I'd say majority of the parents in my parenting classes do not have a college education and I'm always trying to find ways to empower them. One way is by stressing, for example, that research is showing more and more that character determines success. And character is taught by parents and parents do not need a college education to teach character traits like loyalty, responsibility, honesty, etc.
Ok let me put it like this. Would you consider a doctor or a teacher or who is not responsible a success? Below is an
. I think the title says it all, but if you would like to read the interview, click
He has written extensively about education, child development, poverty, and politics, including cover stories in the
New YorkTimes Magazine on character education, the achievement gap, and the Harlem Children’s Zone. He has worked as an editor at the New York Times Magazine and Harper’s Magazine and as a reporter and producer for the public-radio program “This American Life.” He was the founding editor of Open Letters, an online magazine. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Slate, GQ, Esquire, and Geist, and on the op-ed page of the New York Times.
In this interview, Paul talks about why a child’s non-cognitive skills and character are important when determining a child’s success, how where someone grows up impacts their success rate, and more.
What made you want to write this book and what do you want children (and their parents) to get out of it?
In 2008, I published my first book, “Whatever It Takes,” about Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children’s Zone. I spent five years reporting that book, but when I got to the end of that process, I realized I still had some big questions about what happens in childhood – not just in low-income neighborhoods like Harlem, but in affluent communities as well. I wanted to know why some kids succeed and some don’t; what experiences and circumstances are most likely to direct children toward good or bad outcomes.
At the same time, my wife and I had our first child, which meant that suddenly these questions had a personal dimension for me as well – I wanted to know what I could do as a parent to steer my son toward a happier and more fulfilling life. As to what I hope readers will get out of the book: I hope that parents, especially, will take away the idea that while they may have a great deal of influence on how their kids do in life, getting stressed out about pre-school admissions and after-school tutors and test-prep for the SAT actually doesn’t help much. And in many cases, that kind of anxious, over-involved parenting can actually harm our kids. I hope parents who read my book will walk away from it feeling that they can relax a bit.
Most people think that standardized tests measure how successful a child will be. How does your book prove this to be a mytho?
It’s not entirely a myth. On average, most people with high test scores do better in school and in the job market than most people with low test scores. The myth is that test scores determine everything about our future – and more pernicious, that students with low test scores simply can’t succeed. In the book, I draw on both research studies and the track records of some new and experimental programs to show that the kind of skills that don’t get measured on standardized tests – what economists call non-cognitive skills and some educators call character strengths – are just as important to a child’s success, and in many cases more important, than IQ and test scores.
How much does where someone grows up affect how successful they will be in life? How can a child overcome the constraints of poverty?
Right now, where a child lives is a very good predictor of his or her academic outcomes – and that’s especially true, unfortunately, in low-income communities. I did a lot of my reporting for the book on the South Side of
Chicago, and in some high-poverty neighborhoods on the South Side, only 1 or 2 percent of the children are graduating from high school adequately prepared for college. That’s a serious problem, not just for families in those neighborhoods, but for the whole country.
The good news is that we now know that there are strategies that can help children overcome the obstacles that poverty creates. Building a stable, nurturing home environment for children is a big part of it – maybe the most important part. But even when kids come from unstable homes, there are interventions, in school and out, that can help them succeed. The interventions that I think are the most promising are the ones that are able to leverage young people’s character strengths and non-cognitive skills. Those skills can be a powerful tool for success.
Do you think children are becoming more entrepreneurial now than older generations were? Why?
I’m actually more concerned about the opposite! There have been some interesting studies recently about the way that young people, especially in our elite academic institutions, are more likely than in the past to follow safe and secure career paths – and they’re much less likely to take the risk of starting their own business or pursuing some other crazy dream. I don’t think we know for sure why that’s happening. But I think it has something to do with the intense pressure that young people are under to achieve, especially in affluent communities.
This is the phenomenon that a pair of economists in California recently labeled the Rug Rat Race. It starts early and it continues through college – and the message that it sends to many high-performing young people is: don’t risk failure. Stay on track. And the one thing every entrepreneur knows is that if you want to succeed in creating your own business, you need to be prepared first to fail – sometimes several times.
What three things would you change about our school system to make it more relevant to today’s society?
1. The contemporary American high school was organized to produce workers for a post-war economy where people would work for the same company their whole lives. The economy has changed completely in the last few decades, but our high schools have not. We need high schools that produce in students the kind of skills necessary for the modern economy: flexibility, creativity, social intelligence, lateral thinking, entrepreneurial spirit.
2. In many high-poverty neighborhoods, the family and community structures that in the past served as a support system for children have faded or disappeared completely. To replace and supplement those institutions, we need a more comprehensive early-education system, one that provides disadvantaged children with the kind of intensive early intervention they need.
