at the parent-teacher conference. The teacher already knew us because she'd taught my stepchildren, so she knew she could be straight with us.

"She's doing a great job," she began, "She's a big helper."

Uh-oh. I'd heard that line before. Our daughter was a "big helper" in pre-k as well.

"Sometimes," she went on, "I have to take her outside, point to the sign above my door, and ask, 'Who's name is that?' And she will read my name, and I'll say, 'That's right. That's my name, and I'm the teacher. If I need your help, I'll let you know.'"

With that, my husband died laughing. From that point on, every teacher conference began with the story of how our daughter needed to be reminded that she wasn't the teacher. This made for a funny story, but it also gave me pause.

Was calling our daughter "a big helper" just steps away from calling her bossy?

Lately, thanks to Sheryl Sandberg's LeanIn.org and the Girl Scouts collaboration, Ban Bossy, the word "bossy" is a bad, bad word. According to Ban Bossy, by middle school, girls are less likely to take leadership roles, and that unfortunate trend continues into adulthood. We're asked to pledge not to use the word "bossy" at all, and I'm fully on board with that, even where boys are concerned. Who wants to be called bossy anyway? But call our girls and boys leaders? Sounds like a great idea to me.

Luckily for us, our daughter's kindergarten teacher (and, for that matter, every teacher she had from that moment on) supported our daughter being "a big helper." They encouraged her to help, and as a result, she was able to channel her need to help in the right direction. Because of a positive spin on bossy, my daughter had the confidence, at 10, to decide on her own that she was ready to apply for an academically-challenging school program. At 10, my daughter knew that there was something negative about the word "bossy," but she understood that a simple word choice could turn bossy into something powerful.

I give a large portion of the credit to our underpaid, overworked school teachers for preparing our daughter for middle school. So much of who our daughter has become is due to the hardworking, compassionate teachers who cared about our daughter's personal development as well as her academic success. Sure, our education system is flawed, standardized tests are the pits and we have work to do to educate all children on an acceptable level, but the teachers who commit their professional lives to our children deserve our praise.

On the afternoon that a stack of important mail arrived, my daughter cautiously opened the envelopes while I nervously documented it all on video. Each time she opened a letter, her face lit up.

Afterwards, she promptly went outside on the front porch, closed the door and screamed at the top of her lungs while my husband and stepson and I gave each other high-fives. When she came back inside, I could already see the change. She's ready to take middle school by storm, and you can bet she'll be a leader when she gets there."

Original post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amy-arndt/a-positive-spin-on-bossy_b_5129792.html

Snapchat

I came across this informative article written by Monica Vila on Mashable.  She does an excellent job informing us adults to the ins and outs of Snapchat.  I plan on visiting TheOnlineMom more often to get up-to-date information about technology that children are using.

"Monica Vila is co-founder of TheOnlineMom, an organization that provides technology education to families and helps moms connect with brands they can trust.
And now for the self-destructing text … maybe.
 
Over the last few weeks there has been a lot of chatter about Snapchat, a very cool smartphone app that allows you to "chat" with friends via photos and now video. The idea is that you capture a "selfie" — or short video clip — using your phone’s front-facing camera, and then add a text caption or even a little artwork before sending it text-style to all your BFFs.

The popularity of the service was confirmed late last year when it was revealed that Snapchat had met the two accepted standards for success in today’s app-crazed world: regular server outages caused by too much traffic and an offer to acquire the service by Facebook. (Undeterred by the Snapchat founders’ refusal to sell, Facebook went ahead and launched its own Snapchat clone called Poke.) 

As well as offering the ability to add photos and videos to texts –- a huge hit amongst its target demographic of tweens and teens –- Snapchat has one other advantage: the messages self-delete after they have been viewed. That’s right: the sender can select a duration –- anything from 1 to 10 seconds –- after which the image, along with any added text or artwork, will self-destruct.

Should Parents Freak Out?

Of course, it didn’t take concerned parents too long to point out that such a service was perfect for "sexting" -– the unofficial practice of sending nude or sexually suggestive images via smartphones and other mobile devices. What better excuse for inappropriate behavior among oversexed teens, they argued, than a photo app that immediately destroys the evidence?
 
Unfortunately, kids who are determined to indulge in risky behavior hardly need Snapchat to achieve their goals. Ever since we started putting powerful digital cameras in immature hands, we have run the risk of our kids getting themselves into trouble. The safeguards haven’t changed: Talk to your kids so they understand the risks, and monitor their behavior so you can intervene before that risk becomes a serious problem.

Nothing Disappears From the Internet

And when you talk to your kids about Snapchat, Poke and similar messaging apps, you might want to point out that there is really no such thing as a self-deleting text. Snapchat recognizes just one of the ways in which its texts can live on by alerting the sender if the recipient takes a screenshot.

“What?” I hear you ask. “What’s the point of a self-deleting texting service if the person receiving the text can take a screenshot?” Exactly. Snapchat has no way to disable the recipient’s ability to take that screenshot, so all it can do is warn the sender when it happens. Add to that the ability of the recipient to use another smartphone or camera to capture a screenshot and that self-deleting feature doesn’t look quite so clever after all. 

Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel has been quoted as saying that the app was never intended for complete privacy — something that's borne out by a look at the company’s Terms of Service: “Although we attempt to delete image data as soon as possible after the message is transmitted, we cannot guarantee that the message contents will be deleted in every case.” Again, so much for self-delete.
 
Snapchat is a brilliant app that provides a novel and fun way for people to liven up those dreary texts. But let’s not kid ourselves –- or our kids –- that we’ve suddenly found a way to erase our digital footprints."

Making Mistakes

I think this article from NPR highlights such an important part of the learning process: making mistakes.  Students are often afraid to make mistakes and will back down from a challenge when there is potential to not succeed the first time.  We, as adults, often jump in to save/protect/solve children's problems for them in order to prevent them from experiencing the feeling of failure.  I believe that children need to be encouraged to try their best and see that making mistakes while they're young better prepares them for the future.  I recently purchased Mistakes That Worked written by Charlotte Foltz Jones to help children understand that mistakes are okay to make.  How do you feel after reading this article?

 

Does Teaching Kids To Get 'Gritty' Help Them Get Ahead?

by Tovia Smith

 

It's become the new buzz phrase in education: "Got grit?"
 
Around the nation, schools are beginning to see grit as key to students' success — and just as important to teach as reading and math.

Experts define grit as persistence, determination and resilience; it's that je ne sais quoi that drives one kid to practice trumpet or study Spanish for hours — or years — on end, while another quits after the first setback.

"This quality of being able to sustain your passions, and also work really hard at them, over really disappointingly long periods of time, that's grit," says Angela Duckworth, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania who coined the term "grit" — and won a MacArthur "genius grant" for it.

"It's a very, I think, American idea in some ways — really pursuing something against all odds," she says.

Duckworth says shows grit is actually a better predictor of success than IQ or other measures when it comes to achievements as varied as graduating from West Point or winning the National Spelling Bee.

Even the Obama administration is now on the "grit" bandwagon. A from the Department of Education laments that kids are learning to "do school," but aren't learning the skills they need in life.


But can grit be taught?

"I hope so," says Duckworth, "but I don't think we have enough evidence to know with certainty that we can do so." Part of the problem is figuring out how to assess grit. Duckworth says "these things are really hard to measure with fidelity."
Even so, many schools around the nation have embarked on their own experiments — they see the promise of the concept as too great to wait.

Students play a math game at the Intellectual Virtues Academy in Long Beach, Calif. The charter middle school stresses grit, intellectual courage and curiosity.

Courtesy of Jacquie Bryant

 
Letting Kids 'Hit The Wall'
Jason Baehr, a philosophy professor at Loyola Marymount University, recently launched the Intellectual Virtues Academy in Long Beach, Calif. It's a charter middle school that's a kind of petri dish for grit, along with other so-called virtues like intellectual courage and curiosity.

"This is all anecdotal at this point," Baehr says. "But I'll say from our experience in the school, I see [kids learning to be grittier] all the time. ... You can create a classroom culture in which struggle and risk-taking is valued more than just getting the right answer."

One way to make kids more tenacious, the thinking goes, is to show them how grit has been important to the success of others, and how mistakes and failures are normal parts of learning — not reasons to quit.

That message underlies every lesson at the Lenox Academy for Gifted Middle School Students in Brooklyn, N.Y., a public school that has been trying to make kids grittier for the past three years. On a recent day, in a typical lesson, a social studies class is studying Steve Jobs. Kids raise their hands to offer examples of Jobs' grit.

"He had failed one of the Mac projects he was creating," says one student.

"He used his mistakes to help him along his journey," says another.

Students also get to practice being gritty themselves. When a kid struggles to answer a question, for example, teachers resist the urge to swoop in and offer hints. Instead, they let students squirm a little through an awkward silence. The idea is to get kids comfortable with struggle so they see it as just a normal part of learning.

Tom Hoerr leads the New City School, a private elementary school in St. Louis, Mo., that has also been working on grit. "One of the sayings that you hear around here a great deal is, 'If our kids have graduated from here with nothing but success, then we have failed them, because they haven't learned how to respond to frustration and failure.' "

After years of focusing on the theory known as "multiple intelligences" and trying to teach kids in their own style, Hoerr says he's now pulling kids out of their comfort zones intentionally.

"The message is that life isn't always easy," Hoerr says. His goal is to make sure "that no matter how talented [students are], they hit the wall, so they can learn to pick themselves up, hit the wall again and pick themselves up again, and ultimately persevere and succeed."

It is a major adjustment for everyone — perhaps most of all for parents. "It's really easy to talk about in the abstract," Hoerr says. "Parents love the notion of grit; they all want their kids to have it. However ... no parent wants their kid to cry."

Changing Mindsets To Help Kids Persevere 

In order to get parents and kids on board with the idea of struggle, educators say, they first need to be convinced that their struggle is likely to pay off. Or, as Stanford University professor Carol Dweck puts it, they need to have a "growth mindset" — the belief that success comes from effort — and not a "fixed mindset" — the notion that people succeed because they are born with a "gift" of intelligence or talent.

"It's really hard to have high tolerance if you believe that your abilities or intelligence are fixed," says Eduardo Briceno, CEO of Mindset Works, a company he co-founded with Dweck. "Because if you believe 'I can't change my own abilities,' then trying hard doesn't make any sense. It's like pounding your head against the wall."

Indeed, educators say they see it all the time: Kids with fixed mindsets who think they just don't have the "gift" don't bother applying themselves. Conversely, kids with fixed mindsets who were always told they were "gifted" and skated through school tend to crumble when they hit their first challenge; rather than risk looking like a loser, they just quit.

"Kids came to our middle school, and when that curriculum got tough, a majority of them retreated," says Joe Giamportone, assistant principal of Lenox Academy. "Performance declined over the course of three years."

Seventh-grader Jamal Parris is typical. After arriving at Lenox Academy, he began to struggle in math.

"I started thinking that I wasn't that smart and I didn't deserve to make it into this school," says Parris. "When I was in fifth grade, I used to be so good at math. And then when I came to Lenox Academy, like, I just hit a wall. I was like, 'Whaaat? Letters in math?!'
"I couldn't understand anything," he continues. "Some days I wouldn't even go home to study, because I was like, 'I'm just gonna get a low grade anyway, even if I study.' "

That's what launched Giamportone on a kind of crusade three years ago to root out that kind of fixed mindset. Since then, he says, everyone at school has done such a mental and cultural 180 that even the very name of the Lenox Academy for Gifted Middle School Students is like a dirty word.

"We don't use the word 'gifted' — ever," Giamportone says. "In our school, you will never hear it."

" 'Smart' is like a curse," adds social studies teacher June Davenport.

Instead, the school is plastered with signs and handmade posters promoting a "growth mindset."

"This is a term in every class: 'Use the growth mindset. Have the growth mindset,' " says eighth-grader Alina Blaze. "You can put forth the effort to get something that you want."
The message is not unlike what Grandma always said: "You can do anything," "Just practice, practice, practice," and, "Don't give up!" But Blaze says what convinced her was the science.

The Mindset Works curriculum starts with Brainology, a kid-friendly computer-animated crash course in how the brain works like a muscle; the more you use it, the stronger it gets.

"I learned how, every single day, the more you learn things, the more neurons that pop out of your brain," says sixth-grader Nyashka Laurore. Even after a few lessons, she says, she stopped feeling like school was just something she couldn't do.

Christa Quint teaches a math class at the Lenox Academy. Teachers at the school resist the urge to offer hints when a student struggles with a question.

Changing Approaches In The Classroom
The focus is always more on putting out effort than on getting the right answers. Teachers have been trained to change the way they see students, and how they speak to them.

Kids no longer hear "You're so smart!" or "Brilliant!" Rather, teachers praise students for their focus and determination. "You must have worked really hard!" or "To have performed this well, you must have put out a lot of effort."

The adjustment isn't always easy for teachers trained to focus on hitting high scores on standardized tests. "It's really hard in certain subject areas to say that your process is more important than your product," says science teacher Nicole Trubnikov. "But that is the underlying principle of this program — to say that it's all the effort that you put in that's most important."

Some schools even grade students on "growth mindset" and "grit." It doesn't make it onto report cards at Lenox, but kids do get evaluated on it in class by teachers — and by other kids. 

In one history class, for example, eighth-graders observe their classmates discussing a reading passage, and then rate them on things like "learning from past mistakes."

"Normally, Timothy, he likes to talk to his friends outside of the group and, like, interrupt, and he don't pay attention that well, but he's able to take charge," offers one student.

"If I was an outsider and I was hearing this conversation, I might think that this was some kind of hippie-dippy love fest," concedes the teacher, Nathan Cearley. "But what you see is actually a more rigorous and risky learning environment."

In three years, Cearley says, he's seen kids grow less afraid of making mistakes, and more willing to ask for help. Test scores at Lenox have jumped 10 to 15 points.

Teacher Cari Noble asks students to discuss quotes about risk-taking at Intellectual Virtues Academy.

The Latest Fad In Education?
The number of schools using Brainology is expected to double this year, from 500 to 1,000. But even Briceno concedes they are still just small islands in a culture that may give lip service to earning an "A for effort," but that still rewards grades and scores above all.

Angela Duckworth, the grit guru who's also experimenting with making middle-schoolers grittier, agrees. A limited intervention, she says, if not consistently reinforced in and out of school, can only have limited results. "We don't know whether we've had any effect — the jury's out," says Duckworth. "It just seems to me extremely implausible that that's going to permanently and impressively change a child."

Indeed, even after three years at Lenox Academy, sometimes all it takes is one bad test score for kids to lapse back into the old mindset of "I'm just not good at math."
"Grit as a goal seems to be multiply flawed and very disturbing," says education writer Alfie Kohn. For starters, he says, "the benefits of failure are vastly overstated, and the assumption that kids will pick themselves up and try even harder next time, darn it — that's wishful thinking."

Kohn sees the focus on grit as just the latest fad in education that will soon "burn itself out," like many have before. He doesn't believe that kids today are any less gritty than before. And he says the research showing that gritty people tend to be more successful doesn't really offer any new insight. As Kohn put it, "It's a pure circular assumption, like persistent people persist."


Besides, Kohn says, if there's a problem with how kids are learning, the onus should be on schools to get better at how they teach — not on kids to get better at enduring more of the same.

"Grit's taken off as a fad in education, because that's a convenient distraction that doesn't address the pedagogical and curricular problems in the schools," he says. "But the more we focus on [grit] ... the less likely it is that we make the kind of changes that can help our children go to better schools."

Some have also raised concerns about grading kids on grit and with calling grit a "good character trait" or a "virtue." As University of Pennsylvania education professor Joan Goodman puts it, those are very loaded words with moral overtones.

"The language is important, because you're talking about virtues, you're talking about character, and ... you don't want to generate the notion that you are a bad kid if you are not gritty, and you're a good kid if you are," says Goodman.

Besides, Goodman says, grit may not be a character trait at all, but rather a byproduct of other traits, like confidence, courage and curiosity. And, she says, people can be gritty in some things but not others. A kid might be passionate about chess, for example, but completely disengaged in chemistry class.

That's a point well taken by Duckworth. She agrees that schools, teachers and parents all share in the responsibility to help inspire kids so they're intrinsically motivated.
"I don't think people can become truly gritty and great at things they don't love," Duckworth says. "So when we try to develop grit in kids, we also need to find and help them cultivate their passions. That's as much a part of the equation here as the hard work and the persistence."

It's a little bit of a chicken-and-egg kind of question. Passion may drive kids to be gritty, but being gritty and able to tolerate failure also enables kids to develop and pursue a passion.

Just ask eighth-grader Alina Blaze. Several years ago, she quit the viola out of fear that she would embarrass herself. "I found it so difficult to learn, and I said, 'I'm just not good at this, so I might as well not try,' " she says. "And soon enough, I just put my viola up there on top of the closet, and that was the end of that."

But now, three years into the growth-mindset training at Lenox Academy, Blaze says, she believes "you can teach old dogs new tricks."

"I think that if I just put in enough effort I can be the next Yow Ming," she declares. As her classmates begin to giggle beside her, she stammers, "I mean, Yo-Yo Ming. I mean, Yo-Yo Ma!"

Mistakes like that one will always be embarrassing, Blaze says. But now, she recovers more easily. She's one who got the message, as they say around here, that the secret to success is failure.