The Formative Five
Book Reflections
Reflections on The Formative Five
I love the books ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) has because you access a study guide of questions for reflection, understanding, discussion, and application. We know engaged readers ask questions as they read, but I always am interested in the authors questions or other reader questions. There are always things that never crossed my mind.
This newsletter is sharing my thoughts (my inner babble) and reflections to the study guide questions in hopes to spark some conversations in the lounge or over adult beverages. I don't feel bad if you delete my ramblings. I would be happy to lend my book when I am finished if you are inspired to pull out your own reflections (just know you'll have to look past my writing and stickies all over the book.
About the book and author (from the ASCD website)
Link is under the pic above and here
About This Book
For success in school and life, students need more than proficiency in academic subjects and good scores on tests; those goals should form the floor, not the ceiling, of their education. To truly thrive, students need to develop attributes that aren't typically measured on standardized tests. In this lively, engaging book by veteran school leader Thomas R. Hoerr, educators will learn how to foster the "Formative Five" success skills that today's students need, including
- Empathy: learning to see the world through others' perspectives.
- Self-control: cultivating the abilities to focus and delay self-gratification.
- Integrity: recognizing right from wrong and practicing ethical behavior.
- Embracing diversity: recognizing and appreciating human differences.
- Grit: persevering in the face of challenge.
When educators engage students in understanding and developing these five skills, they change mindsets and raise expectations for student learning. As an added benefit, they see significant improvements in school and classroom culture. With specific suggestions and strategies, The Formative Five will help teachers, principals, and anyone else who has a stake in education prepare their students—and themselves—for a future in which the only constant will be change.
Thomas Hoerr
Thomas R. Hoerr retired after leading the New City School in St. Louis, Missouri, for 34 years and is now the Emeritus Head of School. He teaches at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and holds a PhD from Washington University in St. Louis.
Hoerr has written four books and more than 100 articles, including "The Principal Connection" column in Educational Leadership magazine, and is an enthusiastic but poor basketball player. Readers who would like to continue the dialogue may e-mail him.
How do you know when your school is successful?
Educational Leadership magazine
Enough said
Introduction
This question is in the first paragraph. I had to put the book down and think as I puttered around the house. I couldn't turn the page for a while. There isn't a magical if-we-just-did-this answer. Darn it! I kept thinking about how I define a successful school and asking myself how others would define it and if there was a right or wrong (detrimental to students and staff) way to define it. My initial thoughts went to good attendance, smiles and laughter, the humming noise of engaged and excited learning, a beautiful environment, few discipline problems, low staff turnover, productive parent and neighborhood involvement, and, yes, higher achievement scores (which, I believe, are a product of many other focuses). How do YOU know when your school is successful? How do parents define our success? How does our district administration define it (along with the board) and are our definitions similar? How can we have conversations about this in respectful productive ways? Is our success defined by being able to look at students and predict what kinds of adults they will be?
We have to teach students to read, write and calculate. I have always felt that this is just the beginning. Hoerr says this forms the floor not the ceiling of a student's education. "Our timeline is too short and our aspirations are too low if we limit our curriculum and pedagogical focus to test, grades, and diplomas. ...what's needed to achieve success in the real world." (p3) We have been thinking about this since I began teaching in the 90s and I'm sure before that. If it wasn't as true before, it sure is now in this rapidly changing world that people who have the skills to negotiate change and reinvent themselves for new situations will succeed. So here we go with the qualities of success that don't include the academics like persistence, self-control, curiosity, etc...you know many on the list.
Interesting statistic from Carnegie Institute of Technology: "85% of your financial success is to skills in 'human engineering,' your personality and ability to communicate, negotiate, and lead. Shockingly, only 15% is due to technical knowledge" WOW ! If we could help students with the "human engineering" side - truly, not just wishful thinking - maybe our community would thrive again.
Thomas Hoerr - "Who you are is more important than what you know" What if we made this a banner in our hallways, on our newsletters, in our classrooms? I know it's something I always need to work on. What would happen if our students reflected on this (even subconsciously) every day? These are those behaviors that used to be the front page of our old report cards, those personal intelligences. FYI, Hoerr has a great technique in his book on p6 to help explain this wider definition of school goals and focus of efforts to teachers and parents.
The Formative Five
- Self-control
- Integrity
- Empathy
- Grit
- Embracing diversity
He goes on to explain how skills such as courage, curiosity, responsibility, an receptivity among others are embedding in the five above. He compares his 5 to Gardner's work, Brooks's "legacy virtues, among other researchers terms. Page 11 has a chart with associated terms for each of the five. Many of the success skills I had in my head can be related back to these five. For example, the skill of being a problem solver or creative thinker takes grit and you must embrace diversity of others' thinking, have integrity, and have the discipline (self-control) to be tenacious. Interesting to think about. If we all focused on a few, would that make a huge difference? Are any more or less important? And in my mind... how do I explicitly teach these while teaching reading, writing, and calculating? They are teachable!
There is so much more in this introduction. Just like seeing a movie about a book, you have to read the book to get more.