Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. Today we have Paul Tough
Speaker 1: on the show. Paul is the author, most recently of
Speaker 1: Helping Children Succeed, What Works and Why. His previous book,
Speaker 1: How Children Succeed Great Curiosity in The Hidden Power Character
Speaker 1: has spent more than a year on the New York
Speaker 1: Times hardcover and paperback bestseller lists. His first book, Whatever
Speaker 1: It Takes Jeffrey Conquest to Change Haarlem and America, was
Speaker 1: published in two thousand and eight. He's a contributing writer
Speaker 1: to The New York Times magazine, where he has written
Speaker 1: extensively about education, parenting, poverty, and politics. His ring has
Speaker 1: also appeared to The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and GQ,
Speaker 1: and the op ed page of The New York Times.
Speaker 1: Thanks Paul for chatting with me today. Thanks very much.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's exciting to chat with you.
Speaker 1: These issues are being heavily discussed all throughout education right now,
Speaker 1: so you're kind of on the forefront of some really
Speaker 1: hotly debated and important issues. Good. Yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 1: It's stuff I think we're all trying to figure out how.
Speaker 1: The answers aren't easy. They're not easy or obvious. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: so a common theme of all of your work seems
Speaker 1: to be how we can help children in adversity transcend
Speaker 1: to their difficult circumstances. Would you say that's a fair
Speaker 1: sort of yes. I'd say that's my central goal is
Speaker 1: to try to figure out strategies to do that. And
Speaker 1: I might even have just quoted you when I say that,
Speaker 1: How did you get interested in this topic? For me,
Speaker 1: certainly as a journalist, it started with my book about
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Canada. So it was thirteen years ago this summer
Speaker 1: that I went up to one hundred and twenty fifth Street,
Speaker 1: when I was working as an editor at the New
Speaker 1: York Times magazine, had met jeff and asked to write
Speaker 1: this article about him for the Times magazine. That took
Speaker 1: me a year to do, and then that turned into
Speaker 1: a five year book project which ended up with whatever
Speaker 1: it takes. And usually, you know, if I take on
Speaker 1: some a journalistic project for anywhere near that long, Like
Speaker 1: at the end, I feel kind of bored by the subject.
Speaker 1: I feel like I know in every possible angle, and
Speaker 1: it's just never happened to me with this, this particular question,
Speaker 1: this question of what it is that adversity does to
Speaker 1: kids and why it makes them difficult to why it
Speaker 1: makes it difficult for them to succeed in school and
Speaker 1: outside of school, how you know, everything from the neuroscience
Speaker 1: to the sociology to the politics that surrounds that question.
Speaker 1: To me, it's just it's the big one, and I
Speaker 1: feel like I understand some answers better than I did
Speaker 1: in two thousand and three, but there's still a lot
Speaker 1: about it that, you know, frustrates and fascinates me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is endlessly fascinating this topic, and the question of
Speaker 1: adversity is it's not an issue that's going to go
Speaker 1: away anytime soon. How much some of these issues you
Speaker 1: study apply to upper class students lot so in How
Speaker 1: Children Succeed I wrote explicitly about well off kids and
Speaker 1: private school kids. Did some reporting at Riverdale country School
Speaker 1: in New York City, And yeah, I think there is
Speaker 1: a lot about this, you know, this question of knowing
Speaker 1: how to manage failure being this important process in kids
Speaker 1: sort of developing the non cognitive capacities that they need
Speaker 1: to succeed, and that what parents and teachers and coaches
Speaker 1: are doing at their best is helping kids learn how
Speaker 1: to manage those moments of adversity, those moments of failure.
Speaker 1: And I think we have challenges in that dimension, both
Speaker 1: at the high end and the low end of the
Speaker 1: socioeconomic spectrum. Have done a lot of speaking now at
Speaker 1: independent schools, and this is a real anxiety I think
Speaker 1: among affluent parents for good reason. But in this new
Speaker 1: book and helping Children Succeed, while I care about the
Speaker 1: struggles of well off kids, what really motivates me is
Speaker 1: the struggles of kids who are growing up in poverty
Speaker 1: or other forms of adversity. And so that's what I
Speaker 1: really wanted to focus in on. And I felt after
Speaker 1: How Children Succeed came out that I was hearing from
Speaker 1: a lot of educators or mentors, pediatricians, people who are
Speaker 1: working directly with kids growing up in poverty who needed help,
Speaker 1: you know who just just felt like overwhelmed by the
Speaker 1: work that they were doing and intrigued by the research
Speaker 1: that I was writing about, but that they didn't they
Speaker 1: didn't feel like there were clear enough answers and strategies
Speaker 1: in that research or certainly in my book to tell
Speaker 1: them what to do tomorrow morning to help those kids succeed.
Speaker 1: So that was really my goal with this book. Sure,
Speaker 1: and used a phrase that don't want to unpack this
Speaker 1: a little bit. You said, noncognitive capacities. And we fluctuate
Speaker 1: in our field between what in the world we call
Speaker 1: these things. Yeah, I mean depending on our mood, you know.
Speaker 1: So it might be like if we didn't have a
Speaker 1: good meal, we'll say traits, Like if we feel really happy,
Speaker 1: we'll say like strengths, you know, character strengths. What are
Speaker 1: these things? Are they personality traits? Are they of mindsets
Speaker 1: and attitudes? You know? Cayle duc I read an article
Speaker 1: once she says we don't focus enough on mid level
Speaker 1: personality traits, which are sets of mindsets and attitudes, And
Speaker 1: it seems like in reading your book, you kind of
Speaker 1: place these things at the mid level set of personality.
Speaker 1: Tell me more what you mean by mid level so
Speaker 1: you have the big five traits of personality that are
Speaker 1: at the top of the hierarchy, things like conscientiousness, agreeableness,
Speaker 1: extra version, openness to experience, and neuroticism. Actually there's actually
Speaker 1: in the hierarchy, there's two higher above that, which is
Speaker 1: just avoidance and engagement. Okay, but it's all hierarchy. And
Speaker 1: so if you can go under each one of these
Speaker 1: personality traits and you get what are mid level facets.
Speaker 1: So under conscientiousness there's a lot more specific things like
Speaker 1: resiliency and perseverance and consistency of interest and grit. Grit.
Speaker 1: Angela Duckworth replaced grit as a facet of conscientiousness. Got Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've read an article once where Kyle Deweck has made
Speaker 1: that argument that we don't focus as much attention on
Speaker 1: a middle We focus too much on these big five,
Speaker 1: you know, just saying conscientiousness, and there's a more granular
Speaker 1: level which really more to like she would argue, mind
Speaker 1: a set of mindsets and attitudes and things, And in
Speaker 1: your book, it seems like that's how you want to
Speaker 1: conceptualize it as well. Is that right? Yeah? I mean,
Speaker 1: so I don't that hierarchy is not something that I've
Speaker 1: thought about a lot, So I don't know if I
Speaker 1: can comment in a helpful way on sort of where
Speaker 1: on that hierarchy. I think these exist for me. I
Speaker 1: feel like what I was surprised by in the rethinking
Speaker 1: that went into this book was that, you know, there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of debate about the word non cognitive
Speaker 1: in non cognitive skills, and maybe there isn't he sort
Speaker 1: of isn't debate, like everyone agrees it's a terrible word
Speaker 1: because totally cognitive, and yet you know, we keep using
Speaker 1: that word. But the word that I actually found that
Speaker 1: I was wanting to challenge more was the skills. So
Speaker 1: I talked a lot and I wrote a lot in
Speaker 1: How Children Succeed about how noncognitive skills. That's a phrase
Speaker 1: that James Heckman, the economist, uses a lot, and I
Speaker 1: was following his lead and a lot of what I wrote,
Speaker 1: And I think that that model, that paradigm of skill
Speaker 1: development is one that I think it certainly exists with
Speaker 1: a lot of the people I was writing about in
Speaker 1: How Children Succeed, and I think is one that in
Speaker 1: the wake of that book and all the research that
Speaker 1: went into it, in Angela's work becoming more popular is
Speaker 1: one that I think has really caught on with educators,
Speaker 1: and I think that makes a lot of sense. I
Speaker 1: think if you're an educator and you hear that there
Speaker 1: is this other dimension of abilities that matter in kids
Speaker 1: in terms in getting them to success, what you understand
Speaker 1: as an educator is skills, right, That's your job as
Speaker 1: an educator is to improve the skills of your students.
Speaker 1: And so if you get this message, which I think
Speaker 1: is valid, that like, we're only actually paying attention to
Speaker 1: but half of the skills that kids have and need
Speaker 1: to succeed, and we're ignoring this other half, you try
Speaker 1: to turn your attention and using the tools that you
Speaker 1: have as an educator, to this other set of skills.
Speaker 1: But I actually think that that in the process of
Speaker 1: doing that, we've made some sort of conceptual mistakes, and
Speaker 1: that those are then replicated as actual practical mistakes in
Speaker 1: terms of how we try to develop these capacities in
Speaker 1: the classroom and outside of the classroom. And so instead
Speaker 1: I'm trying to stop using skills, and the word that
Speaker 1: I'm using, which is not necessarily more helpful, is capacities.
Speaker 1: Noncognitive capacities. Problems with that phrase, as problems with all
Speaker 1: of these. But I do think like I think language around, yeah,
Speaker 1: psychological mindsets, habits, attitudes, strengths, Yeah, I mean. But strengths
Speaker 1: to me, though, is like strengths to me is just
Speaker 1: sort of like a synonym for skills, you know, It's
Speaker 1: like a more It's like an euphemism almost for skills. Right,
Speaker 1: It's a more positive way to describe skills. And you
Speaker 1: stop calling a character too, yeah, I find, And so
Speaker 1: I find I find character has some difficulties as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, one to stay in the in the realm
Speaker 1: of language for a bit. I think one thing that
Speaker 1: I realized as I was working on this is that
Speaker 1: part of there are a lot of people who get
Speaker 1: very upset about, you know, my writing. Angel is writing
Speaker 1: all of the work about grit and character, especially as
Speaker 1: it relates to low income kids. And the thing that
Speaker 1: I think upsets them is that they hear an implication
Speaker 1: in what I've written, and I think what Angel Is
Speaker 1: written as well, that we're saying that kids who are
Speaker 1: growing up in adversity don't have enough of grit enough character, right,
Speaker 1: And I totally understand that that strong reaction, because if
Speaker 1: you're using words like character and grit that have even
Speaker 1: if they have sort of a clear, just sort of
Speaker 1: descriptive quality, they also have a sort of like moral
Speaker 1: valance in terms of how we talk about them, right,
Speaker 1: Like grit, character, fortitude, those are just good things to have,
Speaker 1: and people who don't have them we think of them
Speaker 1: as bad. And so what I care about, you know,
Speaker 1: the research that I care more about is like the
Speaker 1: neuroscience that talks about how growing up in really stressful
Speaker 1: environments affects kids' psychology and affects their neurology, and it
Speaker 1: affects and that affects their behavior, and that affects how
Speaker 1: they do in school. Right, that science, I think is
Speaker 1: what is most important in terms of understanding what's going
Speaker 1: on with low income kids in school. And there's no
Speaker 1: reason to attach moral language to any of that, Right,
Speaker 1: Like the kids who are going through existing in stressful
Speaker 1: situations and having their nervous systems adapt to those stressful
Speaker 1: situations by firing up their fight or flight responses, and
Speaker 1: that causes them trouble in school, Like that's a biochemical process,
Speaker 1: Like that is not a moral process, right, And so
Speaker 1: using moral language to describe what's happening to those kids
Speaker 1: and saying, well, they have trouble persevering because they don't
Speaker 1: have enough grit. I think that just excludes and turns
Speaker 1: off a big part of the potential audience for this
Speaker 1: I think really important message and information and so to me,
Speaker 1: staying in the realm of you know, scientific language, talking
Speaker 1: about like what the effect of growing up in adversity
Speaker 1: does to kids, how that plays out in the classroom.
Speaker 1: It has two advantages. One is that I think it
Speaker 1: gives teachers some real information, some real ideas about what
Speaker 1: they can do differently in the classroom in order to
Speaker 1: help those kids succeed. And two, I think that it's
Speaker 1: more inclusive. It like stops it avoid having a significant
Speaker 1: part of the potential audience for this message just not
Speaker 1: want to listen to any of it because they feel
Speaker 1: like there's something offensive. And again understandably so about saying
Speaker 1: poor kids don't have enough character, poor kids don't have
Speaker 1: enough grit, fair enough, So I mean, just in a nutshell,
Speaker 1: you're really interested in how environment shapes the development of
Speaker 1: these traits. I think we can still agree their traits
Speaker 1: though in a sense what we want them to be
Speaker 1: we want to develop these traits that they are traits.
Speaker 1: We want them to be habits for people. That's all.
Speaker 1: Traits are our habits of behaviors, patterns of behavior that
Speaker 1: are an average, you know, are operate in quentitude, so
Speaker 1: to se try to think of like a way to
Speaker 1: framing that. But that's what you're interested in, you know.
Speaker 1: And there's you know, the Applied Psychology Department at NYU.
Speaker 1: You draw a lot on their research and the development
Speaker 1: of executive functions, and it was I thought it was
Speaker 1: interesting as well. In the book, there was one researcher.
Speaker 1: I can't remember the name of him right now, but
Speaker 1: I think it was a male and he was talking
Speaker 1: about how he doesn't even want to call these things anything.
Speaker 1: He just wants to like He's like, why do we
Speaker 1: need to like pinpoint exactly what these things are called
Speaker 1: at all? Why can't we just like show It's kind
Speaker 1: of like black holes, right, Like, we don't know what
Speaker 1: black holes are, but we know by the way of
Speaker 1: the shape of other stars, the way they move about,
Speaker 1: that we've made a change. Right, So as long as
Speaker 1: things are moving around, you know in a way that
Speaker 1: we're making a change, you know, that's positive, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, so one of the writers who's
Speaker 1: most influential on me in this new book is Camille
Speaker 1: Farrington of the Chicago conserti um on Schools Research and
Speaker 1: her report Teaching Adolescenents to Be Learners. That that's a
Speaker 1: lot of what she talks about there that really like,
Speaker 1: what we care about is academic behaviors, right, We care
Speaker 1: about kids showing up to school and being engaged in
Speaker 1: their work and persevering through difficulty. Right. And so I
Speaker 1: think the researcher you're talking about is is Carabo Jackson,
Speaker 1: this economist from Northwestern University. And some of what you're
Speaker 1: saying is something that I kind of layered onto his research.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he would necessarily want to claim
Speaker 1: all of that, but mostly like what I took from
Speaker 1: his study. You know, So he's an economist, and so
Speaker 1: he only has the tools of an economist, and so
Speaker 1: he was only able to measure. So he did this
Speaker 1: big study of like four hundred thousand ninth grade students
Speaker 1: in North Carolina, who their teachers were, how they responded
Speaker 1: to having those teachers, what value added that those teachers brought,
Speaker 1: and he discovered that there were two different types of teachers,
Speaker 1: the ones who were reliably able to improve their students'
Speaker 1: test scores and then the ones who are reliably able
Speaker 1: to improve their students standing in this proxy measure that
Speaker 1: he created, which was just attendance, behavior incidents, GPA, and
Speaker 1: grade on time grade progression. Right, And so if you
Speaker 1: were in certain teachers classrooms, you were more likely to
Speaker 1: show up school work hard, thus get a good GPA graduate,
Speaker 1: you know, finish your year on time, and not get
Speaker 1: in trouble. Right. So, to my mind, like as a
Speaker 1: thought experiment, that's to me is really cool because first
Speaker 1: it says like, okay, well, we know something is going
Speaker 1: on in those classrooms, right, we know that those we
Speaker 1: don't We can't say if it's grit or perseverance or
Speaker 1: self control or what that those teachers are developing in
Speaker 1: their students, but we know that their students are behaving
Speaker 1: in ways that we want them to behave. So that's
Speaker 1: the first thing. And then the second thing is that
Speaker 1: it then as a thought experiment, it then pushes me
Speaker 1: towards saying like, so, why isn't that enough? Like why
Speaker 1: isn't that what I want to know? How students are
Speaker 1: going to respond to whatever climate the teacher is creating
Speaker 1: in the classroom, and I don't need to know that,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't need to give those kids tests
Speaker 1: of different psychological qualities, especially given the fact that the
Speaker 1: test we have for these arts equalities are not yet
Speaker 1: at a stage of being really reliable. Why not instead
Speaker 1: look at the behaviors and figure out how to help
Speaker 1: teachers create a climate in the classroom that makes kids
Speaker 1: behave in the way that we want them to behave. Right, So,
Speaker 1: one part of what we want is from the behavior
Speaker 1: and ways want to behave. But another part of what
Speaker 1: we want, and I think you would agree, is we
Speaker 1: want them to behave like they want to behave too,
Speaker 1: we actually care about them and their dreams and their
Speaker 1: own unique desires. One criticism of your book could potentially
Speaker 1: be that it's all about compliance and you want And
Speaker 1: I don't think you would make that case because you
Speaker 1: talk a lot about the importance of autonomy, and so
Speaker 1: let's talk about autonomy for saying, because I think sometimes
Speaker 1: that can conflict with us wanting people to behave the
Speaker 1: way we want them to behave, versus if we get autonomy,
Speaker 1: we start to see their own unique talents, create creativity,
Speaker 1: expressions come out in ways that we never could have
Speaker 1: predicted ahead of time. Sure, yes, how does schools deal
Speaker 1: with that dual sort of thing? It's a great question. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I think about it as I
Speaker 1: have never been a teacher, So sometimes I think about
Speaker 1: this as a parent more than as a teacher, right,
Speaker 1: or as a speaker as well. I would say, you're
Speaker 1: a teacher in a way. Well, that's nice to you
Speaker 1: to say, but you know, the real teaching I'm too
Speaker 1: scared to try. But but you know, so, like, I've
Speaker 1: got two kids and they're one and six, and so
Speaker 1: I think with both of them all the time about
Speaker 1: how about their behavior and what my job is in
Speaker 1: terms of shaping it, And so I think there's a
Speaker 1: little both. Like I mean, obviously, I want my think
Speaker 1: mostly about my older son. I think most I think
Speaker 1: that I want him to become who he naturally is.
Speaker 1: But I also feel like part of my job as
Speaker 1: a as a parent, and I think part of a
Speaker 1: teacher's job is that, you know, we understand better than
Speaker 1: kids do how certain behaviors lead to certain outcomes, right,
Speaker 1: And so our job is to try to shape those behaviors,
Speaker 1: to help shape those behaviors. And so partly it's just
Speaker 1: a practical question, which is that I think that the
Speaker 1: tool that we usually use with kids in school and
Speaker 1: outside of school are these behaviorist tools, you know, is
Speaker 1: rewards and punishments. And so what really struck me about
Speaker 1: the research in both Roland Fryer's research about the limitations
Speaker 1: of incentives in an educational setting and then Edward DC
Speaker 1: and Richard Ryan's research about the importance of self determination
Speaker 1: intrinsic motivation in motivating kids to get engaged and work
Speaker 1: hard in school. What I took from all of that
Speaker 1: is that actually what works for kids is not the
Speaker 1: kind of punishments and rewards that we often use in
Speaker 1: schools these days. It is the kind of creating the
Speaker 1: kind of environment that makes them feel intrinsically motivated to
Speaker 1: do things right. So that's a lot of what I
Speaker 1: write about. All of that said, I feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: I do think that it's okay to say, like we
Speaker 1: want to help kids be intrinsically motivated to work hard,
Speaker 1: figure out how to achieve their goals, stick with things
Speaker 1: for a long time. Bounce back from disappointments like those,
Speaker 1: I'm ready to like embrace as kind of universally positive goals.
Speaker 1: But what kids do with that, how they shape that,
Speaker 1: what they want to be excited about, what they want
Speaker 1: to learn. That's where I feel like autonomy makes a
Speaker 1: whole lot of sense. And I think that's what I
Speaker 1: take from a lot of Angela's work as well, that
Speaker 1: like she's trying to figure out how to make how
Speaker 1: to help students become gritty about anything right, how to
Speaker 1: make them and by gritty, you know, in lots of ways,
Speaker 1: she means passionate, excited. And I think what a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, well off parents have found is that
Speaker 1: in trying to push kids to be a certain way,
Speaker 1: to like to be involved in a million different activities
Speaker 1: and engage in a lot of different activities, that kids
Speaker 1: often take that on in a compliant kind of way.
Speaker 1: But it's only when we give them a little bit
Speaker 1: of autonomy to choose what they're interested in and choose
Speaker 1: how are going to be interested in it that they
Speaker 1: get the kind of deep motivation that's going to turn
Speaker 1: into passion and grit. Yeah, I agree with all that,
Speaker 1: It's just there's this quagmire I think that we're in
Speaker 1: because if you want to make changes in public policy
Speaker 1: these days, it seems like you have to show that
Speaker 1: you made a change in standardized achievement test scores, and
Speaker 1: so much of the of your book is focused on
Speaker 1: defining success as academic success as achievement test scores. And
Speaker 1: you know, well, I mean, I would question that. I
Speaker 1: mean because you know, I think a big part of
Speaker 1: what certainly in how children succeed, A big part of
Speaker 1: what I was writing about was and what got me
Speaker 1: interested in noncognitive skills in the first place, is this
Speaker 1: idea that there are qualities that are not measured in
Speaker 1: standardized test scores and that are focused in the last
Speaker 1: fifteen years in education on standardized test scores as the
Speaker 1: measure of kids success has been limited has helped us back, right,
Speaker 1: But that's it. I think that, like, I don't take
Speaker 1: my skepticism about standardized test scores to mean like that
Speaker 1: I don't care about kids learning stuff, you know, which
Speaker 1: is why I feel like, you know, GPA is it's
Speaker 1: not sort of the perfect measure of kids' success, but
Speaker 1: it's better, right, And because it measures two things. It
Speaker 1: measures just cognitive skills, but it also measures like engagement
Speaker 1: and motivation and how hard you work. So I don't
Speaker 1: want to sort of get away from the idea of
Speaker 1: measurement in school and in sort of thinking about academic
Speaker 1: success is important, but I think you can do that
Speaker 1: without relying just on standardized test scores. Well, let's discuss this.
Speaker 1: This is a really awesome conversation. So is the title
Speaker 1: of the book, like should it have been helping Children
Speaker 1: Succeed in School? Or like, let's just do a thought
Speaker 1: experiment that you wrote a book called Helping Children Succeed
Speaker 1: in wife, would it have been any different than what
Speaker 1: you put in this book? I don't think so. No,
Speaker 1: I mean I think so. Certainly, there's a significant audience
Speaker 1: for this book. I hope is teachers, is educators. I
Speaker 1: feel like most if we're thinking as a society about
Speaker 1: how we want to create an infrastructure to help kids
Speaker 1: who are growing up in poverty to do better, the
Speaker 1: tool that we have that is most likely to be
Speaker 1: effective is public schools because that's where that's just that's
Speaker 1: that's the government institution where kids are spending most of
Speaker 1: their time. That if we want to try and find
Speaker 1: a lever to help kids succeed that's the one that's
Speaker 1: going to be potentially most immediately effective. So I guess
Speaker 1: I don't. But I also think that there's a distinction
Speaker 1: between success in school and success outside of school. But
Speaker 1: I think there are a lot of connections between those
Speaker 1: two things, both in terms of like the very sort
Speaker 1: of practical fact that succeeding in school has strong correlations
Speaker 1: with succeeding in life because of how the job market
Speaker 1: and everything else works, but also that the kind of
Speaker 1: non cognitive capacities that lead I think to success in
Speaker 1: school are not in opposition to succeeding outside of school.
Speaker 1: Like if you can bounce back from disappointments, if you
Speaker 1: can become passionate about something and hang on to that passion,
Speaker 1: if you can persist tasks for a long time, those
Speaker 1: things are useful. What if you're like a troublemaker or
Speaker 1: a class clown and you end up starting a startup someday.
Speaker 1: Let's say you drop out of high school and you
Speaker 1: create like an amazing startup. So let's see the qualities
Speaker 1: you have are not so control but actually rebelliousness. You know,
Speaker 1: what do you do with those kids? Well? You know,
Speaker 1: I think that those kids. I think we should have
Speaker 1: schools that where those kids can succeed. You know, because
Speaker 1: if you're the kid who's a class clown and is
Speaker 1: going on to run a startup, you have a lot
Speaker 1: of other really positive qualities, right, that should be a
Speaker 1: positive thing in school. And I think good teachers have
Speaker 1: always figured out how to turn class clowns into successful students. Right.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, they need a different kind of of input,
Speaker 1: they need more autonomy, they need more room to perform, right.
Speaker 1: But like, I just don't buy that those kids will
Speaker 1: like just that school has nothing to offer them and
Speaker 1: they need something else. I think like those you know,
Speaker 1: I mean like anytime you read biographies of successful entrepreneurs,
Speaker 1: but also like you know, actors, writers, it's like, I mean,
Speaker 1: a lot of them have that sort of rebellious quality
Speaker 1: or rebellious moment, and the ones I think that go
Speaker 1: on to success are ones that are able to combine
Speaker 1: that with like actual knowledge about the world, actual you know,
Speaker 1: skills outside of that rebelliousness. And I think the best
Speaker 1: schools should be able to be the instrument that helps
Speaker 1: give those kids the tools that they need to succeed
Speaker 1: and not to change them but to help them grow. Sure,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to be clear. I think that
Speaker 1: the subset of what noncognitive capacities that you highlight in
Speaker 1: the book are extremely important to develop. But I want
Speaker 1: to be clear about that. I am saying there's more
Speaker 1: than that than just great carry executive functions. You know,
Speaker 1: there's the whole imagination brain network that rarely gets discussed.
Speaker 1: And that's my own little pet thing because I love
Speaker 1: creativity and imagination and I think, you know, those sets
Speaker 1: of skills can fall by the wayside as well. So
Speaker 1: I would just want to make sure we add them
Speaker 1: to the list when we're having policy discussions and say,
Speaker 1: it's not all about persevering in general. You know, sometimes,
Speaker 1: like some of these people who end up creating an
Speaker 1: amazing startup someday, might be really gritty about one specific
Speaker 1: thing and we may be blinded, you know, we may
Speaker 1: be limiting that potential because we're forcing them to be
Speaker 1: good at all the school classes. Yeah, you know, oh, absolutely,
Speaker 1: just to giving them resources to develop their specific passion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean so toward the end of the book,
Speaker 1: I read about these schools that are becoming known as
Speaker 1: deeper learning schools, and yeah, One of the reasons I'm
Speaker 1: so drawn to those schools is that I think that they,
Speaker 1: as far, you know, in terms of what I've seen,
Speaker 1: and certainly in a public school universe, they do the
Speaker 1: best job so far. They're still not doing a good
Speaker 1: enough job, but no one's doing a good enough job.
Speaker 1: But they do the best job of helping kids find
Speaker 1: those interests and use them in an academic context, right
Speaker 1: so that your work, your actual like school work, is
Speaker 1: not filling out you know, worksheets and repeating the same
Speaker 1: math equations over and over again. It is like building
Speaker 1: a robot, build you know, making art, directing a play,
Speaker 1: like having a debate with classmates, like all of that
Speaker 1: kind of deeper learning activity I think is important on
Speaker 1: so many levels, and it's something that very few low
Speaker 1: income kids are exposed to these days, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it helps in all of these you know,
Speaker 1: DC and Ryan kind of qualities. It makes kids feel
Speaker 1: more autonomy, more competence, more sense of belonging when they're
Speaker 1: doing that kind of school work. But I think it
Speaker 1: also know, it does involve creativity, It does involve thinking
Speaker 1: outside of the box, it does involve imagination, and I
Speaker 1: just think we're not using those tools enough, especially in
Speaker 1: low income communities for sure. For sure. And then what
Speaker 1: about well being? I don't think use word happiness once
Speaker 1: in this book, is true? Yeah, I think that word
Speaker 1: happens in there. So there's this emerging field called positive education.
Speaker 1: And I hope you come to the conference this summer
Speaker 1: by the way, in Texas. Thank you. I'll send you
Speaker 1: all sorts of invitation. It's the world's first ever positive
Speaker 1: education conference. And you know, all of your buds will
Speaker 1: be there, like Martin Soligavin and Angela dug Or but
Speaker 1: to all these individuals. So the question there is, you know,
Speaker 1: how can we maybe even redefine the idea of success
Speaker 1: to incorporate you know, metrics, moving the dial and well
Speaker 1: being as well. Yeah, I mean I think I think
Speaker 1: it's a great question. And I do think that I
Speaker 1: because I am mostly focused in my writing these days
Speaker 1: on kids who are growing up in poverty. I do
Speaker 1: think that for me anyway, it's hard when you're writing
Speaker 1: about those kids not to fall into a kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, emergency mentality, where like you just have to
Speaker 1: save them. And I do feel like, you know, things,
Speaker 1: especially like cite the statistic that just always sticks with me. That. So,
Speaker 1: they're fifteen million American kids in poverty, and what seven
Speaker 1: million of those fifteen million are living in deep poverty,
Speaker 1: meaning they're at fifty percent of the poverty line or below,
Speaker 1: which is twelve thousand dollars a year for a family
Speaker 1: of four. Right, this is half of all poor kids.
Speaker 1: About ten percent of kids American children zero at eighteen
Speaker 1: altogether are in this like really deep poverty. And when
Speaker 1: you're for those kids, like, it's not just the money, Like,
Speaker 1: the money is part of it materially, obviously they're really suffering,
Speaker 1: but that is also tending to go hand in hand
Speaker 1: with all kinds of social dysfunctions that make their lives
Speaker 1: really difficult and affect them on a neurobiological level as
Speaker 1: well as every other level. So for those kids, like,
Speaker 1: I absolutely want them to be happy, but I feel
Speaker 1: like there are so many obstacles in their way to
Speaker 1: getting that, to getting there, and so I feel like
Speaker 1: trying to create an education system that helps those kids
Speaker 1: develop the skills they need to just change their lives,
Speaker 1: you know, to get to another place, I think is
Speaker 1: really important. But I do think that, like I do
Speaker 1: think that I fall prey to that kind of emergency mentality.
Speaker 1: When I'm thinking about those kids that I think, like
Speaker 1: I just want them to like survive and have the
Speaker 1: skills they need to do better and to have a
Speaker 1: different you know, have different opportunities, have different possibilities, And
Speaker 1: so I think it is really important to think at
Speaker 1: the same time for those kids, right, how do you
Speaker 1: make them feel a sense of well being? How do
Speaker 1: you help them feel a sense of well being? How
Speaker 1: do you help them feel a sense of belonging and
Speaker 1: connection and purpose? And when educational interventions can do that,
Speaker 1: and there are lots of examples out there, some of
Speaker 1: which I read about, and helping children succeed, I think
Speaker 1: that is the big win, that's the big victory. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: So let's make some we can make some direct linkatures
Speaker 1: here between the perma model of well being that like
Speaker 1: Marin Selgman came up with and your two biggies that
Speaker 1: you come up when you're let's map them onto each other.
Speaker 1: So I can actually make a direct link to the
Speaker 1: happiness literature, because we'll see after all that I don't
Speaker 1: think what you're talking about is all together very different
Speaker 1: from what well being researchers are calling well being. You know, okay,
Speaker 1: so it's okay, let's map that. So PERMA involves the
Speaker 1: P is positive emotions, E is engagement are as, positive
Speaker 1: relationships ms meaning slash purpose, and A is a sense
Speaker 1: of achievement or you know, mastering. So in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, we could probably take the PERMA model and
Speaker 1: condense it to I don't know where the positive emotions is,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know's you don't talk too much
Speaker 1: about that, But your two biggies are a sense of
Speaker 1: connection and relatedness and a sense of growth and potential
Speaker 1: or giving people work that is challenging, rigorous and meaningful.
Speaker 1: So you have the engagement part maps on to the
Speaker 1: growth of potential section, then the meaning and the M
Speaker 1: and the A which is achievement, maps on to that,
Speaker 1: and then you have the social relationships that maps onto
Speaker 1: the relatedness. And maybe we can say once we satisfy
Speaker 1: your two biggies, positive emotions will come as a result.
Speaker 1: Is that Yeah, I mean, I think that's my hope.
Speaker 1: But I think but I think you're pointing out an
Speaker 1: important thing, which is that I'm kind of using that
Speaker 1: as a I'm kind of identifying that as like an
Speaker 1: end an end goal rather than an important tool, you know,
Speaker 1: And I think that is sort of what's part of
Speaker 1: what's inherent in perma. That like when kids, when anybody
Speaker 1: feels like good, when you feel a sense of well being, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you feel happy, it's going to be easier to
Speaker 1: do all these other things. It's easier to work, it's
Speaker 1: easier to learn, it's easier to read. It makes you
Speaker 1: want to have more grit, you know, when people are
Speaker 1: dying all around. I mean, when you're in such a
Speaker 1: horrible poverty, stricten environment where like your life is in danger, right,
Speaker 1: it's very hard to be forced to have grit. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really hard. And I feel like I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is responsive to your question, but you know,
Speaker 1: it just strikes me. I feel like one element of
Speaker 1: poverty in kids' lives that we don't really talk about
Speaker 1: enough is just that like poverty just I mean, growing
Speaker 1: up in real adversity can just make kids sad. You know,
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of kids who are like I
Speaker 1: feel like, we don't think about that sort of straightforward
Speaker 1: like emotional psychological effect that growing up in adversity can
Speaker 1: have on kids, which is it that a lot of
Speaker 1: them do feel like depressed, you know that, Like and
Speaker 1: I find this all the time talking to kidsool who
Speaker 1: are growing up in real diversity. Absolutely there are some
Speaker 1: who are you know, who are happy, who are succeeding,
Speaker 1: who are are overcoming those difficulties, But for a lot
Speaker 1: of them being in a situation where like you're constantly
Speaker 1: feeling like you're not misering up in school, you're in
Speaker 1: a very stressful situation at home, you are you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps in a neighborhood that itself is stressful, like just
Speaker 1: on a day to day basis, that just wears you down,
Speaker 1: you know, And so giving kids ways of overcoming that,
Speaker 1: tools and just opportunities to feel good, to feel connection,
Speaker 1: to feel positive, I think is not only a good
Speaker 1: end goal, but also a good instrumental goal rights both,
Speaker 1: Like we can call that as such a deep a
Speaker 1: deep philosophical question. How do we know as educators that
Speaker 1: we have succeeded, that we've succeeded, you know, not the
Speaker 1: students have succeeded, that we've succeeded in our goal? You know?
Speaker 1: Is it when we have raised all over standardized test
Speaker 1: scores to one hundred percent how are we done? We're like, Oh,
Speaker 1: we've succeeded is when we've created students that are happy, healthy,
Speaker 1: when we not I don't mean say created students now
Speaker 1: what I mean to say it only yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: we've got it, We've obtained that goal. You know, I
Speaker 1: think it's just a I don't have the answer by
Speaker 1: any means. But how the heck do we know that? What?
Speaker 1: You know? And I guess different schools that you visited
Speaker 1: have different goals, right, Yeah, I think that they do
Speaker 1: have different approaches. And I think, you know, you're making
Speaker 1: me think a lot about this question of just sort
Speaker 1: of like mental well being, because I do think that
Speaker 1: there's like there are some teachers in any kind of school,
Speaker 1: but especially in high poverty schools, who like, there's a
Speaker 1: risk on the other side too, that like you have
Speaker 1: those teachers who are just great at, like me, at
Speaker 1: being fun, you know, and making students feel like happy
Speaker 1: and yeah, that's the class it's always fun to go to,
Speaker 1: but they're actually not like teaching anything, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? And and like, so a little of that
Speaker 1: is a really positive thing, but like when you're not
Speaker 1: actually expanding your student's opportunity in the long haul, with
Speaker 1: just making them feel good in the in the moment,
Speaker 1: and I clarify that they're not necessarily explicitly learning the
Speaker 1: lesson plan we've given that we want to be learned,
Speaker 1: but we don't know that they're not learning a key foundation.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's important in life to learn how to
Speaker 1: deal with adversity through here, to deal with adversity through play.
Speaker 1: In fact, I use the word play in this book,
Speaker 1: and I like that, and I was like, expand that,
Speaker 1: expand that. It's like you killed me. You use the
Speaker 1: word once and then in the next sentence, I think
Speaker 1: you redefined it as something else, you as executive functions.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, no, it is what it is.
Speaker 1: It's something Yeah. I wish I could find the page
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, well know, I mean I certainly talked
Speaker 1: about play in early childhood. Is like that, that's that's
Speaker 1: the thing that kids learn from. That's what you know.
Speaker 1: I talk about this Jamaica experiment in Jamaica where like
Speaker 1: that's what changed things for kids was their parents, you know,
Speaker 1: being coached to play with them more. I think all
Speaker 1: that stuff is important. I just you know, so I'm
Speaker 1: ninety five percent going with you on this. I just
Speaker 1: think that there is a risk though, of that if
Speaker 1: you focus too much on kids happiness and say like
Speaker 1: that's what's important. Is giving them only a sense of
Speaker 1: well being that like for me, it's got that's got
Speaker 1: to be twinned with increasing their opportunities. One of Marty's
Speaker 1: grad students has gone over to like Baton Nations and
Speaker 1: has has given training on like ten millegs to increase
Speaker 1: well being. And they found that by training and starting
Speaker 1: there as a starting point, they found like zero point
Speaker 1: six standard deviation, increasing standardized test scorers. They found that
Speaker 1: all these outcomes, these kind of things that you talk
Speaker 1: about in this book came happened to come as a
Speaker 1: result of teaching. Like mindfulness was one of the exercise creativity,
Speaker 1: just like understanding like gratitude, like positive psychology exercises, you know,
Speaker 1: like gratitude and optimism, and you talk, you do talk
Speaker 1: about optimism and thinks, but kind of you know, explicitly
Speaker 1: training the teachers on these things increased standardized test scorers,
Speaker 1: increased the kind of outcomes like school attendants and things
Speaker 1: that we need to show public policy makers change. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it is kind of a false dichotomy sometimes
Speaker 1: between either this or that. I think you're totally right,
Speaker 1: and I mean, to me, like a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: when I talk about like what a teacher needs to
Speaker 1: do is just sort of change the climate in the classroom,
Speaker 1: the environment in the classroom, Like I think that's a
Speaker 1: lot of what it comes down to. You know that
Speaker 1: there are a lot of classrooms, especially that where low
Speaker 1: income kids are studying, that are contentious, you know, that
Speaker 1: are where there's a lot of conflict, excuse me, where
Speaker 1: there is not a lot of creativity, not a lot
Speaker 1: of opportunity for imagination, where there's a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: like repetitive work, a lot of basic instruction, and all
Speaker 1: of that I think is part of classroom climate. You know,
Speaker 1: I just think it's like, to me, the message it's
Speaker 1: important to give to teachers is that like classroom environment
Speaker 1: that's most beneficial for kids certainly involves happiness and fun.
Speaker 1: It just isn't it is It's not just limited to
Speaker 1: that that like that that the most successful classrooms pair
Speaker 1: happiness and fun and belonging with challenge and work, and
Speaker 1: and that's part of the permo you know, the a
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, absolutely, And I want to give creditor
Speaker 1: Marty scrad student. His name is Alejandro Adler. Great, he's
Speaker 1: doing really great work on that topic. Thanks for letting
Speaker 1: me ask you these questions. By ways, it's such an
Speaker 1: important conversation and it's it's fun to talk about these
Speaker 1: things for me too. Yeah, really really interesting. So when
Speaker 1: to end here? You know, on some very practical things.
Speaker 1: I mean, you argue that the most powerful anti poverty
Speaker 1: strategies are changing policies, changing practices, and changing our way
Speaker 1: of thinking about these things. Are you optimistic that we
Speaker 1: are in progress on these three fronts? I am optimistic
Speaker 1: that we know more than we used to in terms
Speaker 1: of making progress. You know, I in my book and
Speaker 1: in real life, I go back and forth between feeling
Speaker 1: optimistic and feeling pessimistic about the opportunities for kids who
Speaker 1: are growing up in poverty. You know, on the whole,
Speaker 1: we're not doing a good job. You know, we're not
Speaker 1: doing a good job, and we're not and things are
Speaker 1: not improving. We don't have a system to support kids
Speaker 1: who are growing up in poverty, especially deep poverty, and
Speaker 1: arguably the situation is worse for kids in poverty now
Speaker 1: than it was a couple of decades ago. So it's
Speaker 1: hard to feel super optimistic when that is the situation
Speaker 1: in the country as a whole. But one part of
Speaker 1: what I say and the conclusion to the book is
Speaker 1: that I think when faced with certain of these interventions
Speaker 1: that I think are using really really different, deep innovative
Speaker 1: ideas to approach kids in a much more realistic kind
Speaker 1: of way, to look at them not just as problems,
Speaker 1: but as kids with lots of possibility. To look at
Speaker 1: them not just as sort of vessels for you know,
Speaker 1: giving them information having that come out in test scores,
Speaker 1: but as kids who are going to need to learn,
Speaker 1: who need to learn in a much broader, more engaged
Speaker 1: kind of way. Individual kids' lives can change in profound ways.
Speaker 1: There's a lot that teachers can do, There's a lot
Speaker 1: that parents can do. There's a lot that policymakers can do.
Speaker 1: So I feel like I feel both. I feel both
Speaker 1: optimistic and pessimistic. I feel pessimistic. I feel bummed out
Speaker 1: about where we are as a nation in terms of
Speaker 1: what we're doing for our kids who are growing up
Speaker 1: in poverty. I feel hopeful when I see what some
Speaker 1: of the new approaches to helping those kids do better
Speaker 1: are awesome, and thank you for raising awareness through your
Speaker 1: book and your writings of these important topics. I think
Speaker 1: that they can only help with our changing these public
Speaker 1: policy sort of things. So thank you, Paul, thank you
Speaker 1: very much, Thanks for the conversation. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: The Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope
Speaker 1: you found this episode just as thought per booking and
Speaker 1: interesting as I did. If you'd like to read the
Speaker 1: show notes for this episode or here past episodes, you
Speaker 1: can visit the Psychology Podcast dot com