Are you the cause or are you the effect?

-->From the original article of Francis J. Kong, at The Philippine Star dated September 25, 2011.  Slightly edited to fit to school setting and not become so general

There are 3 kinds of people in the world:

Those who make things happen.

Those who wait for things to happen.

Those who ask: “Why? What happened?”

Winners and achievers always make things happen. They live the philosophy that Ralph Waldo Emerson articulated many years ago: “Shallow people believe in luck. Wise and strong people believe in cause and effect.”

Is the person you are today the effect of some random event, of chance? Are you the product of someone or something which you can easily put a blaming finger on? Or are you a cause, a change agent as you make things happen today?

Every morning when you wake up, ask yourself these questions: “What do I want to cause to happen today? What do I want to produce?” I ask myself the same questions every morning, and then I qualify with “I need God’s grace and wisdom to help me carry through those tasks…” Then I move on towards my goal.

Those are the best management questions of all. People who have a hard time managing people simply have a hard time answering those two questions, because they’re always thinking about what’s happening to them instead of what they’re going to cause to happen.

Leadership means taking the initiative to make things happen. When your people see you as a cause instead of an effect, it won’t be hard to teach them to think the same way.

Teachers in particular are working leaders and managers in their own ways for they necessarily need to make things happen.  And that is learning. Weak leadership and management techniques in the classroom will be chaotic.

Now here’s an unpopular idea. You might hate me the moment you read my suggestion, but I’ll say it anyway: Stop criticizing the school management!  If there’s something to be critical and be against of are those of evil acts such as corruption and other acts in violation of the civil service and administrative laws.  This should be done in a civil legal way for this only involves the person and not the whole organization, 

In any organization, schools or institutions of learning included, there will always be jerks, those people who brighten up the room by leaving it. The question is: are you going to let them control you? Or are you going to take charge of your day, work to produce, and move forward to your success goals in life? You can cause that to happen.  Remember the young minds under your care.

When you start criticizing management, you’re inadvertently distancing yourself from them and joining the majority of whiners, moaners and mediocres sobbing the same sad stories of how victimized they are and how unfairly treated. Trust me, these negative people won’t add value to your success goals.

Whining about the management can come in various forms which you might unaware of*:

You’re quiet, but you roll your eyes every time the name of a subject coordinator or committee chairman is mentioned.

You mutter under your breath, “I don’t know why they’re doing this!”

You grumble, “They didn’t consult me because they know I wouldn’t agree to this policy….”

You get mad and say, “These jerks just do not understand what we’re doing here!”

You attend trainings and seminars for following and as a mere requirement and so none of it has changed your teaching styles since you were hired.

Notice how one word keeps appearing in all of the statements: “They”. What you’re actually doing when you’re whining is you pit “They” against “Us”. You keep people from playing as a team, and you keep other team players from working effectively. When you go from being a producer to being a critic, you start going south. Your toxicity affects other team members because you generate the following impressions about the management, destroying morale and motivation:

1. Management is unfair and they are only using us.

2. This organization has no future.

3. You, together with other leaders, are weak and powerless.

You may think you’re bonding with the losers, but criticizing like this actually leads to deep trust problems and promotes disrespect to the integrity of the organization.

Be a cause, not just an effect. If you’re a leader, have the courage to honorably represent upper management and not run it down. If you’re a team member, have the courage to work effectively and foster unity, without giving in to management gossiping. You know you’ve arrived when you stop using the word “They” and start using the word “We!”

What does Scripture say? “Obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.”

That is being a cause and not being an effect.

Teachers' Burnout Can Be Avoided

Gilbert M. Forbes
www.factoidz.com posted 10/13/2011

It’s a danger inherent in a stressful profession but there are ways to avoid exhaustion, says Jennifer Beckles in her article entitled How to Avoid Teacher Burnout published on May 22, 2009. Burnout or exhaustion is a danger inherent in any challenging profession and there’s no getting away from the fact that teaching is a high pressure zone. Almost every teacher is complaining of the ever increasing demand of their work.

Marking alone pupils’ works is considered time consuming. What more the daily lesson and instructional preparations plus the actual daily teaching of pupils and students from the different social strata.Given all of these pressures, preventing burnout is imperative to ensuring that teachers stay on top of their workload, everyone of them. The three As’ below may help.

Alter schedules
Is there a meeting that could be altered? Or maybe you could think about changing your approach to a certain task. Learn to prioritize and utilize the first-thing-first approach.

Avoid unnecessary tasks
Is the meeting necessary? Do you really need to speak to that person this week? Don’t try to be everything to everyone because you can’t be. Don’t take on more responsibilities than you can cope with. Take and volunteer on the areas you are He advises teachers to volunteer up front for the areas they would like to be involved in, otherwise they could get roped into things they find hard to pull out of.

Accept unavoidable tasks
There are things that you need to accept that go with the territory of teaching, like government initiatives, new rules, strategies, techniques or innovations. Instead of spending a lot of time moaning, try not to get uptight about it. Meaning, just follow and work for it, after all, it’s a part of changes, and only changes is constant.

Aside from the three A’s explained above, the following more tips are helpful:

Create Synergy and Share resources
Do you find it difficult to develop lesson plans and instructional materials in a particular learning area? Create a group among yourselves in the same area and share in its development. There are also thousands of available resources from the Bureau of Elementary and Secondary Education plus a lot more in other sites for those with access to the internet.  There are more.  Click to continue reading

(Mr. Gilbert M. Forbes had his Bachelors Degree and MA in Educational Management (CAR) from the Philippine Normal University.  A campus paper adviser and trainer for 13 years.  Currently, he is a school principal in one of the central schools in the Division of Quezon.) 

7 Things Teachers and School Administrators Should Learn from Steve Jobs

By:  Gilbert M. Forbes
www.factoidz.com posted 10/10/2011

The untimely death of Steve Jobs, the man behind the iconic Apple computers, Ipad, Iphone and Pixar has brought to life many valuable lessons in life. He is astoundingly a leader and man of vision where many who are in the area of education, leadership and management could learn from. Here are the seven striking things from the self titled article of Erick Jackson The Top Ten Lessons Steve Jobs Can Teach Us - If We’ll Listen

1. Never fear failure – Many are afraid to do experiments, even innovate and most importantly changes what one has been used to do through the years. Many, in the field of education are succumbed to that culture of fear of going out of their shell, of the box, of their comfort zones. That’s why we tend to live and follow the shadows of others whom we admire instead of just having them as our inspirations instead of doing our own marks, our own legacy. Jobs however didn’t. He went on for his passion. For it, he was later fired by the successor he picked as a CEO only to be taken again, when the Company he himself built is on the brink of collapse. It was one of the most public embarrassments of the last 30 years in business. Yet, he didn’t become a venture capitalist never to be heard from again. He didn’t start a production company and do a lot of lunches. He picked himself up and got back to work following his passion. Eight years ago, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and told he only had a few weeks to live. As Samuel Johnson said, there’s nothing like your impending death to focus the mind. From Jobs’ 2005 Stanford commencement speech:

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

2. Don’t care about being right. Care about succeeding – I am just like many who worry about what others will say about me. This most of the time limits my ability to try new things. To innovate and course things up. Jobs used this line in an interview after he was fired by Apple. If you have to benchmark on others’ great ideas to make yours better, do it. You can’t be married to your vision of how a product is going to work out, such that you forget about current reality. When the Apple III came out, it was hot and warped its motherboard even though Jobs had insisted it would be quiet and sleek. If Jobs had stuck with Lisa, Apple would have never developed the Mac.   To continue reading, just please click this link.

(Mr. Gilbert M. Forbes had his Bachelors Degree and MA in Educational Management (CAR) from the Philippine Normal University.  A campus paper adviser and trainer for 13 years.  Currently, he is a school principal in one of the central schools in the Division of Quezon.) 

Ten Things You May Not Know About Giftedness

 By Grace Shangkuan Koo 

Philippine Daily Inquirer

IN reviewing more than a dozen research studies from the United States, Germany, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea published recently in the “Gifted Child Quarterly,” it occurred to me that, for starters, the information may be organized into 10 observations.

1. Experts do not agree on one definition of giftedness.

In this US study, 94 percent of experts agree that “giftedness” is a vague and imprecise term inconsistently applied. People are confused whether we are referring to potential or actual productivity, and whether creativity is a component.

Furthermore, 41 percent questioned the identification process and 30 percent, the validity of instruments available. Some 84 percent believed there was lack of curricular breadth, depth and specificity in programs for gifted children.

This is not a very encouraging sign for people who make a business out of “gifted” programs and products, particularly because the experts were selected based on their credentials. They are authors of three or more peer-reviewed research on the subject and are on five editorial boards of professional journals as well as on the Board of Directors of the US National Association of Gifted Children.

2. There are gender differences in how gifted students view themselves.

A study of sixth graders in Germany found, in spite of earning as good grades in mathematics as boys, girls reported lower mean levels of academic self-concept, interest and motivation. This was true for gifted as well as for girls of average ability. In fact, gender differences were larger in gifted than in average-ability students.
This suggests girls’ uncertain attitudes toward math and the need for schools and parents to foster among gifted female students recognition of their ability, instead of crediting effort or environmental factors.

3. There are types A, B and C of giftedness, and four clusters.

Type A gifted students have high cognitive ability and adequate-to-well-developed social skills. They need academic opportunities to continue developing their cognitive and academic abilities.

Type B gifted students have high cognitive ability but also exhibit some behaviors that may be regarded as indicative of social-emotional difficulty. They are academically misplaced and may appear to suffer from a disability such as autism. But when placed with intellectual peers who share their interests, the autism-like behaviors (especially social isolation or perceived social impairment) disappear or, at least, are greatly reduced.

Type C gifted students have high cognitive ability and severe social impairments. Unlike the type B gifted, the type C has social impairment that is not a reflection of a mismatched environment. The severity of the social impairment is internal and represents a disability.

While the type B gifted have difficulties as a consequence of their exceptional abilities and thus may miss being identified as gifted, type C gifted students are at risk of having their disability misdiagnosed.

On the other hand, from a study of 498 Chinese gifted students in Hong Kong on perceived intelligence scores, the students could be classified into four clusters: super-smart, socio-emotionally gifted, modest gifted and artistically gifted.

It was found that the super-smart students engaged in more activities related to leadership and creativity than the other clusters of students, with the modest gifted students reporting the least engagement. Super-smart students, however, were rated by teachers as less emotionally mature, showing less concern for others, and more likely to have behavioral conduct problems than the socio-emotionally gifted students.

4. Acceleration is not for every gifted student.

Results from a study in Singapore indicate that grade skipping, early school entrance and early admission to college do have socio-affective benefits for certain gifted students—those who are selected on the basis of demonstrated academic, social and emotional maturity. The caveat is the same processes may be harmful to students who are arbitrarily accelerated on the basis of intelligence quotient (IQ) and achievement.

5. Gifted students encounter adjustment problems, including perfectionism.

A study of Hong Kong gifted students listed six problem domains that should merit attention from parents and schools, namely: a) relationship/ability concerns, b) unchallenging schoolwork, c) intense involvement, d) concerns about being different, e) parental expectations and f) perfectionism.

Parental expectations and perfectionism are prevalent in the inflexible and exam-driven Hong Kong curriculum that does not promote the realization of students’ individual potential and talents, such that students are easily disappointed for not getting full scores.

There is a difference between healthy perfectionism and unhealthy perfectionism.

Healthy perfectionists strive to be excellent in their work, but do accept limitations and imperfections. They feel satisfied with their best performance.

High standards typify both healthy and unhealthy perfectionists, but organization and order are more a concern for healthy perfectionists. They have a significantly higher level of emotional intelligence, and are characterized by relatively low levels of concerns and doubts, and by the perception of relatively low level of criticism from parents.

In my own experience as student and teacher, I agree that a little perfectionism doesn’t hurt.

6. Underachievement is common among the gifted.

Creativity and intelligence are very much related. Underachievement of many gifted and talented students may be due to their creativity, which tends to clash with traditional school environments. Highly creative students exhibit characteristics that many teachers find undesirable in traditional school environments.

There are teachers who have negative attitudes toward gifted students who resist conformity. Teachers who emphasize order, control and conformity tend to promote more structured and less innovative styles in their students. Gifted underachievers become frustrated with the lack of challenge and active inquiry. Misbehavior is often a reaction to the unchallenging, boring and repetitive tasks in school.

7. Some gifted students are bullied and/or are bullies.

A US study found that the prevalence of being bullied for some time during nine years of school (K-8) was 67 percent (73 percent of boys, 63 percent of girls). Many gifted students were victims of repeated bullying. After peaking at sixth grade, bullying declined.

Name-calling (dork, geek, nerd, smarty) was the most prevalent kind of bullying reported across all school years, followed by teasing about appearance, teasing about intelligence and grades, pushing/shoving, beating up, knocking books and hitting/punching.

The US study also explored the prevalence of bullying by gifted children and adolescents. Of all participants, 28 percent (33 percent of boys; 22 percent of girls) bullied someone sometime during the nine years of school. Gifted children were likewise perpetrators of name-calling (idiot, moron, retard, dumb).

8. Gifted students do drop out of school.

In two studies, it was found that many gifted dropouts were from low income families and racial minority groups. These dropouts had parents with low levels of education and they participated less in extracurricular activities.

The reasons for gifted male dropouts were more related to economic issues (needing to work), while reasons for gifted female dropouts were more related to personal issues (wanting to get married).

Dropping out among gifted students was significantly related to students’ educational aspirations, pregnancy or child-rearing and parents’ highest level of education.

9. Gifted students prefer intuitive teachers.

For the gifted students, the exemplary teachers are those more likely to prefer intuition (vs sensing) and thinking (vs feeling). The personality types of teachers are in many ways similar to the personality types of gifted students. People with N (intuition) prefer to see big pictures, tend to be innovative, see patterns and generate ideas.

A Johns Hopkins University research from the Center of Talented Youth suggests that teachers who are judged to be highly effective in working with gifted students prefer abstract concepts, are open and flexible, and value objectivity and logical analysis.

10. Wisdom is a form of giftedness.

I have saved the best for last. Robert Sternberg writes, “If we ask what distinguishes four extremely gifted individuals of the 20th century—Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela—we could safely conclude that it is not the kind of giftedness measured by conventional tests of intelligence.”

Sternberg proposes an alternative view to giftedness: tacit knowledge used for balancing interests.

Tacit knowledge comprises “the lessons of life that are not explicitly taught and that often are not even verbalized.” Wisdom, then, is the application of tacit knowledge as “mediated by values toward the goal of achieving a common good through a balance among multiple interests—intrapersonal, interpersonal and extrapersonal.”

Perhaps, this is one kind of giftedness that our schools should develop—not only among a few students, but all who enter their gates.

And when these students leave school, they will have learned lessons in life and will remember to bring this wisdom to their families, neighborhoods and communities so that everyone may benefit from giftedness.

The author is associate professor of educational psychology at the University of the Philippines College of Education. E-mail her at grace@koo.org.

Philippines far from achieving universal primary education

BusinessWorld Online Edition
Sept. 14, 2011

THE PHILIPPINES has met one of the targets under the Millennium Development Goals, achieving a 1:1 ratio of literate females to males aged 15 to 24 in 2008, the National Statistics Office (NSO) said in a report.

However, the country has low to medium chances of meeting other targets under the goal “universal primary education.” This is one of the eight goals that 189 nations have pledged to achieve by 2015, as part of efforts to free people from extreme poverty and other deprivations.

The NSO report, based on the 2008 Functional Literacy, Education, and Mass Media Survey, said a 1:1 ratio was achieved in both basic and functional literacy.

Basic literacy was defined as the ability to read and write with understanding a simple message in any language or dialect. Functional literacy, on the other hand, is the ability to read, write, compute and comprehend.

The Philippines did poorly in the other targets. Only 85.1% of Filipinos of primary school age were enrolled in elementary school in 2008, according to the NSO. The Department of Education recorded a slightly lower figure (85.0%) the following year. The target ratio is 100%.

Meanwhile, the country’s cohort survival rate — the proportion of students starting the first grade who reach the sixth grade — was 74.5% in 2008 and 74.4% the following year — way below the 100% target.

Another target is a 100% primary completion rate, which means that all students should finish a level of schooling within the required number of years. Only 73.3% of Filipino students did so in 2008 and 72.2% in 2009.

The NSO reported that the Philippines has a “medium” probability of achieving a 100% literacy rate among Filipino “adolescents,” those 15 to 24 years old, as the age group recorded a 97.8% basic literacy rate and a 91.3% functional literacy rate in 2008.

“Both basic and functional literacy rates are higher among female adolescents (98.5% and 94%) compared to their male counterparts (97.0% and 88.7%),” the NSO noted.

Women aged six and above also performed better than men in terms of educational attainment, the NSO report showed. In 2008, seven out of 10 females completed elementary education and 41.1% finished high school, against males’ 65.1% and 36.4%.

As for all age groups and sexes, 67.5% finished grade school, 38.7% finished high school, 95.6% were literate (basic) and 86.4% were functionally literate.

University of Santo Tomas sociologist Clarence M. Batan said the feminization of labor, especially in the service industry, motivates women to finish their studies.

“When a male and a female graduates, usually the female one gets the job first,” he said.