Linda gave me some interesting articles last year all about the lifelong impact of self-control. One such study was a 40-year study of 1000 children which revealed that childhood self-control strongly predicts adult success (Moffitt, Poulton, & Caspi, 2013). The results of the study showed that it did not matter what your level of intelligence was, or your socio economic status. Self-Control is a predictor of early mortality, psychiatric disorders, and unhealthy behaviours which could include drunk driving, unsafe sex, smoking, overeating and general non compliance in a range of contexts. ![]() So what is self-control? Since I didn’t understand the highly complicated definition in the article I had to look it up. Self-control (noun) The ability to control oneself, in particular one's emotions and desires, especially in difficult situations. "Lucy struggled for self-control." I had a bit of a laugh when I saw the example above of “Lucy silently struggled for self-control”. How many Lucys do we have in our classrooms? Many of our girls don’t “silently” struggle for self-control either, they let it all out! We all have issues with self-control one way or another as this is just how humans are. When we have difficult students we have our own sanity preserving techniques to help them to manage their behaviour. Some approaches work well, and some we’d rather not remember. Sustaining this type of management in a volatile environment can be very difficult. Taking ownership of behaviours which exhibit a lack of self-control though is what we would hope our students will eventually do - PB4L. But how do we empower our young women to kick-start their self control? Do they have the tools to do this, what are they? Can self-control be taught or is this something that develops with maturity? (I figure I must be pretty slow to mature!) Added to these questions is the concept of willpower. I always thought it was really the same as self-control but some recent readings have made me think differently. Willpower (noun) control exerted to do something or restrain impulses. "most of our bad habits are due to laziness or lack of willpower." ![]() An excellent book, entitled ‘Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength’ (Baumeister & Tierney, 2012) talks at length about the willpower gap and that in fact, willpower is a depletable resource. ‘Until 1998, scientists didn’t know that willpower was measurable’ (Baumeister et al, 2012). We evidently have about 15 minutes of willpower at any given time. Just imagine the everyday decisions we make which can deplete this willpower - eg. shall I delete this email, reply or save it for later? Should I have the piece of fruit or custard square? You know, you decide to get fit, think about it, dream about the end result, make an amazing weekly plan of exercise and go for it. Day one you are totally awesome, and feel a bit sore but a great sense of achievement. Then by day five you are over the initial enthusiasm and just can’t seem to get out of bed early enough, making the excuse that you’ll work extra hard tomorrow. We all know how the story ends - within a few weeks we have decided that after our birthday we’ll start again, or after the wedding …. etc. By the way, how many of you have stuck to your 2017 new year resolutions? Hmmm? Where is your willpower? What was the pivotal moment where you decided to not pursue your dreams and goals? If you do remember the moment - you’ll probably realise that your willpower was at a pretty low peak. The good news is folks, that although willpower is a depletable resource, you can restore it. This could be through a few minutes of meditation, gardening (for me), a walk, prayer, creative activities, reading something motivational or simply reminding yourself of your goals and why you have them. Putting this all into the educational context. If, as research indicates, our students at any given time have 15 minutes of self-regulatory willpower, the ability to restrain certain behaviours or impulses. With all the choices students make even before they get to school, how do we help them to restore their willpower and ultimately their self-control resources? No student comes to school to fail, and even though I have taught some extremely challenging students, I don’t believe that a single one of them really wanted to behave so badly that the consequences were exclusion or stand-down. Wouldn’t it be great to have the keys to tap into the willpower gap for those students? How awesome to develop strategies with these students so that they know how to restore depleted willpower in order to develop the self-control necessary for success in all aspects of learning, life and future goals? Perhaps somewhere in this rambling is a good research topic? Have a great break everyone - you’ll find me in the garden! ~Robyn Bazika References Baumeister, R., & Tierney, J. (2012). Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. Penguin USA. Moffitt, T., Poulton, R., & Caspi, A. (2013). Lifelong Impact of Early Self-Control. American Scientist, 100(5), 352. doi:10.1511/2013.104.1
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![]() The following article is an indicator of what I consider the important place for languages in education in New Zealand. The world is morphing fast and far from the digital revolution singularising language into an English only world, the more digital our world becomes, the more fractured our world becomes and the less likely it is for a single language to control everything. The first language used on the internet was English and by 1990s it made up 90% of the content. However, this pattern is changing faster than expected. The share of French, German, Spanish and Chinese has increased and the share of English has shrunk to 30% in the past two decades. The use of Chinese grew by 1,277% in a decade since 2000! Monolingual English speakers run a huge risk. I saw it in Thailand first-hand at the Asia-Pacific German Olympics. You had students who not only spoke their mother tongue or tongues(!) but varying degrees of German and very often English too. Language is seen as a tool by these students to allow them to be active in a global environment rather than solely an academic pursuit and there are millions of them pouring out of the schools and universities of the rest of the world and looking for opportunities. If you want to communicate you need to be able to speak and you have to have experienced the joys and difficulties of learning another language. You need to have been confronted with the problem of adjusting to a different culture and not being able to make yourself understood and then getting the huge pay-off of in fact getting the thing you wanted or making the point you had in another tongue, regardless of how many hands and feet you used. Even the most basic of year 9 language education if it's done right opens up the student to accepting that there are such things as different ways of looking at the world and communicating in it. If we want to produce high-end scientists, mathematicians, social scientists, artists, designers or anything else and they think they might like to work in an international environment, frankly it's embarrassing if they can only speak English and they will be passed over if the person with the same or similar skill set also speaks a couple of other languages, just as Helen Clark was passed over. Try being an astronaut these days without the rudiments of Russian. You won't get off the ground. ~Chris Durrant The Lost Opportunities of Being Monolingual~Sally Hill Associate Professor Sally Hill is Head of the School of Languages and Cultures at Victoria University of Wellington. For all the attention paid to gender and behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing as reasons for Helen Clark missing out on the top job at the United Nations, the former Prime Minister revealed in an interview last weekend that a lack of language skills was also to blame. In an article on Stuff, Clark stated that not being able to “speak French or Spanish” was a factor in her losing out to Portuguese António Guterres as UN Secretary-General. Of the 12 candidates for the role, Clark was the only English native speaker and the only monolingual. If someone with the profile of a former Prime Minister can be negatively affected by a lack of language skills when competing on the international stage, what does that mean for the rest of us? What opportunities would be open to New Zealanders if we had better language and intercultural skills? And how can we turn around our woeful language-learning statistics and make sure Kiwi kids are well-positioned to seize these opportunities in the future? ![]() Eighty percent of New Zealanders speak only one language and rates of language study in schools and universities have been declining significantly since 1993, according to the Ministry of Education. As a country, we also have a record of taking pre-schoolers who speak languages other than English into our education system and turning them into monolingual English speakers. Yet recent Asia New Zealand Foundation research shows that more than 90 percent of us believe learning other languages is valuable and more than eight in 10 believe New Zealand children should learn a language other than English. We put ourselves at a disadvantage if we ignore the benefits of learning to function in other languages and cultures rather than expecting others to adapt to ours. It’s encouraging to see the issue of language learning on the agenda this election and widespread agreement that we can do better in this area (despite valid concerns about how best to go about it). After many years of relative neglect of languages, the Government’s commitment last year to invest $34.5 million in the Centres of Asia-Pacific Excellence signals greater recognition of a need for improvement if we want deeper, mutually beneficial economic, cultural and political relationships with the countries of our region. Shifts in global power relations and phenomena like Brexit and political turbulence in the United States suggest that relying exclusively on English won’t be enough in other parts of the world, either. While speakers of other languages will continue to learn English, we put ourselves at a disadvantage if we ignore the benefits of learning to function in other languages and cultures rather than expecting others to adapt to ours. According to a recent Economist report on The Future of Work, “virtually any career, public or private, is given a boost with knowledge of a foreign language”. A recent New Zealand employment market report notes that there is “a scramble for talented candidates with foreign language skills and access to global networks” in sectors like banking, while a trends report from IT Professionals New Zealand notes that “with many ICT/software companies operating globally, job candidates who are able to interact in multiple languages are highly sought”. Many international companies are well aware of what they stand to gain by employing people with knowledge of the languages and cultures of their clients. As former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt famously put it, “If I am selling to you, I speak your language. If I am buying, dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen.” An estimated 65-70 percent of the world’s population speak at least two languages. They enjoy advantages that most Kiwis are missing out on. Beyond the economic and trade arguments, bilingual and multilingual students outperform monolinguals in cognitive tasks and achieve better results across the curriculum. Research also suggests that monolingualism limits our health and well-being: a recent study from the University of Edinburgh shows that learning another language, even as an adult, keeps your brain sharp as you age and can delay the onset of conditions such as Alzheimer’s by years. Studies conclude that any amount of language learning is good for you, and that, contrary to popular belief, anyone can do it, at any age. We need to make the most of the bilingualism and multilingualism that already exist in Aotearoa New Zealand. We should do three things in the short, medium and long term to make sure every New Zealander – from the toddler entering early childhood education to the next former Prime Minister aiming for the top job at the UN – can enjoy the benefits of language learning. First, we need to make the most of the bilingualism and multilingualism that already exist in Aotearoa New Zealand. This must start with Te Reo Māori, but should also include community and heritage languages. We need to do more to celebrate our rich cultural and linguistic diversity and encourage awareness that acquiring even a basic knowledge of another language can begin to transform our interactions with its speakers and aid our understanding of their worldview. Second, those entering the workforce over the next decade need to develop their knowledge of other languages and cultures by studying them at secondary and tertiary level and practising their skills through technology, work-related learning and face-to-face encounters. The curriculum should reflect how varying degrees of proficiency across different languages can be useful in different contexts. Third, we need to provide support and incentives for teachers at all levels of our education system to improve their language skills and for speakers of languages other than English to train as teachers. This is essential if we truly want to provide opportunities for all children in New Zealand to have deep knowledge of more than one language and culture. The result will be they grow up in a more inclusive, prosperous and internationally engaged nation – and can grasp opportunities denied to previous, monolingual generations. As a Twitter and Facebook user (and I’ll admit I sit more in the consumer that contributor bracket) that makes a point of following inspiring educators and education professionals; I frequently have inspirational quotes, stories and videos pop up in the feed. But recently I have noticed a bit of a theme coming through in these posts, and I thought I would share some of them with you. ![]() Tobie Taylor Jones recently posted this wee gem on Twitter and with 453 retweets and 953 likes; it’s clearly resonating with people. Many of the retweets and conversations stemming from this centered around student voice experiences where teachers had realised just how powerful their believe in a student was. It’s so easy to see a student's deficits when we are constantly marking and grading. But it reminds me to see what students are capable of, and to remind them that they can. I also had Michael Moore’s “Where to Invade Next” come up a few times lately. I’ll confess Michael Moore isn’t my favourite film-maker and I worry about the pedestal the education sector places the Finnish on. But what really piqued my interest in this film, was the way the teachers talked about their students and about the attitudes they had to the purpose of school. In the mire of planning and assessments, I like to stop and remind myself of why I started teaching. It wasn’t to assess and grade students, but to help them find something that they love doing and help them learn to learn! ~Amy-Lee Budd
I had an interesting conversation with Rose the other day. It was triggered by 2 things; an article about how women in “non-traditional” study areas cope with their male colleagues, and a conversation on mentoring day about a coping in a career that has its fair share of men who see women in the profession as ”only there until they have babies, so why would you employ them?” I am the eldest of three girls and we were brought up to believe that we could achieve anything with effort and the right education. I still believe that, but with a caveat. Girls/women can achieve anything with effort and the right education, but if you choose a “non-traditional” area to work in, don’t expect all the men to make it easy. I think of the battles the women in my family have fought to find their place in the world. My mother was told at 15 by her father that she was no longer going to school because she was needed to work on the farm. Her education ceased and she spent the next 20 years of her life working on the farm and looking after her grandmother and parents until they died. At school, I was encouraged to enter “traditional” occupations – teaching, nursing. I didn’t know about a lot of career options. In my sport of kayaking, I coached mixed groups where the males would often seek out a male instructor rather than take advice from me. I had to prove to these males that I was a much better kayaker than them to gain acceptance as their instructor. My eldest daughter is retraining as a midwife. A career option dominated by women, but the pay is managed by legislation that forces independent midwives to set up their own business. The rules about how their businesses function is again managed by legislation, which limits the earnings of midwives. These days in NZ it is really possible for women to have a career in any area, but it seems me, the battle is for equal pay and acceptance. There is still plenty for women to fight for to gain their place in the world. So what does this mean for the students I teach? We actively encourage our students to aim high in whatever area they are passionate about. They achieve amazing things at school and when they leave. Recent research and legislation has shown that women are not always paid equally for equal work. For those going into “non-traditional” areas, do we have a conversation about the work environment they can expect and how to deal with it? Or do we leave them to find out the hard way? Should we teach our students that they may need to fight for their place in their world? ~Kris Claman
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June 2019
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