True Educational

Success
How to Raise Well Balanced and Self-Motivated
Learners?

11/2011 G. Julie Xie, Ph.D.

 Agenda
 What is success?
 Adverse effects of narrow perception of
success
 Factors behind success in education
 How can parents and school help
children achieve true success in
education?

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What is SUCCESS?
- sample students’ opinions
 Accomplish your goals 34%
 Be happy or satisfied with yourself 21%
 Get a job with strong earning potential 18%
 Earn good grades, B or better 13%
 Try your best and reach your potential 12%
 Doing things you want to do 8%
 Go to a prestigious college 4%
 Make my parents proud 3%
 Excel in a certain field 1%

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What is SUCCESS?
- students’ perception of their parents’ belief
 Earn good grades, A’s preferred 26%
 Get a job with strong earning potential 20%
 Be happy or satisfied with yourself 13%
 Go to a prestigious college 10%
 Accomplish your goals 10%
 Try your best and reach your potential 10%
 Do not know parents’ thoughts 7%
 Doing things you want to do 3%
 Excel in a certain field 1%

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How Narrow Definitions of Success
Adversely Affect Our Children?

 5- to 12-year-olds need 10-11 hours of sleep each

night; teens need 9.25 hours of sleep each night.
 80% of teens don’t get the recommended amount
of sleep. At least 28% fall asleep in school, and
22% fall asleep doing homework.

 Source: National Sleep Foundation. (2006).

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www.challengesuccess.org

 50% of Bay Area teens report headaches,

difficulty sleeping, and exhaustion due to
stress over the past month.

 Source: Galloway, M. K., Conner, J. O., &

Pope, D. (2009). Stanford Survey of
Adolescent School Experiences.

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 62% of Bay Area high school students
surveyed said they always or almost always
work hard in school, but only 10% always
or almost always enjoy schoolwork.

 Source: Galloway, M. K., Conner, J. O., &

Pope, D. (2009). Stanford Survey of
Adolescent School Experiences.

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 59% of teenagers say they have cheated on a test
during the last year, and 34% have done it more
than twice, while one in three admit having used
the internet to plagiarize an assignment.

 Source: Josephson Institute Center for Youth

Ethics. (2010). Josephson Institute of Ethics’
report card on American youth’s values and
actions.

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 The greater the amount of time adolescents
report spending in regularly scheduled
structured activities, the higher their self-
reported level of anxiety tends to be.

 Source: Melman, S., Little, S. G., & Akin-Little, K. A. (2007).

Adolescent over scheduling: The relationship between levels of
participation in scheduled activities and self-reported clinical
symptomology. The High School Journal, 90 (3), 18-30.

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 54% of high school females and 32% of
high school males (out of a sample of
nearly 5000 Bay Area youth) reported 3 or
more symptoms of physical stress in the
past month.

 Source: Galloway, Mollie K., Conner,

Jerusha O., and Pope, D. (2009). Stanford
Survey of Adolescent School Experiences.

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 9% of Bay Area high school students
surveyed reported use of illegal prescription
drugs to stay awake; an additional 25% use
legal stimulants.

 Source: Galloway, M. K., Conner, J. O.,

and Pope, D. (2009). Stanford Survey of
Adolescent School Experiences.

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 In 2010, 24 percent of 12th-grade students (28 percent of
males and 20 percent of females), 19 percent of 10th-
grade students (22 percent of males and 15 percent of
females), and ten percent of 8th-grade students (10 percent
of males and 9 percent of females) reported illicit drug use
in the previous 30 days. For 8th graders, this was up from 8
percent in 2009.

 Source: Johnston, L.D., O’Malley, P.M., Bachman, J.G.,

& Schulenberg, J.E. (forthcoming, 2011). Monitoring the
Future national survey results on drug use, 1975–2010:
Volume I, Secondary school students. Ann Arbor: Institute
for Social Research, The University of Michigan.

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 73% of students listed academic stress as
their number one reason for using drugs, yet
only 7 % of parents believe teens might use
drugs to deal with stress.

 Source: Partnership for a Drug-Free

America, (2008). Partnership attitude
tracking study, 2007.

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Factors behind Success in Education:
-- from our administrators
 good study skills so students know how to
access the information they want and know
how to get the help when they need. 
 confidence that they can accomplish
anything if they are willing to work hard
enough  
 development of critical thinking skills
 development of good social and
communication skills

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 How to Raise Well-Balanced, Self-
Motivated Learners?

How to Help Our Children Succeed?

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 Self-Actualization

Esteem

Belonging and Love

Safety

Physiological Needs

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (1954)

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Understand Your Child:
Temperament
 Quality of Mood
 Approach or Withdrawal
 Intensity of Reaction
 Rhythmicity (regularity)
 Distractibility
 Persistence
 Threshold of Responsiveness
 Activity Level
 Adaptability
Thomas & Chess (1977)

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Understand Your Child: Ability
• Linguistic intelligence
• Logical-mathematical intelligence
• Musical intelligence
• Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence
• Spatial intelligence
• Interpersonal intelligence
• Intrapersonal intelligence
• Naturalist intelligence
Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Howard Gardner, Ph.D.
(1983)

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Emotional Intelligence:
Why it can matter more than IQ?
 Self-Awareness: understand yourself
 Self-Control: managing emotions
 Self-Efficacy: Optimism & Hope,
especially in face of challenges or defeats
 Empathy: understand others
 Social Skills
(Daniel Goleman, 1995)

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 Self-discipline is a far better predictor of academic
performance than is IQ, accounting for more than
twice as much variance as IQ in final grades.

 Source: Duckworth, A.L., & Seligman, M.E.P.

(2005). Self-discipline outdoes IQ in predicting
academic performance of adolescents.
Psychological Science,16(12), 939-944.

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Authentic Happiness
 Happiness = Set Range + Circumstances +
Voluntary Factors

- Increase gratitude
- Understand how belief controls affect
- Satisfaction about the past + Optimism about the
future

( Martin E. P. Seligman, 2002)

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How can parents help?
Define success on your own terms
Avoid over-scheduling
Maintain down time and family time
Allow children space to develop on their own
Honor health and well being
Build responsibility at home and in the community
Ease performance pressure
Debunk college myths
www.challengesuccess.org

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How can parents help?
 Understand and respect your child as an
individual
 Allow choices to build motivation
 Positive Reinforcement: Praise efforts
 Positive discipline to foster healthy self-
concept
 Model positive attitudes and emotions in
daily life – take mistakes as opportunities to
learn and grow from

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 The permissive parent attempts to behave in a
nonpunitive, acceptant and affirmative manner towards
the child's impulses, desires, and actions.
 The authoritarian parent attempts to shape, control, and
evaluate the behavior and attitudes of the child in
accordance with a set standard of conduct, usually an
absolute standard, theologically motivated and formulated
by a higher authority.
 The authoritative parent attempts to direct the child's
activities but in a rational, issue-oriented manner. The
parent encourages verbal give and take, shares with the
child the reasoning behind her policy, and solicits his
objections when children refuse to conform.
(Diana Baumrind, 1967)

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How can our school help?
 Climate of care
 Project and problem based learning
 Meaningful assignments
 Authentic assessment
 Honor engagement and integrity in learning

(www.challengesuccess.org)

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 Students in social and emotional learning (SEL)
programs in schools not only demonstrate
increased social and emotional skills and attitudes
but also demonstrate improved academic
performance, reflected in an 11-percentile-point
gain in achievement.

 Source: Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B. Taylor, R.

D., and Schellinger, K. B. (2011). The impact of enhancing student’s
social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based
universal interventions. Child Development, 82(1), 405-432.

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Middle school students’ perceptions
------ significant predictors of
academic and psychological adjustment

 Perceptions of an emphasis on competition and differential treatment

by ability are related to diminished academic values, feelings of self-
esteem, and academic achievement as well as increases in school
truancy, anger, and depressive symptoms

 Perceptions of positive teacher regard and an emphasis on individual

effort and improvement in school are associated with increases in
academic values, feelings of academic competence, and academic
achievement as well as decreases in depressive symptoms, anger, and
school truancy and increases in self-esteem over time.

 Source: Roesler, R. W., & Eccles, J. S. (1998). Adolescents' perceptions of middle

school. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 8(1), 123–158.

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The Ultimate Goal of Education
 "The only person who is educated is the one
who has learned how to learn and change."
- Carl Rogers (1902-1987)

 Education is what remains after one has

forgotten everything he learned in school.
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

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 Excerpted from the book
CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE
©1998 by Dorothy Law Nolte and Rachel Harris

 If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn

 If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty
 If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence
 If children live with tolerance, they learn patience
 If children live with praise, they learn appreciation
 If children live with acceptance, they learn to love
 If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn
respect
 If children live with security, they learn to have faith in
themselves

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 References

Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success. Little, Brown and

Company: New York.

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than

IQ. Bantam Books: NY.

Nelsen, J. Positive Discipline Associates. http://www.positivediscipline.com

Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive

Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment. Free Press:
NY.

Stanford University School of Education: Challenge Success:

www.challengesuccess.org

Mission San Jose HS SOS: www.missionsos.net

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