NurtureShock_ New Thinking About Children Part 7

Only in the last decade has the field sorted out these dual competing narratives and found an explanation for them. Essentially, the pop psychology field caters to parents, who find having a teenager in the home to be really stressful. But the social scientists were polling the teens, most of whom didn't find adolescence so traumatic. This is exactly what Tabitha Holmes learned-that parents rate all the arguing as destructive, while teens find it generally to be productive.

"The popular image of the individual sulking in the wake of a family argument may be a more accurate portrayal of the emotional state of the parent, than the teenager," Steinberg writes. "Parents are more bothered by the bickering and squabbling that takes place during this time than are adolescents, and parents are more likely to hold on to the affect after a negative interaction with their teenagers."

In the popular media, the dual contrasting narratives of adolescence continue. According to many news stories, teens are apathetic and unprepared. These stories mention that alcohol abuse is high, teen pregnancy is ticking back up, and huge numbers of high school seniors are failing their state exit exams even though they supposedly pa.s.sed all their cla.s.ses. The California State University system, for example, admits the top third of the state's high school seniors. Yet six out of ten CSU students have to take remedial cla.s.ses; half are not academically prepared to be in college.

Then, to hear other stories, today's teens are so focused on success that it's alarming. The rate of kids in high school taking advanced math and science courses has leapt 20%. Colleges are drowning in applications from driven teens: the majority of teens now apply to at least four schools. In the last 35 years, enrollment in the nation's colleges has skyrocketed from 5.8 million to 10.4 million. Sure, a sizeable portion of them need remedial help-but it's a smaller portion now than in the 1980s. Their overachieving isn't limited just to their academics, either. Surveys of incoming college freshmen find that 70% of them volunteer weekly, and 60% hold down jobs while in school. Voting is up, for those eighteen and older, and the proportion who've partic.i.p.ated in an organized demonstration is at 49%, the highest in history. The students who entered college in 2008 were engaged in more political dialogue than any cla.s.s since 1968.

I suppose this split-personality is natural; both narratives exist because we need them to echo our experience at any particular time. They compete, but they both persist. We carry dual narratives whenever a phenomenon can't be characterized by a singular explanation. We now have dual narratives not just of adolescence, but of the twenty-something years and of being unmarried at forty. In the eyes of some, these reflect an unwillingness to accept reality; to others, they reflect the courage to refuse a compromised life.

The danger is when these narratives don't just reflect, they steer. Wrong from the start, comprising only half the story, these narratives nevertheless become the explanatory system through which adolescents see their life. I can only wonder how many teens, naturally p.r.o.ne to seeing conflict as productive, instead are being taught to view it as destructive, symptomatic of a poor relations.h.i.+p rather than a good one. How many like their parents just fine, yet are hearing that it's uncool to do so? How many are acting disaffected and bored, because showing they care paints them as the fool? How many can't tell their parents the truth, because honesty is just not how the story goes?

EIGHT.

Can Self-Control Be Taught?Developers of a new kind of preschool keep losing their grant money-the students are so successful they're no longer "at-risk enough" to warrant further study. What's their secret?

When I was growing up in Seattle, I partic.i.p.ated in a sort of national rite of pa.s.sage: I spent the autumn of my soph.o.m.ore year in high school taking a Driver's Education cla.s.s.

I vividly remember my instructor. A tall, aged gentleman who wore thick gla.s.ses, bright cardigans, and plaid pants, he was the only one of our teachers who let us address him by his first name, Claude. He doubled as the school's golf coach. I'd never thought of him as particularly kind or consoling, but he must have had the patience of a saint to teach teenagers both to drive a car and drive a golf ball.

Because I've had only one accident, I'd always credited Claude with successfully teaching me to drive. And since it's the way I learned to drive, I'd a.s.sumed that Driver's Ed works works. I'm not alone in that presumption: seventeen states today allow those who've pa.s.sed Driver's Ed to skip, outright, the driving portion of the licensing test.

But put to the test of scientific a.n.a.lysis, a different story emerges. Studies have compared accident data before and after schools implemented driver education. These reports have consistently found no reduction in crashes among drivers who pa.s.s a training course. At first, it was hard for me to believe the studies. After all, Driver's Ed seems like such a quintessential high school experience-there has to be a reason for it. Then I started remembering some of my friends who were in Driver's Ed with me. They'd had accidents soon after they'd gotten their licenses: Claude's careful coaching hadn't prevented them from getting into accidents. I flashed back to my own near-misses-when I was a teen who thought cutting across three lanes of traffic sounded like a really fun game.

Students who take Driver's Ed do learn the rules of the road. They learn to steer a car, apply brakes steadily, signal for turns, and park. But for the most part, mastery of the rules or motor skills isn't what prevents accidents. Instead, accidents are caused by poor decision decision skills. Teens get into a few more minor fender-benders, but many more serious accidents: statistically, teenagers get in fatal crashes at twice the rate of everyone else. skills. Teens get into a few more minor fender-benders, but many more serious accidents: statistically, teenagers get in fatal crashes at twice the rate of everyone else.

This isn't just a matter of experience at the wheel-it's really a matter of age and brain wiring in the frontal lobe. So schools can't on their own turn teens into safer drivers. Instead, they make getting a license such an easy and convenient process that they increase the supply of young drivers on the road. In 1999, the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University reported that nine school districts that eliminated eliminated Driver's Education experienced a 27% Driver's Education experienced a 27% drop drop in auto accidents among 16- and 17-year-olds. in auto accidents among 16- and 17-year-olds.

Research like that has convinced states that school driving cla.s.ses aren't the answer; what really reduces auto accidents are graduated-licensing programs which delay the age at which teenagers can drive at night or with friends in the car. These decrease crashes by 20 to 30 percent.

In our schools, kids are subjected to a vast number of well-meaning training programs that sound absolutely great, but nevertheless fail the test of scientific a.n.a.lysis. Schools take seriously their responsibility to breed good citizens, not just good students-but that sometimes means that good intentions are mistaken for good ideas. The scarier the issue, the more schools hurriedly adopt programs to combat it. For example, D.A.R.E., Drug Abuse Resistance Education.

Developed originally in 1983 by the Los Angeles Police Department, D.A.R.E. sends uniformed police officers into junior high and high schools to teach about the real-life consequences of drugs and crime. And we're not talking about just a single a.s.sembly, either-in its full form, students partic.i.p.ate in a 17-week school curriculum complete with lectures, role playing, readings, and the like. It seemed like such a promising idea, D.A.R.E. spread like wildfire. Within two decades, some form of D.A.R.E. was present in 80% of the public school districts in the United States. It claims influence over 26 million students, at an estimated annual budget of over $1 billion. As a society, we believe in the way D.A.R.E. delivers its message. Teachers support it incredibly strongly; 97% give it a "good" or "excellent" approval rating. Parents do, too: 93% believe it effectively teaches children to say no to drugs and violence.

However, any program that popular, which receives that much government support, attracts extensive scientific a.n.a.lysis. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, studies randomly a.s.signed students to a D.A.R.E. cla.s.s or not. In some studies, D.A.R.E. shows a very slight decline in cigarette use, alcohol use, or drug use immediately after the training, but in all studies it shows no comparative reduction long-term.

D.A.R.E. is not alone, and it shouldn't be singled out. Hundreds of drug-prevention programs receive federal grants; the Department of Health and Human Services looked at 718 of them, and it found that only 41 had a positive effect.

Programs meant to reduce high school dropouts have a similar record. Of the 16 most well known, only one has a positive effect, even though all of these programs seem to have the details right-a high ratio of counselors to students, and a vocational bent creating a bridge to future careers.

In our research for this book, we came across dozens of school-based programs that sounded wonderful in theory, but were far from it in practice.

Among scholars, interventions considered to be really great often have an effect size of something like 15%, which means that 15% of children altered their targeted behavior, and therefore 85% did not alter it. Interventions with an effect size of only 4% can still be considered quite good, statistically-even though they have no effect on 96% of the students.

Does this mean the bar is too low for scholars? Not really. Instead, what this data indicates is that human behavior is incredibly stubborn. We're hard to budge off our habits and proclivities. While it's possible to inspire a few people to change, it's nearly impossible to change a majority of us, in any direction. Interventions for children are even more of a challenge-since developmentally, kids are by definition a moving target.

I explain all this to set the stage, and provide proper perspective, on something we found that does does work. This program's success rate is marvelous on its own, but all the more astonis.h.i.+ng in light of how difficult it is to create something that produces results with a sizeable effect. It's an emerging curriculum for preschool and kindergarten cla.s.srooms called Tools of the Mind. It requires some training for teachers, but otherwise does not cost a penny more than a traditional curriculum. The teachers merely teach differently. What's even more interesting than their results is work. This program's success rate is marvelous on its own, but all the more astonis.h.i.+ng in light of how difficult it is to create something that produces results with a sizeable effect. It's an emerging curriculum for preschool and kindergarten cla.s.srooms called Tools of the Mind. It requires some training for teachers, but otherwise does not cost a penny more than a traditional curriculum. The teachers merely teach differently. What's even more interesting than their results is why why it seems to work, and what that teaches us about how young children learn. it seems to work, and what that teaches us about how young children learn.

Ashley visited pre-K and kindergarten Tools cla.s.ses in two relatively affluent towns that ring Denver; I visited both types of cla.s.ses in Neptune, New Jersey, which is a comparatively more-impoverished towns.h.i.+p about halfway down the Garden State Parkway between New York and Atlantic City.

Most elements of the school day are negligibly different from a traditional cla.s.s. There's recess and lunch and snack time and nap time. But a typical Tools preschool cla.s.sroom looks looks different-as much because of what it is missing as what is there. The wall calendar is not a month-by-month grid, but a straight line of days on a long ribbon of paper. Gone is the traditional alphabet display; instead, children use a sound map, which has a monkey next to different-as much because of what it is missing as what is there. The wall calendar is not a month-by-month grid, but a straight line of days on a long ribbon of paper. Gone is the traditional alphabet display; instead, children use a sound map, which has a monkey next to Mm Mm and a sun next to and a sun next to Ss Ss. These are ordered not from A A to to Z Z but rather in cl.u.s.ters, with consonants on one map and vowels on another. but rather in cl.u.s.ters, with consonants on one map and vowels on another. C, K C, K, and Q Q are in one cl.u.s.ter, because those are similar sounds, all made with the tongue mid-mouth. Sounds made with the teeth or the lips are in other cl.u.s.ters. are in one cl.u.s.ter, because those are similar sounds, all made with the tongue mid-mouth. Sounds made with the teeth or the lips are in other cl.u.s.ters.

When cla.s.s begins, the teacher tells the students they will be playing fire station. The previous week, they learned all about firemen, so now, the cla.s.sroom has been decorated in four different areas-in one corner is a fire station, in another a house that needs saving. The children choose what role they want to take on in the pretend scenario-pump driver, 911 operator, fireman, or family that needs to be rescued. Before the children begin to play, they each tell the teacher their choice of role.

With the teacher's help, the children make individual "play plans." They all draw a picture of themselves in their chosen role, then they attempt to write it out as a sentence on a blank sheet of paper to the best of their abilities. Even three-year-olds write daily. For some, the play plan is little more than lines representing each word in the sentence. Still others use their sound map to figure out the words' initial consonants. The eldest have memorized how to write "I am going to" and then they use the sound map to figure out the rest.

Then they go play, sticking to the role designated in their plan. The resulting play continues for a full 45 minutes, with the children staying in character, self-motivated. If they get distracted or start to fuss, the teacher asks, "Is that in your play plan?" On different days of the week, children choose other roles in the scenario. During this crucial play hour, the teacher facilitates their play but does not directly teach them anything at all.

At the end, the teacher puts a CD on to play the "clean-up song." As soon as the music begins, the kids stop playing and start cleaning up-without another word from their teacher. Later, they will do what's called buddy reading. The children are paired up and sit facing each other; one is given a large paper drawing of lips, while the other holds a drawing of ears. The one with the lips flips through a book, telling the story he sees in the pictures. The other listens and, at the end, asks a question about the story. Then they switch roles.

They also commonly play games, like Simon Says, that require restraint. One variation is called graphic practice; the teacher puts on music, and the children draw spirals and shapes. Intermittently, the teacher pauses the music, and the children learn to stop their pens whenever the music stops.

The kindergarten program expands on the preschool structure, incorporating academics into a make-believe premise that's based on whatever book they're reading in cla.s.s. Overall, the Tools cla.s.srooms seem a little different, but not strange in any way. To watch it in action, you would not guess its results would be so superior. In this sense, it's the opposite kind of program from D.A.R.E.-which sounded great, but had weak results. Tools has great results, despite nothing about it having intuitive, visceral appeal.

The Tools techniques were developed during the 1990s by two scholars at Metropolitan State College of Denver, Drs. Elena Bodrova and Deborah Leong. After pilot-testing the program in a few cla.s.srooms and Head Start centers, they put it to a true test in 1997, in cooperation with Denver Public Schools. Ten kindergarten teachers were randomly a.s.signed, to teach either Tools or the regular district curriculum. In these cla.s.srooms one-third to one-half of the children were poor Hispanic students who began the year cla.s.sified as having limited English-language proficiency: they were starting kindergarten effectively a grade-level behind.

The following spring, all the children took national standardized tests. The results were jaw-dropping. The children from the Tools cla.s.ses were now almost a full grade-level ahead ahead of the national standard. In the district, only half the kindergartners score as proficient at their grade-level. Of the Tools children, 97% scored as proficient. of the national standard. In the district, only half the kindergartners score as proficient at their grade-level. Of the Tools children, 97% scored as proficient.

Reports of the program's success began to spread within the research community. In 2001, two scholars from the National Inst.i.tute for Early Education Research at Rutgers, Dr. Ellen Frede and Amy Hornbeck, visited the Tools cla.s.srooms. New Jersey was implementing free, public preschools in the neediest zones of the state. Impressed by what they saw, Frede and Hornbeck decided to test Tools in a preschool during its first year of operations, so that Hornbeck could compare the program's efficacy to that of a traditional program.

The researchers chose a site in Pa.s.saic, New Jersey, that served children from low-income families; 70% of the students came from homes where English is not the primary language. The new preschool, created in an old bank building in downtown Pa.s.saic, had eighteen cla.s.srooms. Seven on one floor were set aside as a Tools preschool; as a control, the other eleven would teach the district's regular preschool plan. Both teachers and students were randomly a.s.signed to cla.s.srooms, and the teachers were instructed not to exchange ideas about curriculum between the two programs. At the end of the first year, the Tools scores were markedly higher on seven out of eight measures, including vocabulary and IQ.

But it was the kids' behavior ratings that really sold the school's princ.i.p.al on the program. From the teachers in the regular cla.s.srooms, the princ.i.p.al got reports of extremely disruptive behavior almost every day-preschool students kicking a teacher, biting another student, cursing, or throwing a chair. But those kinds of reports never came from the Tools cla.s.ses.

The controlled experiment was supposed to last two years, but at the end of the first year the princ.i.p.al insisted all the cla.s.srooms switch to Tools. She decided it was unethical to deprive half the school of a curriculum that was obviously superior.

This wasn't the only time that Tools was a victim of its own success. Testing of the Tools program ended early in two other places as well: Elgin, Illinois, and Midland, Texas. The grant money funding the research was available to study children at-risk; after a year, the children no longer scored low enough to be deemed "at-risk," so the grant money to continue the a.n.a.lysis was no longer available. Bodrova is quick to credit the work of those schools' faculty, but added, "When it keeps happening enough times, you start to think that it may be our program that makes the difference. It's the irony of doing interventions in the real world: being too successful to study if it's successful."

Word about Tools continued to spread, and once teachers actually saw the program in action they became believers. Rutgers' Hornbeck was eventually so convinced by her own findings that she signed on to be part of the Tools team, regularly training teachers in the program. After two teachers from Neptune, New Jersey, visited the Pa.s.saic school, they were so excited that they, too, implemented Tools techniques in a new preschool they were creating in Neptune.

Sally Millaway was the princ.i.p.al of that Neptune school. After success with the program on the preschool level, she convinced the superintendent to try it in one cla.s.s at her next post, an elementary school. When word leaked out that Millaway's school would be inst.i.tuting a Tools kindergarten, the school district began getting letters from parents who wanted their children to be allowed to switch into the Tools program.

During that first year of kindergarten, Millaway had the sense it was working. But the true test would come in the standardized achievement exams all New Jersey kindergartners would take in April. A month later, Millaway got the first set of results over the fax machine. "It was unbelievable," she said. "When I saw the numbers, I laughed out loud. It was ridiculous, beyond our imaginings."

The average reading scores for the school district translated into the 65th percentile on the national spectrum. The Tools kindergartners (on average) had jumped more than 20 ticks higher, to the 86th percentile. The kids who tested as gifted almost all came from the Tools cla.s.ses.

So why does this curriculum work so well? There are many interrelated factors, but let's start with the most distinctive element of Tools-the written play plans and the lengthy play period that ensues.

In every preschool in the country, kids have played firehouse. But usually, after ten minutes, the scenario breaks down. Holding a pretend fire hose on a pretend fire is a singular activity, and it grows old; needing stimulation, children are distracted by what other kids are doing and peel off into new games. Play has a joyful randomness, but it's not sustained. sustained. In Tools cla.s.srooms, by staging different areas of the room as the variety of settings, and by asking kids to commit to their role for the hour, the play is far more complicated and interactive. The children in the house call 911; the operator rings a bell; the firefighters leap from their bunks; the trucks arrive to rescue the family. This is considered mature, multidimensional, sustained play. In Tools cla.s.srooms, by staging different areas of the room as the variety of settings, and by asking kids to commit to their role for the hour, the play is far more complicated and interactive. The children in the house call 911; the operator rings a bell; the firefighters leap from their bunks; the trucks arrive to rescue the family. This is considered mature, multidimensional, sustained play.

This notion of being able to sustain one's own interest is considered a core building block in Tools. Parents usually think of urging their child to pay attention, to be obedient to a teacher. They recognize that a child can't learn unless she has the ability to avoid distractions. Tools emphasizes the flip-side-kids won't be distracted because they're so consumed in the activities they've chosen. By acting the roles they've adopted in their play plans, the kids are thoroughly in the moment.

In one famous Russian study from the 1950s, children were told to stand still as long as they could-they lasted two minutes. Then a second group of children were told to pretend pretend they were soldiers on guard who had to stand still at their posts-they lasted eleven minutes. they were soldiers on guard who had to stand still at their posts-they lasted eleven minutes.

"The advantage of little kids," explained Bodrova, "is they don't yet know that they aren't good at something. When you ask a child to copy something on the board the teacher has written, he might think, 'I can't write as good as the teacher,' so then he doesn't want to do it. But hand a notepad to the child who is pretending to be a waiter in a pizza parlor. Johnny ordered cheese pizza, you ordered pepperoni. They don't know if they can write it or not-they just know that they have to do something to remember the pizza orders. They end up doing more writing than if you asked them to write a story."

It's well recognized that kids today get to play less. As pressure for academic achievement has mounted, schools around the country have cut back on recess to devote more time to the cla.s.sroom. This, in turn, created a backlash; experts and social commentators opined that playtime was too valuable to cut. Their arguments were straightforward: the brain needs a break, kids need to blow off energy, cutting recess increases obesity, and it's during recess that children learn social skills. Tools suggests a different benefit entirely-that during playtime, children learn basic developmental building blocks necessary for later academic success, and in fact they develop these building blocks better better while playing than while in a traditional cla.s.s. while playing than while in a traditional cla.s.s.

Take, for example, symbolic thought. Almost everything a cla.s.sroom demands a child learn requires grasping the connection between reality and symbolic, abstract representation: letters of the alphabet are symbols for sounds and speech; the map on the wall is a symbol of the world; the calendar is a symbol to measure the pa.s.sage of time. Words on paper-such as the word "TREE"-look to the eye nothing at all like an actual tree.

Young children learn abstract thinking through play, where a desk and some chairs become a fire engine. More importantly, when play has interacting components, as in Tools, the child's brain learns how one symbol combines with multiple other symbols, akin to high-order abstract thinking. A child masters the intellectual process of holding multiple thoughts in his head and stacking them together.

Consider high-order thinking like self-reflection, an internal dialogue within one's own mind, where opposing alternatives are weighed and carefully considered. This thought-conversation is the opposite of impulsive reaction, where actions are made without forethought. All adults can think through ideas in their heads, to differing abilities. But do kids have the same internal voice of contemplation and discussion? If so, when do they develop it? Tools is designed to encourage the early development of this Socratic consciousness, so that kids don't just react impulsively in cla.s.s, and they can willfully avoid distraction.

Tools does this by encouraging that voice in the head, private speech, by first teaching kids to do it out loud-they talk themselves through their activities. When the kids are learning the capital C, C, they all say in unison, "Start at the top and go around" as they start to print. No one ever stops the kids from saying it out loud, but after a few minutes, the Greek chorus ends. In its place is a low murmur. A couple minutes later, a few kids are still saying it out loud-but most of the children are saying it in their heads. A few kids don't even realize it, but they've kept silently mouthing the instructions to themselves. they all say in unison, "Start at the top and go around" as they start to print. No one ever stops the kids from saying it out loud, but after a few minutes, the Greek chorus ends. In its place is a low murmur. A couple minutes later, a few kids are still saying it out loud-but most of the children are saying it in their heads. A few kids don't even realize it, but they've kept silently mouthing the instructions to themselves.

Kids who are doing well in school know it; when they write down their answer, they know whether or not their answer is correct. They have a subtle sense, a recognition of whether they've gotten it right. Children who are struggling are genuinely unsure; they might get the right answer, but lack such awareness. So to develop this awareness, when a Tools teacher writes a letter on the board, she writes four versions of it and asks the kids to decide which is the best D D.

Leong explained, "This is designed to trigger self-a.n.a.lysis of what a good D D looks like and what would they like their own looks like and what would they like their own D D's to look like. They think about their work, when they think about hers." Tools children are also frequently responsible for checking each other's work. In one cla.s.s Ashley observed, pairs of kids were practicing their penmans.h.i.+p, after which they were to take turns circling which of their partner's letters were best. After one child raced through his checker duties too quickly, the other boy complained. This five-year-old actually wanted his supervisor to be more critical of his work.

Many of the exercises are chosen because they teach children to attend background cues and control their impulses. The simple game of Simon Says, for instance, entices a child to copy the leader, yet requires the kid to pay close attention and exercise intermittent restraint. Similarly, when the teacher plays the clean-up song, the children have to notice where they are in the music in order to make sure they'll be finished before the song ends. In buddy reading, the natural impulse is for every kid to want to read first; the child who holds the ears and listens patiently is learning to quell this impulse and wait.

The upshot of Tools is kids who are not merely behaved, but self-organized and self-directed. After just three months of a pilot project, Tools teachers in New Mexico went from averaging forty reported cla.s.sroom incidents a month to zero. And Tools kids don't distract easily. During one lunch period in a New Jersey school cafeteria, the Tools kindergartners watched the entire rest of the student body become embroiled in a food fight. Not one Tools kid picked up as much as a sc.r.a.p of food to throw, and when they returned to cla.s.s, they told their teacher that they couldn't believe how out of control the older children were.

While Tools' techniques might sound fuzzy and theoretical, the program has strong support in neuroscience. In other chapters of this book, we've often touched upon the development of a child's prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that governs executive function-planning, predicting, controlling impulses, persisting through trouble, and orchestrating thoughts to fulfill a goal. Though these are very adult attributes, executive function begins in preschool, and preschoolers' EF capability can be measured with simple computerized tests.

During the easiest stage of these tests, a child sees a red heart appear, either on the left or right side of the screen, and then pushes the corresponding b.u.t.ton-left or right. Even three-year-olds will do this perfectly. Then the child sees a red flower flower and is instructed to press the b.u.t.ton on the and is instructed to press the b.u.t.ton on the opposite opposite side of the flower. The new task requires her brain to toss out the old rule and adopt a new rule-this is called "attention switching." It also requires the child to inhibit the natural urge to respond on the same side as the stimulus. For three-year-olds, this switch in rules is very hard; for four-year-olds, it's a challenge but somewhat doable. Now the real test begins. The computer begins randomly showing either a red heart or a red flower, and the child needs to hold in her working memory side of the flower. The new task requires her brain to toss out the old rule and adopt a new rule-this is called "attention switching." It also requires the child to inhibit the natural urge to respond on the same side as the stimulus. For three-year-olds, this switch in rules is very hard; for four-year-olds, it's a challenge but somewhat doable. Now the real test begins. The computer begins randomly showing either a red heart or a red flower, and the child needs to hold in her working memory both both rules: heart = press same side, flower = press opposite side. The hearts and flowers are shown for only 2.5 seconds, so the kid has to think fast, without getting switched up. It requires attentional focus and constant reorienting of the mindset. For children's brains, this is very difficult. Even thirteen-year-olds will push the wrong b.u.t.ton 20% of the time. rules: heart = press same side, flower = press opposite side. The hearts and flowers are shown for only 2.5 seconds, so the kid has to think fast, without getting switched up. It requires attentional focus and constant reorienting of the mindset. For children's brains, this is very difficult. Even thirteen-year-olds will push the wrong b.u.t.ton 20% of the time.

The foremost expert on executive function in young children is Dr. Adele Diamond at the University of British Columbia. A few years ago, she was approached at a conference by Bodrova, who told her about the experiment in the Pa.s.saic preschool. Diamond wondered if the success of Tools might be because it was exercising children's executive function skills. So Diamond went to Pa.s.saic to visit.

Diamond recalled, "In the regular cla.s.ses, the children were bouncing off the walls. In the Tools cla.s.srooms, it was like a different planet. I've never seen anything like it." She decided to return the next year and test the children's executive functioning. "I could see the difference with my own eyes, but I wanted hard data," she said.

To do this, Diamond ran the Pa.s.saic children through a number of the executive function computer tasks. She found a huge gap between the regular kids and the Tools kids on executive function. On one task, the regular kids tested not much above chance, but the Tools kids scored at 84%. On a very difficult task, only one-quarter of the regular kids could complete the test, while over half the Tools kids completed it.

"The more the test demanded high executive function," Diamond noted, "the bigger the gap between the kids."

Every parent has observed a young child and wondered, with some frustration, when he'll be able to sit still (other than in front of the television). When will he be able to sustain an activity for a solid half-hour? When will he be able to stay on task, rather than be distracted by other children? When will he be able to truly apply himself? At times, it seems that a child's cognitive ability, which might be very high, is at war with his distractability.

Usually we concern ourselves only with the detrimental end of this spectrum-the kid who can't learn because he's easily distracted. What we overlook is that being at the beneficial end of the spectrum-being able to concentrate-is a skill that might be just as valuable as math ability, or reading ability, or even raw intelligence.

So why are some kids better able to direct their attention? What are the neural systems that regulate focus-and is this perhaps why Tools is getting such good results?

Dr. Silvia Bunge is a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley. Her newest research is on a region of the brain called the rostral lateral prefrontal cortex. This is the part of human brains that is most different from ape brains. It's responsible for maintaining concentration and setting goals. "This is only speculative, but having kids plan their time and set weekly goals, like they do in Tools," Bunge told me, "in effect wires up the RLPFC, building it, strengthening it."

The broad term Bunge uses for a child's regulation of focus is "cognitive control." Cognitive control is necessary in many contexts. In the simplest, the child is trying to avoid distractions-not just external distractions, like another child making funny faces during cla.s.s, but internal distractions. "Like the thought, 'I can't do this,' " Bunge explained.

Cognitive control is required whenever the brain has to manipulate information in the mind; this might be holding a phone number in memory just long enough to dial it, or planning chess moves in advance, or weighing the pros and cons of two choices. But it isn't just about managing information: it's also part of the process of squelching frustration and anger, and stifling an inappropriate or impulsive response.

An impulsive social social response might be giggling in cla.s.s, but there are impulsive response might be giggling in cla.s.s, but there are impulsive academic academic responses, too. On multiple-choice achievement and IQ tests, there's always a "distractor" in each list of answers, a choice that is almost right. Children with weak cognitive control are tricked into selecting it. Their final score will dock them for intelligence, or reading comprehension, but they're perfectly intelligent and read just fine-they just can't regulate their impulsivity. responses, too. On multiple-choice achievement and IQ tests, there's always a "distractor" in each list of answers, a choice that is almost right. Children with weak cognitive control are tricked into selecting it. Their final score will dock them for intelligence, or reading comprehension, but they're perfectly intelligent and read just fine-they just can't regulate their impulsivity.

According to Bunge, cognitive control is not "on" all the time. Rather, the brain can allocate more or less cognitive control as it sees fit. This works as a feedback loop between two subregions in the brain. One subsystem is supposed to measure how well you're doing on whatever you're supposed to be doing. When it senses you're not doing well enough, it signals another subsystem, which allocates more cognitive control: it improves your concentration. When a child seems to be lacking in control, it's not just that her brain can't can't concentrate-she's not aware she even concentrate-she's not aware she even needs needs to concentrate. The first part of the feedback loop isn't doing its job. She's literally not paying attention to how well she's doing. to concentrate. The first part of the feedback loop isn't doing its job. She's literally not paying attention to how well she's doing.

Think back to the Tools curriculum, where children are routinely asked to check and score their own work against answer sheets, and are always buddied up with a partner, checking each other's work (even in preschool). Bodrova and Leong can't emphasize enough how crucial it is for children to develop an awareness of how well they're doing and when their work is completed accurately. This sensitivity is required for the feedback system to function, and for concentration to be increased.

Bunge's specialty is putting school-aged children into fMRI scanners and monitoring brain activity while they take tests similar to the heart and flower task described above. She's found that the adult brain has a specialized region of the frontal lobe devoted to regulating rules-all sorts of rules, from heart and flower rules to the rules of grammar to the rules of driving. (When this region is damaged, people speak and write ungrammatically.) This rules region allows people to be proactive: they recognize circ.u.mstances where rules will apply, as if glancing ahead in time, preloading the brain for what to do. This proactive response is very much like private speech-telling yourself what to do, a step ahead of doing it. Decisions are made instantly, and correctly. Schoolchildren taking the same tests don't yet have this rules region to draw upon; rather than proact, their brains react. Stumbling, trying to get the rules straight, their error rate is high.

That the children in Tools choose their own work is also significant, said Bunge. "When a child gets to choose, they presumably choose activities they're motivated to do. Motivation is crucial. Motivation is experienced in the brain as the release of dopamine. It's not released like other neurotransmitters into the synapses, but rather it's sort of spritzed onto large areas of the brain, which enhances the signaling of neurons." The motivated brain, literally, operates better, signals faster. When children are motivated, they learn more.

This chapter began with the statistical science of Driver's Ed, and progressed to the neuroscience of preschool. The two are indeed connected, by the neural systems that regulate attention and cognitive control. Teenage drivers can score 100% on a paper test of the rules, but when driving, their reaction times are delayed because they have not yet internalized the grammar grammar of driving-they have to think about it. This increases the cognitive load, and their ability to maintain attention is stressed to capacity. They are on the verge of making poor decisions. Put a friend in the car and the attention systems are easily overloaded-the driver's brain no longer proactively antic.i.p.ates what could happen, glancing seconds ahead and preloading the rules. Instead, he is left to react, and can't always react accurately, no matter how fast his reflexes are. of driving-they have to think about it. This increases the cognitive load, and their ability to maintain attention is stressed to capacity. They are on the verge of making poor decisions. Put a friend in the car and the attention systems are easily overloaded-the driver's brain no longer proactively antic.i.p.ates what could happen, glancing seconds ahead and preloading the rules. Instead, he is left to react, and can't always react accurately, no matter how fast his reflexes are.

Performing amid distractions is a daily challenge for students. In a previous chapter, we wrote about the predictive power of intelligence tests. One reason IQ tests don't predict better is that in a child's school life, academics don't take place in a quiet, controlled room, one-on-one with a teacher-the way IQ tests are administered. Academics occur among a whirlwind of distractions and pressures. Psychologists call this the difference between hot and cold cognition. Many people perform far worse under pressure, but some perform far better.

This notion comes under many names in the research: effortful control, impulsivity, self-discipline. Depending on the way it's measured, the predictive values of self-discipline in many cases are better than those of IQ scores. In simpler words, being disciplined is more important than being smart. Being both is not just a little better-it's exponentially better. In one study, Dr. Clancy Blair, of Pennsylvania State University, found that children who were above average in IQ and and executive functioning were 300% more likely to do well in math cla.s.s than children who just had a high IQ alone. executive functioning were 300% more likely to do well in math cla.s.s than children who just had a high IQ alone.

Just like the science of intelligence, the science of self-control has s.h.i.+fted in the last decade from the a.s.sumption that it's a fixed trait-some have it, others don't-to the a.s.sumption it's malleable. It's affected by everything from parenting styles to how recently you ate (the brain burns a lot of glucose when exercising self-control). The neural systems that govern control can get fatigued, and-according to one study-those with higher IQs suffer more from this kind of fatigue.

"Due to a mult.i.tude of empirical evidence, there is now consensus on the effectiveness of self-regulated learning on academic achievement, as well as on learning motivation," wrote Dr. Charlotte Dignath, in a recent meta-a.n.a.lysis of self-control interventions.

Both Ashley and I have borrowed some of the Tools of the Mind strategies. Children of every grade show up in the evenings at Ashley's tutoring facility; she now makes them write down a plan for how they'll spend their two hours, to teach them to think proactively. When they get distracted, she refers them back to their plan. She no longer simply corrects children's grammar mistakes in their homework; instead, she first points to the line containing the mistake, and asks the child to find it. This makes them think critically about what they're doing rather than mechanically completing the a.s.signment. With kindergartners who are just learning to write, Ashley has them use private speech as they form a letter, saying aloud, "Start at the top and go around...."

I use similar techniques with my daughter. Every night, she comes home from preschool with a page of penmans.h.i.+p, filled with whatever letter she learned that day. I ask her to circle the best example on each line-so she'll recognize the difference between a good one and a better one. At bedtime, she and I do a version of buddy reading: after I've read her a book, I hand it to her. Then she tells the story back to me, creatively narrating from the ill.u.s.trations and whatever lines she remembers verbatim. Occasionally, when she and I have the whole day together, we write up a plan for what we'll do. (I wish I did this more, because she loves it.) I also give her prompts that extend her play scenarios. For instance, she loves baby dolls; she'll collect them all, and put them to bed-this might take five or ten minutes. At that point, she no longer knows what to do. So I'll encourage her to wake the babies up, take them to school, and go on a field trip. That's usually all it takes to spark her imagination for over an hour.

In Neptune, New Jersey, one of the kids in the first Tools preschool cla.s.s was Sally Millaway's own three-year-old son, George. "He had special needs," Millaway said. She was convinced Tools would work for the normal children, but would it work for George? "My son had speech and language delays, very severely-he didn't speak at all. He wasn't yet diagnosed with autism, but he had all the red flags of it." Later that fall, George was instead diagnosed with a hearing problem-he could hear tones, but it was like he was hearing underwater, the sounds blurred. "In November, his adenoids were taken out. He began talking within three days of the surgery."

"I suddenly went from thinking he would have a lifelong disability to realizing he had all this time he had to make up for," Millaway said. "Would he ever catch up to the other kids?"

Millaway's concerns were short-lived. She couldn't believe the rapid progress he made, and she attributed it entirely to Tools. After three years of the program-two in preschool, one in kindergarten-he completely overcame his early deficits. George is now in a second-grade gifted program, and Tools is taught in all Neptune kindergarten cla.s.ses.

NINE.

Plays Well With OthersWhy modern involved parenting has failed to produce a generation of angels.

A couple years ago, an expert on preschool children's aggression, Dr. Jamie Ostrov, teamed up with Dr. Douglas Gentile, a leading expert on the effects of media exposure. The two men spent two years monitoring the kids at two Minnesota preschools, cross-referencing the children's behavior against parent reports of what television shows and DVDs the kids watched. Ranging from 2.5 to 5 years old, these were well-off children, from well-off families. couple years ago, an expert on preschool children's aggression, Dr. Jamie Ostrov, teamed up with Dr. Douglas Gentile, a leading expert on the effects of media exposure. The two men spent two years monitoring the kids at two Minnesota preschools, cross-referencing the children's behavior against parent reports of what television shows and DVDs the kids watched. Ranging from 2.5 to 5 years old, these were well-off children, from well-off families.

Ostrov and Gentile fully expected that kids who watched violent shows like Power Rangers Power Rangers and and Star Wars Star Wars would be more physically aggressive during playtime at school. They also expected kids who watched educational television, like would be more physically aggressive during playtime at school. They also expected kids who watched educational television, like Arthur Arthur and and Clifford the Big Red Dog Clifford the Big Red Dog, would be not just less aggressive, but the kids would be more prosocial- prosocial-sharing, helpful, and inclusive, etc. These weren't original hypotheses, but the study's importance was its long-term methodology: Ostrov and Gentile would be able to track the precise incremental increase in aggression over the course of the preschool years.

Ostrov had previously found that videocameras were too intrusive and couldn't capture the sound from far away, so his researchers hovered near children with clipboards in hand. The children quickly grew bored with the note taking and ignored the researchers.

The observers had been trained to distinguish between physical aggression, relational aggression, and verbal aggression. Physical aggression included grabbing toys from other children's hands, pus.h.i.+ng, pulling, and hitting of any sort. Relational aggression, at the preschool age, involved saying things like, "You can't play with us," or just ignoring a child who wanted to play, and withdrawing friends.h.i.+p or telling lies about another child-all of which attack a relations.h.i.+p at its core. Verbal aggression included calling someone a mean name and saying things like "Shut up!" or "You're stupid"-it often accompanied physical aggression.