Creating a Sense of Purpose
Why are smart, capable kids giving up on school work?
While there is no one universally true answer to this question, I have some ideas. One is the digital media and games that are intentionally created to be addictive by stimulating the reward systems in their brains, but that’s not what I want to talk about today. I read a book called On Purpose by Twenty, by Adam Cox, he attributes the problem to lacking an experience of work with purpose.
This makes sense to me. Most every school assignment is some sort of practice or exercise which has no practical application or social relevance at all. They can’t make money on it, it doesn’t do anything to help anyone, it doesn’t get published on the internet for feedback that can be measured. In other words, it seems boring and pointless. So when they imagine themselves working, and since their experience with work is rather droll and lacking impact, they of course imagine some cubicle type job that keeps them stuck in a place they don’t want to be with an experience they don’t want to have. Blech.
Add onto that the fact that the corporate myth is no longer believed by many of our youth. They distrust the establishment, and many do not think you can just make good grades, go to college, get a good job, be obedient and slave away and the company will move you up and take care of you. Or they just don’t want to. Maybe they watched you.
I remember being in high school and while I was one of those kids who kept doing his work and making good grades, it mostly seemed pretty dumb and boring to me. But I had this one science teacher who created a relevant and meaningful work experience. We were in Boerne, Texas. The Cibolo Creek ran through town. Our treatment plant discharged treated sewage into the Cibolo Creek. Mayfly larvae frequency turn out to be a pretty good measure of water quality. So, we went out to city park, got in the creek with nets and turned over rocks collecting the larvae and counting them both above and below the sewage effluent.
Our results were published in the local newspaper along with our pictures. Heck I still remember that we used the Chi Square formula to determine statistically significant difference, and it was “observed minus expected squared divided by expected squared.” Clever teacher, that was fun, meaningful, relevant, and I remember it well.
Thanks Mr. Rankin. Sorry about that one day when you went to the office and we moved every piece of moveable furniture outside under the trees, recreating the classroom, and acted like we were still in it. You got us back, though. You came strolling down the walkway, looked up and saw us, nearly suppressed all of your smile, and placed yourself in front of your desk and continued class as if you didn’t notice anything amiss. At the end you smiled REALLY BIG and said, “You all have five minutes to move everything back into the classroom where you found it.”
I suggest seeking and creating lessons and relationships like this. Let your kids work for money, do community service, go on a mission, do something that makes a difference.
Adam Cox says, “Purposeful work is capable of shifting the psyche from a state of dependence and reactivity to self-control and autonomy. It is an opportunity most young people subconsciously crave, but to which very few have access.”
Believe and it will be
Here’s another quote from Adam Cox that I really liked, I just call it making the choice to have faith, he’s a little more wordy but quite eloquent.
“It’s no secret that human accomplishment tends to rise and fall with overt and covert expectations. In a classroom, for example, the expectations projected by the teacher usually influence student performance. The outcome of the equation rests on the plausability of a teacher’s belief in a particular individual’s potential. Deciding to believe in someone is not a publicity campaign employed to disguise grave doubt. It is more fundamentally a decision to suspend preconceptions about how well a person can do, and what form that person’s accomplishments might assume.
Cultivating an atmosphere of seriousness is the difference between merely expressing confidence in someone, and allowing oneself to believe that exceptional achievement is actually possible. It relies upon lopsided bias of unconditional belief- a determination to look past obstacles toward what might be possible.”
Most of us have heard of the experiments where they told the teachers that the blue-eyed students were smarter than the brown-eyed students, and at the end of the term the blue-eyed students had higher grades and higher standardized achievement scores. Talk about standards. Sounds just like ethnocentrism to me, which is the root of all racial bias, war and terrorism.
In other words, one of the most valuable things you can do for someone you love, be it a child who struggles, yourself, or someone you love, is to have faith in them. Remember that faith is a choice you make irrespective of evidence- you choose to believe and discipline yourself to maintain your belief.
It’s my belief that when you do this, for yourself, for a child, for someone you love, a friend, this affirmation of belief and support of the person as a whole is transmitted through many channels; energetically, by the look in your eye, your posture, your tone of voice, and this message is always received and acted upon because it is the most true, loving, and real quality that exists.
HFA/Aspie Kindle and Paperback
Mr. Mason has also published a book, Diagnosis Autism or Aspergers, Now What? What to Expect, What to Do, How to Explain. Go here to view the ebook version for 13.95. It is also available on paperback and Kindle on Amazon here, as are numerous titles in video on Amazon Prime Video.
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