Liz here from <a href="http://lizditz.typepad.com">I Speak of Dreams</a>--so as I read this, I was thinking, Thomas Croom is somehow <i>in loco parentis</i> for his sister-in-law's child.

Croom's nephew to me sounds like a kid who has been coasting on his intellect and ran into trouble based on his home life.

<i>I believe my nephew’s primary problem in school was a lack of focus,</i>

Wouldn't that be a problem for the parent(s) to solve in collaboration with the child?

<i>direction,</i>

again, isn't the parent(s)' duty to develop the child's direction

<i> discipline,</i>

OK, so the school could be chaotic --but isn't it the parent(s)' responsibility to empart self-discipline?

<i> challenge,</i>

OK, so finally we have a piece where maybe the school's expectations of the child were too low

<i> expectations</i>

parents or school?

<i> or responsibility (if those things can be summed up into one primary problem!) that collectively allowed him to fall behind his peers academically and intellectually, while maintaining his “proper” grade assignment with his age cohort."</i>

So Croom's ranting because his SIL wasn't carrying the can, and instead of looking at failures in his wife's family, he's pointing the finger at the school only.

Liz here from <a href="http://lizditz.typepad.com">I Speak of Dreams</a>. Most of my teaching has had to do with physical skills (riding horses, skiing) -- the constructist approach just would not work, and could be actively dangerous.

Skills have to be developed and practiced to the point of automaticity.

I like to use the metaphor of musical improvisation--say, jazz, on the piano. The musician must have some skills completely automatized -- say running the scales for the two octaves around middle C. So you can start improvising with just those notes. Thus you can "play" --the constructivist sense--before you have a complete set of skills.

In my view, a good teacher alternates between building skills, fostering discovery, and "playing the game" to the limit of the mastered skills. But the jump from the skills in hand to the discovery area needs to be quite small--less than a 10% jump, however you want to quantify that.

It is often difficult for the expert (the teacher) to really remember what it was like not to have mastery. I know I trip over this all the time. Something that is automatic to me is out of reach of the student.

I am wondering if your students may have incomplete automaticity in the basic math facts, which would interfere with their ability to form conjectures and explore.

Let's take another image: riding a bicycle. If your students aren''t bomb-proof on balance, so it takes place without conscious thought (this would be automaticity of the math facts), they are using up energy to balance, and can't turn smoothly or control the bike well (use concepts) for fear they'll fall off the math bike.

I just purchased and skimmed Educational Care 2nd edition (ISBN 0838819877) -- it is the most accessible (to me) of Levine's works.

One of the difficulties of the Schools Attuned approach is that it does not map directly onto [IDEA] [NCLB] [DSM-IV-TR] (pick your poison). As a parent of a child with a specific learning disability, I think that Levine's approach is more beneficial for the child--but the flaw is the conflict between the various laws and Levine's non-labelling, discrete approach.

Don't get me wrong -- I think education in the whole, and "special education" in particular, whould be more effective for k-12 students if the Schools Attuned approach were universally implimented.

Please feel free to email me if you'd like to have more conversation around these issues.

Isn't it amazing how kids can get our goat?

I wonder what would happen if you responded with empathy? You could think up some responses ahead of time (as he's using it a lot). Some examples:

"Oooh, I feel all crumpled up inside when I have to talk to a person I'm not liking. Do you feel all crumpled up?"

"That sounds like an owie feeling. Is it an owie feeling for you?"

"Oooh, sounds like I did something you didn't like. What was it?"

[and then you keep inviting him to respond]

John Gottman has a book, "Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child" that you might find interesting. The US edition is ISBN 0648838656.. Gottman outlines a way for parents to "build empathy into relationships"

1. Being aware of the child's emotion
2. Recognizing the emotion as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching;
3. Listening empathetically and validating the child's feelings;
4. Helping the child verbally label emotions;
5. Setting limits while helping the child problem-solve.

A related approach is the parenting class, "Love and Logic" More at www.loveandlogic.com.
Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood: Jim Fay: ISBN 1930429002

The Love & Logic approach would be to pick an empathic statement such as "oh, that's too bad" or "oh, how sad for you" and just keep repeating it when the kid uses the "hot button" phrase. They call this "going braindead".

Liz here from <a href="http://lizditz.typepad.com">I Speak of Dreams</a>. I purchased <i>Generation Me</i> and have read it with great interest.

I have two comments in passing, and two queries.

1. On page 151, in the passage on "The Victim Mentality", you refer to Mel Levine's <i>The Myth of Laziness</i>, as if Levine thinks there's no such thing as laziness, only "output failure". I've read Levine's work closely -- I don't think he would agree that there is no such thing as laziness. The thesis of Levine's work is that many children encounter difficulties with input, processing, and output--learning disabilities, in short. Precise analysis of the breakdowns allow a child to focus her efforts on remediating the difficulties.

2. On page 74-75 you talk about giving kids choices. I do not agree that the mere act of offering children choices necessarily promotes individuality and self-importance.

One school of parenting that emphasises giving choices is Love & Logic (more at http://www.loveandlogic.com/), which is taught both for parents and as a school-based discipline approach.

http://www.loveandlogic.com/pages/rules.html
The Rules of Love and Logic by Jim Fay
RULE #1

Adults set firm limits in loving ways without anger, lecture, or threats.

RULE #2

When a child causes a problem the adult hands it back in loving ways

1. In a loving way, the adult holds the child accountable for solving his/her problems in a way that does not make a problem for others.
2. Children are offered choices with limits.
3. Adults use enforceable statements.
4. Adults provide delayed/extended consequences.
5. The adult's empathy is "locked in" before consequences are delivered.

Why offer choices? Two reasons: One--all human beings crave control over the circumstances of their lives. Giving children microdoses of control reduces conflict in the family. Two--offering choices within the boundaries described below gives children the opportunity to practice making decisions and living with the consequences.

http://www.loveandlogic.com/pages/sharingcontrol.html

Guidelines for Sharing Control Through Choices by Jim Fay

* Never give a choice on an issue that might cause a problem for you or for anyone else.
* For each choice, give only two options, each of which will be OK with you.
* If the child doesn't decide in ten seconds, decide for him or her.
* Only give choices that fit with your value system.


So much for questions. My queries are:
1. have you looked at transgenerational changes in parenting attitudes? (I don't even know if there are standardized instruments for assessing parenting attitudes similar to the instruments reported on in your book.)
2. Do you think that changes in parenting attitudes might contribute to the changes in attitudes and values you document in Generation Me?

The queries are based in part on some of the observations made by Foster Cline and Jim Fay, in that they have observed a change in parenting styles over the last two decades. There are fewer authoritarian parents (what they call "drill sergeants") and more permissive parents ("laissez-faire", in their terminology). They distinguish some laissez-faire subtypes: those who believe that their children are born with the ability to govern themselves; those who believe they should be their child's best friend; those who have no time to parent because of overwork; and finally, parents who themselves acted out as youths and "came out all right". Then there are what they call "helicopter parents" -- who swoop in and rescue. The modern version is the extreme (I call them six-sigma parents):

These parents are obsessed with the desire to create a perfect life for their kids. This life is one in which the children never have to face struggles, inconveniences, discomforts, or disappointments. It is a life in which the children can be launched into adulthood with the best of credentials possible because they have never faced defeat, even if it meant someone else doing most of the work or making sure the rules were bent just the right way so they could win." (Parenting Teens with Love and Logic, 2nd edition, ISBN 1576839303, p.39)
I'd be interested in knowing what you think about changes in parenting styles.