True Educational
Success
How to Raise Well Balanced and Self-Motivated
Learners?
11/2011
G. Julie Xie, Ph.D.
Agenda
 What is success?
 Adverse effects of narrow perception of
success
 Factors behind success in education
 How can parents and school help
children achieve true success in education?
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What is SUCCESS?
- sample students’ opinions
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Accomplish your goals
Be happy or satisfied with yourself
Get a job with strong earning potential
Earn good grades, B or better
Try your best and reach your potential
Doing things you want to do
Go to a prestigious college
Make my parents proud
Excel in a certain field
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34%
21%
18%
13%
12%
8%
4%
3%
1%
What is SUCCESS?
- students’ perception of their parents’ belief
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Earn good grades, A’s preferred
Get a job with strong earning potential
Be happy or satisfied with yourself
Go to a prestigious college
Accomplish your goals
Try your best and reach your potential
Do not know parents’ thoughts
Doing things you want to do
Excel in a certain field
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26%
20%
13%
10%
10%
10%
7%
3%
1%
How Narrow Definitions of Success
Adversely Affect Our Children?
 5- to 12-year-olds need 10-11 hours of sleep each
night; teens need 9.25 hours of sleep each night.
 80% of teens don’t get the recommended amount
of sleep. At least 28% fall asleep in school, and
22% fall asleep doing homework.
 Source: National Sleep Foundation. (2006).
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www.challengesuccess.org
 50% of Bay Area teens report headaches,
difficulty sleeping, and exhaustion due to
stress over the past month.
 Source: Galloway, M. K., Conner, J. O., &
Pope, D. (2009). Stanford Survey of
Adolescent School Experiences.
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 62% of Bay Area high school students
surveyed said they always or almost always
work hard in school, but only 10% always
or almost always enjoy schoolwork.
 Source: Galloway, M. K., Conner, J. O., &
Pope, D. (2009). Stanford Survey of
Adolescent School Experiences.
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 59% of teenagers say they have cheated on a test
during the last year, and 34% have done it more
than twice, while one in three admit having used
the internet to plagiarize an assignment.
 Source: Josephson Institute Center for Youth
Ethics. (2010). Josephson Institute of Ethics’
report card on American youth’s values and
actions.
11/15/2011
 The greater the amount of time adolescents
report spending in regularly scheduled
structured activities, the higher their selfreported level of anxiety tends to be.
 Source: Melman, S., Little, S. G., & Akin-Little, K. A. (2007).
Adolescent over scheduling: The relationship between levels of
participation in scheduled activities and self-reported clinical
symptomology. The High School Journal, 90 (3), 18-30.
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 54% of high school females and 32% of
high school males (out of a sample of nearly
5000 Bay Area youth) reported 3 or more
symptoms of physical stress in the past
month.
 Source: Galloway, Mollie K., Conner,
Jerusha O., and Pope, D. (2009). Stanford
Survey of Adolescent School Experiences.
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 9% of Bay Area high school students
surveyed reported use of illegal prescription
drugs to stay awake; an additional 25% use
legal stimulants.
 Source: Galloway, M. K., Conner, J. O.,
and Pope, D. (2009). Stanford Survey of
Adolescent School Experiences.
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 In 2010, 24 percent of 12th-grade students (28 percent of
males and 20 percent of females), 19 percent of 10thgrade students (22 percent of males and 15 percent of
females), and ten percent of 8th-grade students (10 percent
of males and 9 percent of females) reported illicit drug use
in the previous 30 days. For 8th graders, this was up from 8
percent in 2009.
 Source: Johnston, L.D., O’Malley, P.M., Bachman, J.G.,
& Schulenberg, J.E. (forthcoming, 2011). Monitoring the
Future national survey results on drug use, 1975–2010:
Volume I, Secondary school students. Ann Arbor: Institute
for Social Research, The University of Michigan.
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 73% of students listed academic stress as
their number one reason for using drugs, yet
only 7 % of parents believe teens might use
drugs to deal with stress.
 Source: Partnership for a Drug-Free
America, (2008). Partnership attitude
tracking study, 2007.
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Factors behind Success in Education:
-- from our administrators
 good study skills so students know how to
access the information they want and know
how to get the help when they need.
 confidence that they can accomplish
anything if they are willing to work hard
enough
 development of critical thinking skills
 development of good social and
communication skills
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How to Raise Well-Balanced, SelfMotivated Learners?
How to Help Our Children Succeed?
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Self-Actualization
Esteem
Belonging and Love
Safety
Physiological Needs
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (1954)
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Understand Your Child: Temperament
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Quality of Mood
Approach or Withdrawal
Intensity of Reaction
Rhythmicity (regularity)
Distractibility
Persistence
Threshold of Responsiveness
Activity Level
Adaptability
Thomas & Chess (1977)
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Understand Your Child: Ability
• Linguistic intelligence
• Logical-mathematical intelligence
• Musical intelligence
• Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence
• Spatial intelligence
• Interpersonal intelligence
• Intrapersonal intelligence
• Naturalist intelligence
Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Howard Gardner, Ph.D.
(1983)
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Emotional Intelligence:
Why it can matter more than IQ?
 Self-Awareness: understand yourself
 Self-Control: managing emotions
 Self-Efficacy: Optimism & Hope,
especially in face of challenges or defeats
 Empathy: understand others
 Social Skills
(Daniel
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Goleman, 1995)
 Self-discipline is a far better predictor of academic
performance than is IQ, accounting for more than
twice as much variance as IQ in final grades.
 Source: Duckworth, A.L., & Seligman, M.E.P.
(2005). Self-discipline outdoes IQ in predicting
academic performance of adolescents.
Psychological Science,16(12), 939-944.
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Authentic Happiness
 Happiness = Set Range + Circumstances +
Voluntary Factors
- Increase gratitude
- Understand how belief controls affect
- Satisfaction about the past + Optimism about the
future
( Martin E. P. Seligman, 2002)
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How can parents help?
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Define success on your own terms
Avoid over-scheduling
Maintain down time and family time
Allow children space to develop on their own
Honor health and well being
Build responsibility at home and in the community
Ease performance pressure
Debunk college myths
www.challengesuccess.org
11/15/2011
How can parents help?
 Understand and respect your child as an
individual
 Allow choices to build motivation
 Positive Reinforcement: Praise efforts
 Positive discipline to foster healthy selfconcept
 Model positive attitudes and emotions in
daily life – take mistakes as opportunities to
learn and grow from
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 The permissive parent attempts to behave in a
nonpunitive, acceptant and affirmative manner
towards the child's impulses, desires, and actions.
 The authoritarian parent attempts to shape,
control, and evaluate the behavior and attitudes of
the child in accordance with a set standard of
conduct, usually an absolute standard,
theologically motivated and formulated by a
higher authority.
 The authoritative parent attempts to direct the
child's activities but in a rational, issue-oriented
manner. The parent encourages verbal give and
take, shares with the child the reasoning behind
her policy, and solicits his objections when
children refuse to conform.
(Diana Baumrind, 1967)
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How can our school help?
 Climate of care
 Project and problem based learning
 Meaningful assignments
 Authentic assessment
 Honor engagement and integrity in learning
(www.challengesuccess.org)
11/15/2011
 Students in social and emotional learning (SEL)
programs in schools not only demonstrate
increased social and emotional skills and attitudes
but also demonstrate improved academic
performance, reflected in an 11-percentile-point
gain in achievement.
 Source: Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B. Taylor, R.
D., and Schellinger, K. B. (2011). The impact of enhancing student’s
social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based
universal interventions. Child Development, 82(1), 405-432.
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Middle school students’ perceptions
------ significant predictors of academic and
psychological adjustment
 Perceptions of an emphasis on competition and differential treatment
by ability are related to diminished academic values, feelings of selfesteem, and academic achievement as well as increases in school
truancy, anger, and depressive symptoms
 Perceptions of positive teacher regard and an emphasis on individual
effort and improvement in school are associated with increases in
academic values, feelings of academic competence, and academic
achievement as well as decreases in depressive symptoms, anger, and
school truancy and increases in self-esteem over time.
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Source: Roesler, R. W., & Eccles, J. S. (1998). Adolescents' perceptions of middle
school. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 8(1), 123–158.
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The Ultimate Goal of Education
 "The only person who is educated is the one
who has learned how to learn and change."
- Carl Rogers (1902-1987)
 Education is what remains after one has
forgotten everything he learned in school.
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
11/15/2011
Excerpted from the book
CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE
©1998 by Dorothy Law Nolte and Rachel Harris
 If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn
 If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty
 If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence
 If children live with tolerance, they learn patience
 If children live with praise, they learn appreciation
 If children live with acceptance, they learn to love
 If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn
respect
 If children live with security, they learn to have faith in
themselves
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References
Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success. Little, Brown and
Company: New York.
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than
IQ. Bantam Books: NY.
Nelsen, J. Positive Discipline Associates. http://www.positivediscipline.com
Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive
Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment. Free Press:
NY.
Stanford University School of Education: Challenge Success:
www.challengesuccess.org
Mission San Jose HS SOS: www.missionsos.net
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