There is nothing like the first days of school. Fresh notebooks (or iPads), smiles on faces, (as there have been no tests yet!), and classmates arm in arm catching up all bring a feeling of a fresh start where are possibilities are possible.
As a school psychologist, I’d say that I spend my first days of school briefing teachers, preparing lessons for Advisory, making sure our sixth graders, new students and the rest of our middle schoolers are settling in, and speaking to parents about concerns. And, although the middle schoolers are happy to greet me and shmooze with me about their summers, I get very few students seeking meetings with me about their “problems.” They are still optimistic about that which is to come.
As parents and educators we know that sooner or later the stress of school will begin. We do try as much as we can to make the work manageable, and to help our students learn strategies to manage that stress.
A University of Georgia professor has his own plan to help his students manage their stress as reported by CNN in the article “Professor’s Plan To Let Students Grade Themselves Gets An F.” Professor Richard Watson’s syllabus speaks of his “stress reduction policy.” This policy states, “If you feel unduly stressed by a grade for any assessable material or the overall course, you can email the instructor indicating what grade you think is appropriate and it will be so changed…No explanation is required…” Additionally, Professor Watson offered his students that if they feel stressed out by group work, they should leave “immediately.” “If in a group meeting, you feel stressed by your group’s dynamics, you should leave the meeting immediately and need offer no explanation to group members.”
I can imagine that the students in his course were ecstatic. They get to choose their own grades! The Dean, not so much. The professor was asked to remove that piece from his syllabus. Professor Watson’s “stress reduction” plan did not provide students with any coping strategies for real life. As we know, in real life, our children will face failure, and they need to learn how to bounce back.
During our end of the summer Faculty Inservice Days we focused on the topic of Living Inspired When Faced With Failure. We began with an inspirational presentation of his life story by Rabbi Yitzy Haber. Those who have been reading my blog these past years, or have had 7th graders in the middle school, will know that each year Rabbi Haber comes to speak to our 7th graders to launch the unit in Advisory “When Life Gives You Lemons- Coping With Adversity In Life.” In a humorous way, Yitzy speaks of his battle with cancer as a young boy, and how humor was his way of coping. He shares a story about how after his surgery to have his leg amputated he needed to learn how to walk with an amputated leg. Yitzy was so excited to finally walk. The physical therapist said to him, “Okay, I am going to teach you how to fall.” Yitzy was puzzled. “I came here to learn how to walk!” The therapist replied, “First you need to learn how to fall. You need to learn to fall the right way, in order to get up again.” The metaphor is powerful. All people fall. All people face hardship. It is how you get up that makes the difference. Our children need to learn how to survive falling.
Interestingly enough, I came across an article just this weekend in The Week “How To Fall And Live To Tell The Tale” by Neil Steinberg. “Scientists are now encouraging people to learn how to fall to minimize injury — to view falling not so much as an unexpected hazard to be avoided as an inevitability to be prepared for...How you prepare for the possibility of falling, what you do when falling, what you hit after falling — all determine whether and how severely you are hurt…”. Steinberg writes how there are scientists studying falling to develop "safe landing responses" to help limit the damage from falls. Scientists have also discovered in their research that “fear of falling puts you at risk for falling." Although Steinberg’s article was about the act of physically falling the research rings true for those of us who are trying to teach our children how to fall...and get up unscathed. Falling is “inevitable,” they need to prepare for it and know what to do. The less prepared they are, the more fearful they are of failure.
By chance, this past week I also read the autobiography of Chava Willig Levy Life Not With Standing. (Those who know me know that I am constantly on the lookout for material for my column!) Chava had polio when she was a small child and the book tells of her numerous surgeries and hospitalizations, how she is confined to a wheelchair for life, and her struggles with getting married. Chava’s book was full of humor and wisdom, and she too spoke of “falling.” She wrote of a summer camp experience in a camp for “handicapped children.” She fell flat on her face in front of the whole lunchroom. Instead of rushing to pick her up, the director of the camp approached her and asked, “Tell me, how would you like to be helped up?” For the first time in her life, she was asked to take control and decide how she would get up. She cannot help falling, but she is the one who determines how she will rise again. Our children need to learn how to get up as well. We will assist them and support them, but they cannot rely on us to do it for them and to bail them out. They are the only ones who can get themselves up again. We, as parents, need to allow them the independence to do so.
Shlomo HaMelech states in Mishlei 24:16,
“A righteous person falls seven times and gets up.” These failures apply to all areas of life, including spiritual growth. Rav Hutner said on these words, “The fool thinks the righteous person gets up despite his falls; the wise person understands that he can only ‘get up’ and grow because he falls. You have fallen numerous times, and you will fall again numerous times. That is not, G-d forbid, a negative prediction, but a fact of life. But there is a concept of ‘losing a battle yet winning the war’. You can fall to your evil inclination time and time again. But as long as you are resilient and dust yourself off and continue to fight, you have not been defeated, and you’ll ultimately prevail and win the war.”
In her book, The Blessing Of A Skinned Knee, Dr. Wendy Mogel stresses the importance of allowing our children to struggle and fail. If we overprotect them from feeling pain, they are also protected from growth. If they are insulated they are incapable of dealing with any adversity and become “teacups” that “chip like a teacup” when confronting difficulty.
On the second day of our Faculty Inservice we were privileged to hear Rabbi Daniel Fridman. He spoke of three heroes of Tanach Moshe, Aharon and Miriam, who all failed. In the Torah, the fact that our role models were not infallible sends the message that we all fail. Rabbi Fridman reminded us as teachers that not only will our students confront failure, be we too will have days that we will fail as teachers and parents. We need to understand the root of the failure to learn from our falls.
Benjamin Barber, a scientist at Rutgers University (as quoted by Rabbi Benjamin Blech in his article “The Blessing of Failure”) states that he does not consider people successes or failures. He “divides the world into learners and non- learners. There are people who learn, who are open to what happens around them, who listen, who hear the lessons...The question to ask is not whether you are a success or failure, but whether you are a learner or non- learner.” We try to relay to our students that F.A.I.L stands for - First Attempt In Learning. It is part and parcel of the learning process.
Dr. Mogel, mentioned above, called her two books The Blessing Of A Skinned Knee and The Blessing Of A B-. As parents, it is hard for us to keep in mind that failure can be a blessing. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts took this “blessing” to an extreme when he recently gave a speech at his son’s middle school graduation and blessed the graduates. (I thank Dr. Feit for introducing me to this article).
“From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either.
And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.”
Emuna Braverman, in her article which quotes Justice Roberts’ words, “Words Of Wisdom From Supreme Court Justice John Roberts” comments:
“As the last two lines make clear, life is full of tests. There will be disappointments and betrayals and failures and many other types of challenges. No one leads a life free of struggle. In fact the Talmud suggests that you if you haven’t had a test in 40 days, you should worry that the Almighty has given up on you. Tests are an opportunity to dig deep and achieve our potential. What loving parent doesn’t want that for his children?
Tests are not an occasion for bitterness or frustration or negativity. The “message in our misfortunes” is not like a line on a piece of paper in a Chinese fortune cookie. The message is the growth available. A teacher or parent knows that the message has been effectively communicated when he or she sees the student or child make changes to his personality, to his effort, to his attitude.
One might be tempted to think that someone who has achieved the role of Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court has it all. What do they know of gloating or being ignored or developing compassion? But I venture to guess from his words that these are lessons hard won, some battles hard fought and some struggles still in place. And that what he wants to communicate to these young kids, as they approach the rough passage of adolescence, is to embrace their challenges as opportunities for growth. Don’t shy away from them or feel oppressed or burdened. They are the true gifts from a loving Father just as his words are a gift to his son.”
As we think about wishes for this coming school year, I do not think that most of us will go as far as Justice Roberts did to wish failure upon our children. But, we can wish that when they fall they will able to rise with grace.
Best wishes for wonderful school year!
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