Response to Underachievement

Josh Shaine2015 PAGE ConferenceCranberry Township, PA

November 5, 2015

Today’s Plan (order in parts is variable)

• Part 1: Introduction to the Field– Who I am; who you all are; some history; definitions;

broad look at major underlying concepts; • Part 2: Myths, Misconceptions, and More– Volition; reward and punishment; boys; academics

alone; underlying causes; learning disabilities• Part 3: Tools, Resources, and Programs– Motivational paralysis; spoon theory; social justice;

acceleration; systems theory; sincerity

Part 1: Introduction to the FieldWho am I?

• Coordinator of the Beyond IQ conferences for & about HG/PG kids

• Teacher in and former director of programs for 7th – 12th students at MIT

• Former headmaster of private school for “gifted disgruntled” students

Who am I?• Consultant for

schools, tutor for at home SPED students, teacher for homeschooling students

• Taught in public, private, alternative schools, and homeschool coops – math, theater, history, psychology

• Former member of many board for gifted ed groups

Who am I?• Three high schools• Expelled from the

second one• Graduated in the

bottom 30% from the last high school

• Took courses at 9 different colleges (flunked Intro to Sociology, as well as Science Fiction)

• Graduated from college at age 54

Who Are You?

• Please fill out the anonymous survey that was among your handouts. (Did you all get one?!)

• Part of the goal of this is to give me some direction for later in the presentation. Part of it is for later presentations – but I will share the info with PAGE, as it might be useful.

• Anybody who would like to see the accumulated stats and the summary of the survey should drop me an email after the conference!

Some History - 1

• Gifted + Underachiever:– Gifted Education, as a field, is more than 100 years

old– As an endeavor, it is more than 1000 years old

– Underachievement, as a field, is arguably 76 years old

– As an endeavor, it is a old as parenting in a competitive society

Some History - 2• Excerpt about Rev. Charles Wolfe

• Excerpt from White House Conference on Child Health and Safety

• Excerpt from Public School Administration (Ch. 28)

• Excerpt from The High School Failures (page 91)

Definitions• Reis and McCoach (2000)• Kornrich (1965)• Schwitzgebel (1965)• Williamson (1939)• Other definitions

• Your definitionsA brief exploration of your survey responses – looking for commonalities and outliers

Major Underlying Concepts - 1

Observations• Inattention in class• Failure to complete or

submit homework• Inability to adequately

explain what’s going on• Lying and/or misleading

about work or grades

Responses• Grounding• Threats• Assignment Books• Teacher’s signatures• Being watched during

homework• Therapists

Major Underlying Concepts - 2• Why are you doing this (to us)?• You could have finished this faster than this

argument is taking us!• You understand the work, don’t you? So why

won’t you just do it already?• You can forget that (trip, program, present!)• You’re never going to amount to much with

that attitude!

Major Underlying Concepts - 3

• Is it the teacher(s)?• Would you like us to talk to them?• You should talk to the counselor.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - • Is there a problem at home?• Would you like me to talk to your parent(s)?• You should talk to the counselor.

Who are the Underachievers?

• 50% of all prominent Americans…

• Examples from the literature

• Examples from modern America

Part 2: Myths, Misconceptions, and More

• Does your student (child) wake up wondering how to screw up their lives today?

• Motivation is a light switch – if s/he wanted to do it enough, s/he would just do it.

• S/he did it once! That means s/he could do it again, if s/he wanted to.

• Grades are bad – better drop down a level• Grades are bad – not as gifted as we thought

Volition

• How many of you have bad habits that you’ve been meaning to break?

• How many of your habits remind you of one or another of your parents or other relatives?

• How easy is it to change those habits?

• How do you feel when told that your inability to change speaks to a moral failing on your part?

Reward and Punishment

• Behaviorism tells us that if we reward the conduct we want to encourage while we punish the conduct we want to eliminate we will change the child’s behavior.

• Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Unfortunately, often when it “works” to increase the work produced, it destroys the relationship between subject and experimenter.

Boys

• The literature will tell you that boys are more likely to be underachievers than girls are.

• The reality is that the difference is smaller than we are led to believe the difference is generally in how it manifests. The boys tend to be louder in their unhappiness or the change in performance/behavior tends to be bigger.

Academics Alone

• Bad grades. No homework. Lies about work.

• These catch our attention. It’s what we think of when we discuss underachievement. Is that all there is to it? Is that the only important kind of underachievement?

• How else does underachievement manifest?

Underlying Causes

Common Considerations • Poor study skills• No time management• Too much going on• Didn’t understand the

work and fell behind• Doesn’t like the teacher• Doesn’t like the subject

Uncommon Considerations• Social fit• Depression• Sense of justice• Existential despair• Racial/Ethnic/Gender/

LGBTQ issues– Internal– Social– Societal

Part 3: Questions, Tools, Resources, Programs, and more Questions

Things We Know• Finger pointing does not improve the situation• “If you always do what you’ve always done,

you’ll always get what you always got.”• Giving them greater challenges is not enough• Giving them fewer challenges is not enough• Taking away what they love will not fix it• Controlling their lives more will not fix it

More Things We Know

• Finding a mentor helps some kids• Finding a peer group/sense of belonging helps

some kids• Finding a passion helps some kids• Time helps some kids• Something awful helps some kids• Medication and/or therapy help some kids• Change in perspective helps some kids

Motivational Paralysis

We’re going to leave the PowerPoint for a bit here to consider this topic, because Anna Caveney already did a better job at setting this up than I would do on my own!

I am proud to say Anna was the first graduate from my school, as well as a colleague and friend.http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/paralysis.htm

Spoon Theory

And again, off on a sojourn into the internet for this topic!

Spoon Theory was created/written by Christine Miserandino and it succinctly explains about sufficiency of being or lack there of:http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/

Newton’s Laws & Acceleration• An object in motion tends to stay in motion, unless

acted upon by an outside force.• An object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted

upon by an outside force.• Acceleration is change in speed or direction.• The tricks are– to figure out when an outside force is already acting

(has already acted) and, if so, what it is– to figure out when adding an outside force would be

useful and, if so, what it should be and how to add it– to determine whether things should go faster, slower, in

a different direction, or more than one of those

Programs and Policies

• Joanne Rand Whitmore• Patricia Supplee• Harvey Mandel & Sander Marcus • Others – including mine

• Building yours

Thank you for coming!

• Contact information:– josh_shaine@yahoo.com– 978-597-0977– www.giftedconferenceplanners.org

• Related Papers:– Underachievement from the Inside Out– From Overt Behavior to Developing Potential: The

Gifted Underachiever– Underachieving Gifted and Talented Students - A

Narrative Overview– https://independent.academia.edu/JoshShaine