Has coddling destroyed a generation?

One of the most common conversations among educators these days is the rising tide of anxiety and depression among young people. This disturbing trend comes at a time when schools are already being asked to do more and more academically, and these two factors are creating a perfect storm that we are having difficulty navigating. And so we are seeing ideas like grit, resilience, social-emotional learning, and trauma-sensitivity being offered up as possible solutions, and this new book by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind.

The basic premise of the book is that by protecting our children and students from everything from peanuts to opposing viewpoints, we have crippled our college campuses and created a mental health crisis among teens and young adults. The book is definitely worth a read. The increasing prevalence of anxiety and depression among young people is something I deal with every day, and it's clear that something has gone wrong on college campuses when speakers are being "disinvited" simply for holding opposing political viewpoints.

I also see overparenting as a major issue. It's a constant struggle as a parent to keep from overprotecting your kids from failures and consequences, and the same goes for running a school. What is needed is an authoritative approach, with clear rules and consequences and a focus on support, rather than a permissive or authoritarian approach. Coddling is a good reminder that we do damage by not allowing our kids to experience difficulty. I always viewed parenting as repeatedly casting my kids out and reeling them back in. 

But while I think the book makes important contributions to the discussion, I also think it muddies the waters a bit. The authors are huge fans of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and they noticed that some of the cognitive errors targeted by CBT are similar to logical errors being made, in their opinions, by parents, schools, students and universities that are overprotecting kids. From there, they built their case that overzealous censorship at universities and the mental health crisis were symptoms of the same cause--what they call the "3 Great Untruths."

1. What doesn't kill me makes me weaker
2. Always trust your feelings
3. Us vs. them

While I agree that these are dangerous errors, I think this greatly oversimplifies the problem. From my perspective as an administrator, overzealous protectionism at schools has little to do with ideology or philosophy and everything to to with protecting ourselves from litigation. But that is a minor issue compared to the question of what is causing the mental health crisis.

The authors themselves mention some other possible causes of rising anxiety and depression, such as screen time (citing Jean Twenge's book, iGen). Sarah Rose Cavanagh has questioned the role of screen time, but suggested several other possible causes, including the decline of "face-to-face social communities" and economic inequality, just to name a few.

Human psychology is complex, and the changes taking place in our society are profound. Take, for example, the massive cultural shift that has been under way in our whole worldview as a society. I just finished listening to The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker. This classic lays out Becker's theory of what happens when you strip the dominant religious worldview from a culture. Who knows but that we are also seeing those types of effects today among young people?

We live in a world that has become a whitewater rapid of change--technologically, culturally, economically, you name it. Anyone growing up in such a world as this would be understandably prone to anxiety, just as much as they would if they were born in the midst of a river rafting trip.

I think our best bet in supporting them is to do just that--support them with research based practices and provide high expectations backed up by high levels of relational and academic supports. Allowing them to experience consequences is part of this, but my concern with this book is that is reflects a movement to discount the massive changes taking place today and their impact on kids. Kids today have to be tougher, in my opinion, than I had to be growing up. It means we have to be there for them even more than ever, casting them out into the whitewater and reeling them back in again, again and again.

The Power of Teenagers

When I wrote about Alexa Curtis a year ago, in The Power of a Teenager, I didn't know half of her amazing story.

-Started blogging about fashion and the struggles of being a teenage girl at 13.

-Was making $50 a week doing social media work while she was my sophomore biology student.

-All the while, pushing through criticism from peers and teachers and blog commenters on her weight, looks, and dreams of writing for a magazine, modelling, and working in the fashion industry.

-Then fighting for her desire to drop out of public school and get her diploma online so she could persue her dreams.

-And then that call from Rachel Ray that changed everything.

-And the thousands of emails, 1 reply for every 100 she sent, but that 1/100 that landed the TV appearance.

-The bold self-introduction to a Cosmo editor that ended with her writing for the iconic magazine.

-Her self-developed expertise in social media, from Instagram to LinkedIn.

-How people ask her today who she knew that got her into the industry.

-And her answer: No one.

-That what got her there was her passion--a passion for fashion and for empowering other young women, and her persistence--a relentless and inexhaustible determination that would send hundreds of emails for one reply, sometimes 5 to the same person that wouldn't be answered until a year later.

-That passion that burned bright before a room of students this morning, reaching out to them, caring about them, pushing them, and inspiring them.

-That passion that engaged them and brought several to the front afterwards to meet this amazing young woman--their peer.

Alexa reinforced for me today something I've been thinking about this week.

She reminded me of the absolutely tremendous potential of every single human being and every student under the roof at 85 Depot Road in Mansfield--that explosive power inside them that needs only some mysterious spark to set it burning with a fire so bright it burns through every obstacle.

It's sitting there like a pilot light, just waiting for the gas to turn on.

Alexa is evidence.

Every Depot student is evidence: every student who has already done more than their too-high ACE score predicts they should, whose successes in internships, exhibitions, and in-depth writing assignments already defies their whole history in education and troubled home lives.



The sound I heard as Alexa spoke was "Boom!"

I'm excited to see what these kids can do over the next few years, because I know they can.

And it also reminded me of the essential power of belief--belief in yourself and your own potential and the power and potential of every individual around you.

It's a belief echoed in Daniel Pink's book, Drive, when he discusses the two fundamentally different views of humanity: Type X and Type Y. One sees all humans as essentially inert without external motivation, and the other sees them all as essentially creative, powerful, and internally motivated.

Which do you see? Which will you see?

Top ten reasons to be a high school chemistry teacher

Top ten coolest things about teaching high school chemistry:

10) You get to amass a collection of chemicals that would otherwise be impossible.

9) You get to "play" with the chemicals (designing labs and demonstrations, of course). My favorite is making a white phosphorus mini-flamethrower from a book of matches and a glass pipette.

8) And in the words of Kvothe, the main character in Patrick Rothfuss' awesome new Kingkiller Chronicle, "There is something primal in chemistry, something that defies explication. Either you feel it or you don't."

7) You get paid for learning about cool things like quantum mechanics and for coming up with cool ways to explain things like quantum mechanics.

6) You get paid to come up with cool ways to demonstrate cool things like quantum mechanics. 

5) You get to be a motivational speaker, trying to inspire young people to get started on their dreams now.

4) You get to be a designer, constantly trying to create new and more effective learning systems and activities.

3) You get to be a hacker, trying to hack education and the human mind.

2) You get to work with others trying to do the same thing.

1) You get to work with teenagers. Simply put, if humans are amazing, teens are 10X so. They're like little fire coals bursting with unpredictable energy, imagination, excitement and potential to set the world ablaze. It really is a privilege to be a part of their lives.

A day in the life of a chem teacher at E. O. Smith

I don't write as much about my #chemistry classes.

But that's just because I haven't been doing as much experimenting with them: The flipped model I'm using this year in chem is essentially unchanged from last year.

But that doesn't excuse my neglect of writing them up, because every day with them is just as cool as with my biology kids, though I have no doubt it'd be even cooler if I tried out the project- and mastery-based approach with them as well.

Today is a case in point.

Our lab: Flinn's Micro-Mole Rockets lab. Students make mixtures of hydrogen and oxygen gas in plastic pipette bulbs, light them with a match, and rate the loudness of the pop. Then we launch them like rockets with a Tesla coil. (I'll have to get some photos tomorrow.)

And they'll use the data to confirm the ratio at which hydrogen and oxygen react to form water (2:1, H2O).

It's an elegant method they use, involving a constant total amount of gas while only varying the ratio of gases. it's called the method of continuous variation.

And they have been progressing beautifully this year in their attention to detail and controlling their variables, and they never cease to amaze me with their inquisitiveness ("What makes the hydrogen react with the oxygen?") and their energy for life.

As I walked around the room, hydrogen and oxygen popping together like firecrackers, my student teacher (a Ph.D. biochemist and veteran pharmaceutical researcher) helping them launch their rockets, and a steady chorus of "Dr. Green?" requests for assistance keeping me moving, I was distracted by one student telling stories of mermaids and Jason the Argonaut, and another accusing Thomas Edison of being the greatest villain of history, and I was laughing.

Laughing because of the intellectual and creative energy that burned in there like a fire inside and between them all.

Exageration?

Maybe. But I don't think so.

Some see teens as narcissistic, annoying and who knows what else. I prefer to see them for what they are: The most creative and energetic stage of the most amazing species on the planet in a most amazing universe.