Tag Archives: child’s brain

Every Human Being Needs Affirmation and Our Students Need it Most of All!

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One of the most important questions in organizational management and leadership is “who exists to serve whom?” In every organization and in every supply chain, everyone must know whom they exist to serve. They must also know on whom they rely because in addition to serving our customers, whether internal or external, we must also recognize the people on whom our success depends.

That recognition enables us to provide affirmation to the people who are important to us, whether in our workplace or in our private lives. It is, I believe, a universal truth that each of us requires affirmation from the people in our lives.

One of the underlying assertions and assumptions in Education Reimagined, One Success at a Time: The Hawkins Model©, my book-in-process, is:

“The value of everything in life is a function of the quality of our relationships with the people in our lives.”

There is no place where these principles are more essential than in education—in our schools and classrooms.

Everyone working in education exists to serve society because the future of our society is contingent upon the quality of the education we provide to our children.

Children are our society’s most valuable resource—all children, not just a fortunate few—so it follows that everything we do must serve the best interests of our children.

This makes the job of teachers, other educators, their leaders, and all the people who support them—who serve them—among the most important jobs in all of society. Our children are the foundation on which all our futures depend.

Another of my assertions and assumptions, is that:

“Education is the intellectual and cultural infrastructure of America.”

It is the most important of all investments our government and its citizens will make.

When we speak of education, we must understand that it is comprised of three components:

  • The education system
  • Its people
  • The education process.

We define the education process as “the way we structure, organize, task, staff, resource, and evaluate the performance of our schools and classrooms.”

It helps if we understand that the education process is a logical construct with which we conduct our mission and purpose. Like a manufacturing, assembly, or service-delivery process, or even a software application, the education process is the tool we provide to our people to fulfill their mission and purpose which is to make certain that every one of our nation’s children learns as much as they are able at their own best speed so they will have meaningful choices in life and will fulfill the responsibilities of citizenship.

“Learning is the only thing that counts and that should be counted.”

Is yet another of our assertions and assumptions.

To achieve this mission and purpose we must provide our teachers with an “education process” of sufficient quality and capability to meet the needs of a diverse population of children with a cavernous disparity in the levels of academic preparedness and emotional development that they bring with them when they arrive at our door for their first day of kindergarten.

The book you are about to read should be viewed as a strategic plan designed to fulfill this mission and purpose. Before we begin, let us present our biases for all the world to see.

The problems in education in America and the unacceptable outcomes of so many of our nation’s children—particularly children of color, who are poor, or for whom English is a second language, and millions of others—are not because our nation’s teachers are incapable of teaching. It is my assertion that teaching is one of the most essential jobs in all of society and that our teachers are responsible for all the good things that happen in our schools.

            Teachers are unsung American heroes who deserve our respect, admiration, and support. Blaming teachers for the problem in our schools is like blaming soldiers for the wars their nation asks them to fight.

            We will also show that the problem is not that our children are incapable of learning. A child’s brain is the most remarkable organic matter in the universe and nature has programmed it to soak up the world into which it is born. Just as teachers can only do as much as the education process enables them to do, a child’s brain can only learn what we give it the opportunity to learn.

Although they do not yet recognize this work as such, I am offering it as a gift to teachers. I have designed The Hawkins Model© to enable teachers to enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done, recognizing that they can only experience it when their students experience success in learning and are reaping the rewards that only an education of that quality can create.

My request to readers of this work is to read it not in search of reasons why it might not work but rather to imagine what it would be like for teachers to teach and children to learn in such an innovative and adaptive environment. Please open your hearts and minds to imagine a new way of thinking about education.

Remember, anything humankind can imagine human beings can do.

provide affirmation, affirmation, the quality of our relationships, Education, our schools and classrooms, quality of the education we provide to our children, best interests of our children, the job of teachers, teachers, intellectual and cultural infrastructure, The education system, education process, mission and purpose, our nation’s children, responsibilities of citizenship, diverse population of children, academic preparedness, emotional development, first day of kindergarten, kindergarten children of color, problem in our schools, child’s brain, innovative and adaptive,

Neuroplasticity: A Road Map of Neural Pathways for Education

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On July 29th, on Twitter, our colleague, @DrTeresaSanders[i], shared information about neuroplacticity, a concept of which every education policy-maker, administrator, teacher, and professor of colleges of education should be aware. The dictionary defines neuroplacticity as:

“The capacity for continuous alteration of the neural pathways and synapses of the living brain and nervous system in response to experience or injury.”[ii]

What neuro-scientists are learning about neuroplasticity is confirmation of our belief that a child’s brain is programmed to learn, even after deprivation or injury. Just because a child grows up in a family-environment with fewer experiential enrichment opportunities than other students does not mean the child will be unable to learn as well as their classmates. That child’s brain learned everything there was to learn in the environment in which its owner resided. With the proper time and support, each child’s brain will allow its owner to learn whatever we are able help it learn and more.  

The brain learns by processing sensory information from the world via an incessant process of creating new connections along the neural networks and synapses of the brain. An article in Psychology Today writes:

“Research has firmly established that the brain is a dynamic organ and can change its design throughout life, responding to experience by reorganizing connections—via so-called ‘wiring’ and ‘rewiring.”[iii]

This is especially exciting for children with dyslexia and other learning disabilities, and for their parents and teachers. Dyslexia, for example, does not diminish a child’s intelligence or creativity rather, learning difficulties have to do with the way their brain perceives and processes stimuli from their environment. Research has found the brain can reorganize itself, with a little help from its friends, allowing the child to overcome the obstacles their disability presents. Many accomplished adults, probably people we know, are dyslexic and have had to learn how to process sensory data they perceive differently than others do.

Our granddaughter was nine years of age when her parents learned she was dyslexic. We had believed her to be a good reader not realizing she was not reading at all. Instead, she had been reciting from memory stories we had been reading to her, which demonstrates both intelligence and a remarkable memory. Since the recognition of her dyslexia and the special help she has received, she has made wonderful progress. We can only lament the time and opportunities lost before she received the help she required. The importance of diagnosing and treating such disabilities as early as possible cannot be overstated.

Not beginning an assessment of each child’s capabilities, when they arrive for their first day of school, is one of the flaws of the existing education process; a flaw The Hawkins Model© has been designed to address.  The current education process—the tool teachers and schools have been relying on for generations—was designed to ensure teachers and students conform to schedules embedded in academic standards as well as to the standards, themselves. The process demands teaching whole groups children, thus limiting a teachers’ ability to adapt what they do to the unique needs of individuals.  For all this time, while being asked to shoulder  the blame for the disappointing outcomes of their students, teachers have been doing exactly what they have been taught and expected to do. It is the education process that is failing to meet the needs of our children, not their teachers.

What we require is an education process that exhibits the same plasticity as the brains of the children it exists to serve, and this is exactly the kind of learning environment The Hawkins Model© is intended to provide for both teachers and their students.

The reluctance to exchange the existing education process for a new model would be understandable if everyone was happy with the outcomes students are getting, today. The reality is, hardly anyone is happy with the way things are, but it has proven oh so difficult to change. However much we might admire the effort of education leaders who are introducing a steady stream of innovative initiatives, outcomes for students across the nation have not altered the reality that is education in America.

The question for education policy makers, school administrators, and teachers is: how long will they choose to endure a reality in which the outcomes for students in the aggregate never seem to change no matter how hard they are asked to work or how many new methodologies and technologies they are asked to employ. In the existing education process, new ideas and approaches are exceptions a few schools have been able to carve out of the process, not expectations for all.

Once they overcome inertia and embrace the need to reimagine the education process, what educators and policy makers will discover is how easy implementation of The Hawkins Model© will prove to be and how cost-effective genuine success will be.

Our thanks to Dr. Teresa Sanders for tweeting information about neuroplasticity and for the important work she and Safari Small Schools are doing. The reader is encouraged to learn more about the micro-school concept. In essence, The Hawkins Model© is a way to do for an estimated 53 million American children what Dr. Sanders and her Safari Small Schools are doing for five students in each of its micro-school. Her philosophy is “do what you can” rather than wait for the education system to change.

[i] Dr. Sanders is a leader of Safari Small Schools, in Canton, Texas. Her schools are described as “an innovative micro-school serving students in grades Pre-K through 3rd”. Such schools are designed to serve a maximum of five students. Here is a link to her website if you would like to learn more: Safari Small Schools:Texas – Safari Small Schools

[ii] Merriam Webster Dictionary

[iii] Neuroplasticity | Psychology Today

Time: An Essential Variable in the Education Equation

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In recent posts we have talked much about the critical role relationships play in learning. Strong, nurturing, enduring relationships between teachers and students is one of the essential variables of the education equation. If parents can be pulled into the relationship as partners, sharing responsibility for the education of their children, the students’ probability of success will soar.

One of the other essential variables in the education equation is time. Not just time by itself, but time and our patient attention. In most school settings; whether public schools, private, parochial, or charter schools; the education process is structured around arbitrary schedules of time. This is not surprising because everything human beings do is done within the context of time. Not all things are meant to be on a predetermined schedule, however.

If you have ever been a part of a child’s life from birth to adulthood, you know that each child is unique and learns at their own pace. The human brain, particularly a child’s brain, is a remarkable thing, possibly the most remarkable thing in all creation. A child’s brain is programmed to learn; it is like a sponge that soaks up the world around it. While science has determined that there is a clear developmental path through which children grow and mature, the variance in rates of childhood development can be great. If your eldest child walks at 12 months and speaks in sentences by 18 months, there is no reason to be concerned when you second child takes a first step at 13 months and says only a few words at one-and-a-half. The only thing that matters is that the important bases are touched and that once a skill is acquired the child can utilize it, effectively.

When children arrive for their first day of school, we see much the same pattern. Some are already reading by that monumental first day but many of their new classmates are not. Some know their letters and numbers, others may know colors and shapes. Where they fall with respect to an academic preparedness continuum is determined by the unique characteristics of their individual lives and genetic capability. Not only do they have varying starting points, some learn more quickly than others and their manner of learning may differ. Just like early childhood development, however, the bottom line is that they all can and will learn. The question is: How can we best help them learn?

Everything else changes beginning on that first day of school. No longer is the pace and direction of a child’s development determined by nature or a child’s interests and talents. Pace and direction are now guided by academic standards that are essentially an arbitrary determination of things educators believe children must learn if they are to enter adulthood with choices. When I suggest that the standards are arbitrary, I am not suggesting they have been poorly researched, rather that there is an underlying assumption that the standards and their accompanying timelines are appropriate for all “non-special needs students.” This assumption has a powerful influence on the academic success and failure of our students.

No longer is learning a natural and fun process that progresses at the child’s own pace. The first change with which children are confronted is that specific learning objectives have been identified and prioritized. The second change is that the specific learning objectives have also been correlated to a schedule that provides guidelines for the pace of learning. The expectation of teachers is that they guide their students down an academic path, as outlined by state standards and at a pace that conforms to what has been determined to be an acceptable rate of progress. Teachers have some latitude to help if the number of students who are getting off to a slow start is small. The larger the population of students who struggle and the older they get, however, the more problematic it becomes for teachers.

To gage how well students have progressed through the outline of academic standards, competency assessments have been developed. It turns out that the performance of students, on these assessments, has been determined to be an effective way to hold schools and teachers accountable for the performance of their students. Therefore, the process has come to be known as high-stakes testing.

The process begins to break down when individual students are unable to keep pace and we can be certain that learning is no longer fun for these children.

As it turns out, the two most essential variables of the education equation; which I have suggested are enduring relationships between teachers and students (not to mention parents) and that children are given however much time and patient attention they need to learn at their unique pace, are difficult to provide within the context of the current education process. The education process is comprised of two essential components. The first are the academic standards and schedules and their accompanying competency assessments; and, the second is the way teachers, classrooms, students, and resources are organized to achieve their purpose.

Think about the current education process as a conveyor belt designed to move kids along the path outlined by academic standards and that the speed with which it moves is an arbitrary schedule intended to correspond to the benchmarks placed along the path. The way we have organized teachers is that they ride along with their students as the conveyor belt moves toward its destination.

When we place a diverse population of children on that belt it appears to work well for many of our students. Other students, however, lack the skills (academic preparedness and pace of learning) that enable them to remain secure in their seats. Gradually, these children begin to fall off the belt and they lack the ability to climb back on, unassisted. Their teachers reach out to them and retrieve as many as they can, while others fall quickly out of reach. The students who have been retrieved still lack the skill necessary to hang on, however, so they fall off again and again.

Never are teachers able to retrieve all students who have fallen behind and the population of children who are failing at school grows, unrelentingly. These young people have fallen off the conveyor belt and they have no where to go other than to be swallowed up by a maelstrom of poverty and failure that plagues our society.

Until we abandon the conveyor belt as obsolete and replace it with an education process that is engineered to meet each child’s unique requirements, students will continue to fail no matter how hard our teachers work; even with innovative and sophisticated tools and methodologies that are being developed.

If, however, we utilize our imaginations, in combination with our education and experience, to design and construct a process around the way children learn, and that empowers both teachers and students, we can help each child receive the best education of which they are capable. A nice bonus will be the discovery that, in the right environment, most of our innovations with which we have been struggling will work.

Once again, I urge you to take time to review my white paper and education model to see one way we can create a teacher/student-centered education process. Please read it not in search of reasons why it will not or cannot work, rather in hope that it might work. The model, which will be available for public school systems to use, free of charge, is available for your review at https://melhawkinsandassociates.com/education-model-white-paper/ You are also invited to peruse the other 150 plus articles posted on this blog, Education, Hope, and the American Dream.