This Will Be The Biggest Disruption In Higher Education

Driven by several converging forces, we will see a talent acceleration shift from “going to college to get a job” to “going to a job to get a college degree.”

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Instead of going to college to get a job, students will increasingly be going to a job to get a college degree.

What does this mean exactly? Today, the #1 reason why Americans value and pursue higher education is “to get a good job.” The path has always been assumed as linear: first, go to college and then, get a good job. But what if there was a path to get a good job first – a job that comes with a college degree? In the near future, a substantial number of students (including many of the most talented) will go straight to work for employers that offer a good job along with a college degree and ultimately a path to a great career.

This shift will go down as the biggest disruption in higher education whereby colleges and universities will be disintermediated by employers and job seekers going direct. Higher education won’t be eliminated from the model; degrees and other credentials will remain valuable and desired, but for a growing number of young people they’ll be part of getting a job as opposed to college as its own discrete experience. This is already happening in the case of working adults and employers that offer college education as a benefit. But it will soon be true among traditional age students. Based on a Kaplan University Partners-QuestResearch study I led and which was released today, I predict as many as one-third of all traditional students in the next decade will “Go Pro Early” in work directly out of high school with the chance to earn a college degree as part of the package.

This disruption is being driven by several converging forces: the unsustainable rise in college tuition, a change in consumer demand among prospective students, extreme negativity about the work readiness of college graduates, an unpacking of what makes college effective (work-integrated and relationship-rich), and emerging talent attraction and development strategies by employers. These signs and signals pointing toward a more direct employer-student model of higher education are already emerging. And, the parents of the coming generation of college students in the US have just given a resounding vote of confidence in this future approach to college and career development.

When asked about a potential new pathway for their children to get a college degree, 74% of all parents of K-12 students would consider a route where their child would be hired directly out of high school by an employer that offers a college degree while working. (Nearly four-in-ten gave the strongest level of endorsement saying they would “definitely” consider this.) Remarkably, there are no meaningful differences in support for this new pathway by the parent’s education level, race, income or political affiliation – giving the concept broad appeal across the board. And parents not only see this path as a much more affordable route through college, but they also see it as a better pathway in preparing their child for ultimate success in work and life. Ninety-percent say “you can learn a lot from a job,” 89% say “work is important for personal growth,” and 85% say “work is important to one’s purpose.”

This strong value placed on work by parents of the coming generation of college students represents a major pendulum swing. Today’s college students are actually the least working generation in U.S. history. Driven by current dissatisfaction with the work-relevance of college and the work-readiness of graduates and the sheer intimidation of college costs, the parents of the coming generation of college students hope to change this dynamic. They endorse a very different model for the future. That said, they still value certain aspects of “college” such as the social development and critical thinking that are advertised as common benefits of the collegiate experience. But, of course, higher education does not have a monopoly on social development and critical thinking.

For a number of college graduates, higher education fails to deliver on effectively developing them into engaged citizens, socially mature adults and critical thinkers. There is a real debateabout the evidence of these outcomes. And some have begun to argue that we are actually infantilizing college students. (This critique is particularly strong among conservatives, but is being raised in various ways throughout the academy as well.) Common behaviors associated with college life, such as binge drinking, poor eating and sleeping habits, and the “hook up” culture on campuses, can be viewed as more of a troubling vacation from the real world as opposed to a preparation for it. Taken altogether, these critiques challenge the notion that college is a fail-proof path to personal and professional development.

Certainly, college “done right and well” develops young people into mature, healthy and successful adults. Key elements in this formula include coaching, mentoring, work-integrated learning, real work experience, working across diverse teams, learning to survive failure (through actual failure), developing cultural understanding, and working on solving real problems. But workplaces – along with great managers and colleagues – certainly can help create these opportunities too. Yes, it will require some important tweaking to the hiring and talent development models of most employers. And it will necessitate innovative new higher education partnerships with these same employers. But, much of this development can be accomplished effectively for 18-24 year-old worker-students.

A ‘Go Pro Early’ model is certainly not for everyone, though. The study identified two types of students for which it is most suited and appealing: those who are “ambitious and debt averse” and those who are “college hesitant and debt averse.” The first group represents students who already have a career in mind, who value work experience, and their families are looking for ways to make college more affordable. The second group represents families who are also looking for more affordable college options, but for students who don’t find college to be a perfect fit for them, prefer an applied learning environment and are considering trade school options too.

Top employers such as Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) are already offering these kinds of opportunities where students can go straight from high school into apprenticeship programs that weave credentials and degrees into the process. And more broadly, there is a growing trend among large employers to offer college degrees as an employee benefit to attract and retain better talent and up-skill their existing workforce. Examples include: Walmart, Discover, Starbucks, Disney, Papa John’s and many others. This trend, I believe, will soon lead to more employers not only offering college degrees as a benefit for current employees but increasingly as a powerful recruiting tool to hire top talent directly out of high school as well. As the war for talent continues to intensify among employers, it will inevitably lead them to find that talent earlier and accelerate talent development in new ways.

A “job-first, college included model” could well become one of the biggest drivers of both increasing college completion rates in the U.S. and reducing the cost of college. In the examples of employers offering college degrees as benefits, a portion of the college expense will shift to the employer, who sees it as a valuable talent development and retention strategy with measurable return on investment benefits. This is further enhanced through bulk-rate tuition discounts offered by the higher educational institutions partnering with these employers. Students would still be eligible for federal financial aid, and they’d be making an income while going to college. To one degree or another, this model has the potential to make college more affordable for more people, while lowering or eliminating student loan debt and increasing college enrollments. It would certainly help bridge the career readiness gap that many of today’s college graduates encounter.

All this is not to suggest we will see an end to the traditional college experience. The model of full-time, residential students living on campus will still appeal to a sizable segment of the market – no doubt. This new pathway, “Going Pro Early” will however offer an important new route for many students to earn their college credentials at less cost, while learning workplace skills that the classroom can only hope to replicate, not to mention relationships that can only be built in a work environment. A majority of parents of the coming generation of would-be college students endorse it resoundingly for their children. And innovative colleges and universities that adapt to supporting students and employers in this new way will thrive. It’s simply a matter of time before the new world of “going to a job to get a college degree” disrupts the linear higher education pathway as we know it.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brandonbusteed/2019/04/30/this-will-be-the-biggest-disruption-in-higher-education/amp/

Silicon Valley parents are raising their kids tech-free — and it should be a red flag

Jenny Cheng/Business Insider

Silicon Valley parents can see firsthand, either through living or working in the Bay Area, that technology is potentially harmful to kids.Many parents are now restricting, or outright banning, screen time for their children.The trend follows a long-standing practice among high-level tech executives who have set limits for their own children for years.This is an installment of Business Insider's "Your Brain on Apps" series that investigates how addictive apps can influence behavior.


It's 9 a.m. in Sunnyvale, California and Minni Shahi is on her way to work at the Apple headquarters in Cupertino. Her husband, a former Googler named Vijay Koduri, is meeting his business partner at a local Starbucks to discuss their startup, a YouTube clip-making business called HashCut. Shahi and Koduri's two kids, 10-year-old Saurav and 12-year-old Roshni, have already been dropped off at school, likely immersed in one of the Google Chromebooks they were issued at the start of the year. The Koduris' life is that of the quintessential Silicon Valley family, except for one thing. The technology developed by Koduri and Shahi's employers is all but banned at the family's home.


Vijay Koduri, left, pictured with his family on a recent trip to India. Vijay Koduri
There are no video game systems inside the Koduri household, and neither child has their own cell phone yet. Saurav and Roshni can play games on their parents' phones, but only for 10 minutes per week. (There are no limits to using the family's vast library of board games.) Awhile back the family bought an iPad 2, but for the last five years it's lived on the highest shelf in a linen closet.
"We know at some point they will need to get their own phones," Koduri, 44, told Business Insider. "But we are prolonging it as long as possible."'The difference is, they don't think of themselves as dangerous'
Koduri and Shahi represent a new kind of Silicon Valley parent. Instead of tricking out their homes with all the latest technology, many of today's parents working or living in the tech world are limiting — and sometimes outright banning — how much screen time their kids get.
The approach stems from parents seeing firsthand, either through their job, or simply by living in the Bay Area — a region home to the most valuable tech companies on Earth — how much time and effort goes into making digital technology irresistible.
A 2017 survey conducted by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation found among 907 Silicon Valley parents that despite high confidence in technology's benefits, many parents now have serious concerns about tech's impact on kids' psychological and social development.

"You can't put your face in a device and expect to develop a long-term attention span," Taewoo Kim, chief AI engineer at the machine-learning startup One Smart Lab, told Business Insider. A practicing Buddhist, Kim is teaching his nieces and nephews, ages 4 to 11, to meditate and appreciate screen-free games and puzzles. Once a year he takes them on tech-free silent retreats at nearby Buddhist temples.
Former employees at major tech companies, some of them high-level executives, have gone public to condemn the companies' intense focus on building addictive tech products. The discussions have triggered further research from the psychology community, all of which has gradually convinced many parents that a child's palm is no place for devices so potent.
"The tech companies do know that the sooner you get kids, adolescents, or teenagers used to your platform, the easier it is to become a lifelong habit," Koduri told Business Insider. It's no coincidence, he said, that Google has made a push into schools with Google Docs, Google Sheets, and the learning management suite Google Classroom.
Turning kids into loyal customers of unhealthy products isn't exactly a new strategy. Some estimates find that major tobacco companies spend nearly $9 billion a year, or $24 million a day, marketing their products in the hopes kids will use them for life. The same principle helps explain why fast-food chains offer kids' meals: Brand loyalty is lucrative.

"The difference [with Google] is they don't think of themselves as dangerous," Koduri said. "Google for sure thinks of themselves of 'Hey, we're the good guys. We're helping kids. We're helping classrooms.' And I'm sure Apple does as well. And I'm sure Microsoft does as well."Google has been making schools more high-tech with its suite of cloud-based computing apps. Ramin Talaie/Getty Images

In San Francisco, parents notice a 'malaise of scrolling'
Erika Boissiere has little doubt that tech is poison to young brains.
The 37-year-old mom of two in San Francisco works as a family therapist alongside her husband. She said they both make an effort to stay current with screen-time research, which, despite suffering a lack of long-term data, has nevertheless found a host of short-term consequences among teens and adolescents who are heavy users of tech. These include heightened risks for depression, anxiety, and, in extreme cases, suicide.

Many of the fellow parents she and her husband talk to have said they notice an anti-tech sentiment, too. Just by living in the world's tech epicenter, the couple has front row seats to what Boissiere called a "malaise of scrolling."
"We live on a pretty trafficked street," Boissiere told Business Insider. In the 15 years they've lived there, she's noticed "a noticeable shift that everybody is on their phones on the bus. It doesn't seem like someone's reading a Kindle, for example."

San Francisco parents say there's a "malaise of scrolling" afoot. Andrey Bayda/ShutterstockBoissiere will go to great lengths to prevent her kids, 2-year-old Jack and 5-year-old Elise, from having even the most basic interactions with technology. She and her husband haven't installed any TVs in the house, and they avoid all cell-phone use in the kids' presence — a strict policy the couple also requires of their 28-year-old nanny, who Boissiere said has been caught scrolling on the job.
The couple has devised a strategy to help them stick to their policy. When the two of them get home from work, they each put their phone by the door. On most nights, they'll check the phones just once or twice before they go to bed, Boissiere said. Sometimes she'll break the rule, but more than once her kids have entered the room while she's mid-text, sending their mom fleeing into the nearest bathroom.
Around 10:30 p.m., Boissiere and her husband get in bed and end the day with an episode of "Black Mirror" on their laptop: a dose of morbid reassurance that the anti-tech approach is for the best.Low-tech parenting has been a quiet staple among Silicon Valley moguls for years
Silicon Valley's low- and anti-tech parents may seem overly cautious, but they actually follow longstanding practices of former and current tech giants like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Tim Cook.
In 2007, Gates, the former CEO of Microsoft, implemented a cap on screen time when his daughter started developing an unhealthy attachment to a video game. Later it became family policy not to allow kids to have their own phones until they turned 14. Today, theaverage American child get their first phone around age 10.
Jobs, the CEO of Apple until his death in 2012, revealed in a 2011 New York Times interview that he prohibited his kids from using the newly-released iPad. "We limit how much technology our kids use at home," Jobs told reporter Nick Bilton.

Job, an avid fan of his technology, still knew the power it held and banned his kids from using it. AP
Even Cook, the current Apple CEO, said in January that he doesn't allow his nephew to join online social networks. The comment followed those ofother tech luminaries, who have condemned social media as detrimental to society.
Cook later conceded Apple products aren't meant for constant use.
"I'm not a person that says we've achieved success if you're using it all the time," he said. "I don't subscribe to that at all."Kids aren't necessarily hooked for life
A silver lining to constant tech use is that negative effects don't seem to be permanent.
One of the more hopeful studies, and one often cited by psychologists, was published in 2014 in the peer-reviewed journal Computers in Human Behavior. It involved roughly 100 pre-teens, half of whom spent five days on a tech-free retreat engaged in activities like archery, hiking, and orienteering. The other half stayed home and served as the control.
The tech companies do know that the sooner you get kids, adolescents, or teenagers used to your platform, the easier it is to become a lifelong habit.
After just five days at the retreat, researchers saw huge gains in empathy levels among the participating kids. Those in the experimental group started scoring higher in their nonverbal emotional cues, more often smiling at another child's success or looking distressed if they witnessed a nasty fall.
The researchers concluded: "The results of this study should introduce a much-needed societal conversation about the costs and benefits of the enormous amount of time children spend with screens, both inside and outside the classroom."Schools have started accommodating the anti-tech parent
Not all parents who raise their kids low-tech strive to keep the same standards when it comes to education. Koduri's kids, for instance, share a Macbook Air for homework and use Google Chromebooks at school.
But around Silicon Valley, a number of low-tech schools have popped up in an effort to reintroduce the basics. At the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, a private school in Los Altos, California, kids use chalkboards and No. 2 pencils. Faculty don't introduce kids to screen-based devices until they reach the eighth grade.Kids at Brightworks School use power tools instead of digital ones. BrightworksAt Brightworks School, a K-12 private school in San Francisco,kids learn creativity by using power tools, dismantling radios, and attending classes in treehouses.
Meanwhile, at many public schools, technology has become a guiding force, according to educators Joe Clement and Matt Miles. In their 2017 book "Screen Schooled," the co-authors make the case that technology does far more harm than good, even when it's used to boost scores in reading and math.
"It's interesting to think that in a modern public school, where kids are being required to use electronic devices like iPads, Steve Jobs's kids would be some of the only kids opted out," they wrote. (Jobs' children have finished school, so it's impossible to verify if that would have been true.)
The apparent double standard still lingers, they argue. As the authors wrote, "What is it these wealthy tech executives know about their own products that their consumers don't?"Parents of older kids see changes across generations
On the western edge of the San Francisco Bay, in San Mateo, tech entrepreneur Amy Pressman lives with her husband and two kids, 14-year-old Mia and 16-year-old Jacob. Her oldest child, 20-year-old Brian, is a sophomore in college. (Business Insider has changed each child's name at Pressman's request.)
Though she no longer has control of what Brian does when he's away at school, at home Pressman is strict. There are no devices at the dinner table. After 10 p.m., kids must surrender their phones and leave them charging in the kitchen overnight. Weekly gaming is limited to five to seven hours a week.
This world didn't exist when I was growing up.
Like Koduri, who said he fondly remembers playing outside as a kid and raises his own kids with that upbringing in mind, Pressman longs to return to a more analog world.
"Kids aren't going out and just playing in the street," Pressman, co-founder and president of the software company Medallia, told Business Insider. "My older son would have more of his friends come over and hang out than my younger children do."
In the past few years, the family has gotten a lot better about spending time together, she said. Instead of family members coming home and installing themselves in separate rooms, eyes glued to devices, they now make use of season tickets to the theatre and keep an ongoing ranking of San Francisco's best ice cream shops.
A couple years ago, Pressman planned a trip to Death Valley over a long weekend. The lack of USB charging ports and Wifi were two of the destination's main selling points.

"The connectivity there was pretty abysmal," she said. "That was lovely."Daily restrictions are tough, but they may be worth it
Pressman and other parents told Business Insider that it's often hard to strike a balance in limiting tech use, since kids quickly begin to feel left out of their peer group. The longer parents try to impose their restrictions, the more they fear they're essentially raising a well-adjusted outcast.
"I've got no role model for how to deal with this world," Pressman said. "This world didn't exist when I was growing up, and the restrictions my parents put on TV use don't make sense in the world of technology when the computer is both your entertainment and your homework and your encyclopedia."Silicon Valley parents place a wide range of restrictions on kids, from mere minutes to several hours a day.Piotr Drabik/FlickrMany parents who spoke to Business Insider said their best defense against tech addiction is to introduce replacement activities or find ways to use tech more productively. When California droughts wiped out Koduri's backyard, he filled the lot with cement and built a basketball court, which both of his kids and their friends use. When Pressman noticed her daughter taking an interest in computers, the two of them signed up to learn programming together.
These parents hope they can teach their kids to enter adulthood with a healthy set of expectations for how to use — and, in certain cases, avoid — technology. Every so often, they said, a glimmer of hope shines through.
In just the few years since Pressman began advocating for less tech use, her oldest son has started to see the value in cutting back on screens. A math major who prefers to use hardcover books, Brian told his mom he finds digital versions distracting.
As Pressman recalled, the family was in the middle of a long road trip around Christmas last year when, out of nowhere, he surprised his mother with something few parents ever tire of hearing: an admission of error.
"You know how you're always railing on social media, and I thought you were all wrong?" Pressman recalled Brian telling her, referring to her many tirades calling for "real" human interaction. "Well," he said, "I'm coming to think you're right."

https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-parents-raising-their-kids-tech-free-red-flag-2018-2

A Personal Air- Quality Tracker That Lets you Know What You're Breathing

Human Contact Is Now a Luxury Good

"Screens used to be for the elite. Now avoiding them is a status symbol."

Credit
Marta MonteiroImage

“Milton Pedraza, the chief executive of the Luxury Institute, advises companies on how the wealthiest want to live and spend, and what he has found is that the wealthy want to spend on anything human.

“What we are seeing now is the luxurification of human engagement,” Mr. Pedraza said.

Anticipated spending on experiences such as leisure travel and dining is outpacing spending on goods, according to his company’s research, and he sees it as a direct response to the proliferation of screens.

“The positive behaviors and emotions human engagement elicits — think the joy of a massage. Now education, health care stores, everyone, is starting to look at how to make experiences human,” Mr. Pedraza said. “The human is very important right now.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/sunday-review/human-contact-luxury-screens.html

From 2010 but still relevant for us adults

We have a lot to learn from and about our children.

Mindfulness and trauma

(iStock/DariaNK)




A recent MindShift article highlighted some things teachers should be aware of if they’re bringing mindfulness into their classrooms. Students may have experienced trauma that makes sitting silently with their eyes closed feel threatening, and teachers can’t assume it will be an easy practice for every child. That awareness is important to create an inclusive environment, but it doesn’t mean that teachers shouldn’t cultivate their own mindfulness practice or use some techniques with students.

Often mindfulness is used as a way to help students build self-regulation skills and learn to calm down when they become frustrated or angry. Cultivating those skills can be powerful for students, but many teachers say mindfulness is crucial for themselves, helping them take an extra moment before reacting to students.

“The best way to practice trauma-informed mindfulness is [for teachers] to have their own practice and interpret the behavior of the youth through a trauma-informed lens, even if they never do mindfulness training with the kids,” said Sam Himelstein, a clinical psychologist, trainer and author who has spent most of his career working with incarcerated youth. He’s received a lot of questions about how to be trauma-informed while still using mindfulness in classrooms since the first article. He suggest nine guidelines for teachers that he uses to make sure mindfulness practice with youth is helping, not hurting.

1. Do No Harm

“The assumption behind that is that harm can be done,” Himelstein said. “If you teach someone mindfulness meditation who has had a lot of trauma in their life, in fact, harm can be done.” That’s important for teachers to know. Research on mindfulness shows the practice can bring up uncomfortable feelings, and layered on top of existing trauma can be frightening or psychologically dysregulating. That’s why Himelstein stresses that no one should be forced to close their eyes or sit a certain way.

“If you’re unintentionally portraying that it’s really important to close your eyes, they can misinterpret that,” Himelstein said. In fact, it’s common for folks who have been traumatized to misinterpret a neutral direction.

2. Establish a sense of safety

“There are some situations in some school settings where youth are not that safe because there’s violence that happens,” Himelstein said. “If you’re not in a place where kids feel physically safe, then you probably shouldn’t be doing any deep practices.”

Kids can feel vulnerable when attempting to be present in the moment, so physical safety is key. Establishing that kind of safety may take some extra culture-building in the classroom first.

3. Build relational mindfulness

This set of strategies is about building the type of community where students feel safe practicing mindfulness. Teachers can help make their classroom feel safe to students with clear boundaries that are predictable. Group norms or agreements developed with students are one way to do this.

“For people who have experienced trauma those things tend to not be present, so the more you practice predictability by practicing group agreements, and building authentic relationships between you and the youth, and among the youth, it starts to feel more safe,” Himelstein said.

It can be tricky to know if relational trust has been built, but Himelstein said when students are more willing to share openly about themselves or they’re relating class material to their own lives, that’s one sign they feel safe. Of course it’s complicated because of different personality types, some of which may naturally be more reserved. But even with introverted students, teachers can often tell if trust is there through their writing or if they share something out loud even once.

“You can check in with the youth and not just leave it up to your own assessment or guesswork in terms of where they’re at in feeling safe and that there’s trust in the room,” Himelstein said. If there’s more work to be done, trust games and icebreakers can help people get more comfortable.

4. Understand intersectionality. Be mindful of implicit bias and culture.

Mindfulness cannot be detached from the other ways teachers interact with students in the classroom. Himelstein said it’s important to take note if, for example, girls are being punished more harshly for the same behavior a male student exhibits, but for which he isn’t punished.

“It depends on the context, but I’ve definitely coached some teachers and therapists who work in diverse settings in terms of who they call on the most, who gets the most energy, how their expectations are shifting depending on different folks,” Himelstein said.

If students think a teacher is unfair based on race, gender, sexuality or any other identity marker, that will undermine the relational trust needed to facilitate mindfulness and mental health.

“In my work with youth, I never divorce the practice of mindfulness from the greater sphere of building an authentic relationship with that young person,” Himelstein said. “I don’t divorce intersectionality from the practice of mindfulness.”

5. Understand the "window of tolerance" and be on the lookout for it

Imagine two parallel lines. Within those lines is the window of tolerance for physiological arousal. Outside of that is when people may experience tunnel vision, when they can’t think straight. Outside the window of tolerance students may be hyperaroused when they’re extremely angry or hypervigilant. But students can also be hypo-aroused, when they’re disassociated from their surroundings. In both of these states, students won’t be able to follow directions.

Himelstein remembers meeting his wife for lunch after a therapeutic session with a client that triggered him. He couldn’t physically read the menu because his prefrontal cortex was offline. “My brain was down regulating,” he said. “I wasn’t quite in fight, flight or freeze, but I was on the way there.”

If teachers can recognize those moments with students, they can use other interventions to help students get back into the window of tolerance. Those might include listening to music, playing a rhythm game, dancing -- something that doesn’t require the student to process directions.

A teacher might notice a student is getting triggered and naturally take a break from instruction to listen to some music or play a quick game without calling attention to the student who is triggered. This works better if these types of movement or music breaks are already part of the DNA of the classroom. Then it doesn’t feel odd or out of place to students when a teacher uses it as a tool to intentionally support a specific student.

“You’re hoping in some way the music moves them, not emotionally, but there’s something about the music they like,” Himelstein said. “Maybe they get that head bob going. That’s what you’re looking for.”

He remembers one young woman he worked with who had been estranged from her father for several years because of his drug addiction. She finally felt ready to reach out to him to try to build a new relationship when she found out he had died of an overdose. Himelstein was with her when she got the news. The young woman was in shock and no mindfulness techniques would have worked at that moment. Instead, Himelstein put on a song he knew his client liked, and they sat and listened until she came out of shock and back into her window of tolerance.

6. The paradox of mental training

The paradox is that paying attention to the present moment -- the heart of a mindfulness practice -- won’t always make a person feel calmer. But, at the same time, practicing mindfulness when one isn’t upset builds a toolkit that could be useful to stay calm in stressful situations. Himelstein said this is a contradiction teachers have to embrace in this practice.

Deep breathing exercises or a body scan are strategies to practice in a calm state. They can help with stress reduction and emotional management. The goal is to make them part of everything that happens in the classroom so they’re second nature, and students can draw on these tools when they need them without thinking.

Himelstein trains youth and guards in juvenile detention centers in these techniques. Recently a young person told him that when a guard called him a name he naturally took a deep breath, providing him the slightest bit of space to consider the consequences of taking action, and preventing him from getting triggered.

“I’ve heard that in juvenile hall, in education settings, in so many situations,” Himelstein said.

7. When teaching mindfulness, prioritize somatic-based exercises.

“The body tends to have the ability to help ground people a little more, or at least not trigger as much,” Himelstein said. Especially if students are not used to mindfulness, or don’t feel comfortable with it, keeping them out of their heads can be a good thing. Instead focus on how deep breathing feels in the belly and the chest. Do body scans or remind young people to think about the sensations in their bodies.

“When youth don’t have a clear sense of what they’re supposed to be doing, and it’s not as tangible, it’s easier for their minds to wander and stumble upon traumatic memories,” Himelstein said.

8. Don't over-identify with mindfulness logistics

It can be counterproductive to insist too strenuously that mindfulness look a certain way. Things like keeping eyes closed, holding the hands in a certain way, or having a particular body posture really don’t matter, and can lead to power struggles.

9. Think about daily mindfulness interventions.

There are lots of informal ways to bring some of the benefits of focusing on the present into the classroom. It might become routine at the start of the day, or when class begins, to do a mindful check-in: Each student takes a deep breath, and shares how they are feeling at the present moment. Himelstein always encourages youth to use a real emotion like angry/frustrated/happy/sad, as opposed to more generic statements like good/bad. It’s also not too much of a stretch to add some element of academic content to these activities.

"It's a great way to embed a mindfulness practice in the DNA of the classroom and also you can easily add a prompt to the end of it," Himelstein said.

Five Technology Rules Every Parent Must Follow

Sonia Bokhari was an 8th grader when she joined the world of social media for the first time. She was excited, to say the least, to jump on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms her friends were already on.

What she discovered made her feel betrayed.

Upon setting up her profile, she quickly found out her mom and sister had been posting about her for her entire life. Right before her young teenage eyes, were pictures of her that made her feel awkward and even a little violated:

• Pictures of her as a young child in her underwear, her mom had posted.
• Stories of silly things she had done, her older sister had shared.
• Accounts of funny statements she’d made as a sister or daughter.

In a recent article in Fast Company magazine Sonia said when she was younger, she could hardly wait to participate in social media. Upon reflection, she later wrote: “Then, several months ago, when I turned 13, my mom gave me the green light and I joined Twitter and Facebook. The first place I went, of course, was my mom’s profiles. That’s when I realized that while this might have been the first time I was allowed on social media, it was far from the first time my photos and stories had appeared online. When I saw the pictures that she had been posting on Facebook for years, I felt utterly embarrassed, and deeply betrayed.”

What her mother and sister thought was “cute” and “innocent” felt much different to the other person in the photo, which was Sonia.

The Lesson for Adults as We Approach Social Media

I only bring this up because adult leaders—parents, teachers, coaches, youth workers—must practice what we preach.  If we want our kids to handle social media well, and be careful about what they post, we should think twice about posting THEIR photos on line for all to see. Sonia said it would have been different if her mom had merely shared some of those personal pictures to family members or close friends. Instead—her mom and sister felt the need to broadcast them on-line. Sonia wrote:

“Teens get a lot of warnings that we aren’t mature enough to understand that everything we post online is permanent, but parents should also reflect about their use of social media and how it could potentially impact their children’s lives as we become young adults.”

Well said, Sonia.

The fact is—our portable devices have both connected us and divided us.

Both teens and adults have felt compelled to post comments or content on-line. Some, I’m concerned, are more consumed with posting their life, than living their life. Several middle school and high school students openly acknowledged (in our focus groups) that they are “addicted to their portable devices.” This addiction that both adults and teens have, has hindered rational thinking. Technology has become our master rather than our servant. Recently, I heard a Florida businessman say:

When our phones had leashes, we were free.

Now our phones are free, and we have leashes.

That statement says it all.

Five Rules of Thumb for Adults Using Social Media

So let me offer some simple ideas to consider when it comes to smart devices:

1. Keep your time on social media under two hours a day.

Research tells us that more than two hours is unhealthy. People are more vulnerable to anxiety and depression when on social media for longer.

2. Get permission before you post.

If you include others in a picture, ask for their permission. This gives them dignity and enables them to retain agency on what’s posted about them.

3. Check your motives.

As an adult, ask yourself why you want to post pics of your kids or students? If the pics don’t communicate respect for them, it’s best to not post them.

4. Think reputation, not entertainment.

Try trading places with the people you’re about to post online. If you were them, would you like this photo or post? How will it affect their reputation?

5. Only post what adds value to others.

Many posts on Instagram, for instance, are for the selfish pleasure of the one posting; often they’re narcissistic. Think of how the post benefits others first.

https://growingleaders.com/blog/five-technology-rules-every-parent-must-follow/?mc_cid=02b16edff6&mc_eid=c551f8052f

Wondering What Happened to Your Class Valedictorian? Not Much, Research Shows

What becomes of high school valedictorians? It’s what every parent wishes their teenager to be. Mom says study hard and you’ll do well. And very often Mom is right.

But not always.

Karen Arnold, a researcher at Boston College, followed 81 high school valedictorians and salutatorians from graduation onward to see what becomes of those who lead the academic pack. Of the 95 percent who went on to graduate college, their average GPA was 3.6, and by 1994, 60 percent had received a graduate degree. There was little debate that high school success predicted college success. Nearly 90 percent are now in professional careers with 40 percent in the highest tier jobs. They are reliable, consistent, and well-adjusted, and by all measures the majority have good lives.

But how many of these number-one high school performers go on to change the world, run the world, or impress the world? The answer seems to be clear: zero.

Commenting on the success trajectories of her subjects, Karen Arnold said, “Even though most are strong occupational achievers, the great majority of former high school valedictorians do not appear headed for the very top of adult achievement arenas.” In another interview Arnold said, “Valedictorians aren’t likely to be the future’s visionaries . . . they typically settle into the system instead of shaking it up.”

Was it just that these 81 didn’t happen to reach the stratosphere? No. Research shows that what makes students likely to be impressive in the classroom is the same thing that makes them less likely to be home-run hitters outside the classroom.

So why are the number ones in high school so rarely the number ones in real life? There are two reasons. First, schools reward students who consistently do what they are told. Academic grades correlate only loosely with intelligence (standardized tests are better at measuring IQ). Grades are, however, an excellent predictor of self-discipline, conscientiousness, and the ability to comply with rules.

In an interview, Arnold said, “Essentially, we are rewarding conformity and the willingness to go along with the system.” Many of the valedictorians admitted to not being the smartest kid in class, just the hardest worker. Others said that it was more an issue of giving teachers what they wanted than actually knowing the material better. Most of the subjects in the study were classified as “careerists”: they saw their job as getting good grades, not really as learning.

The second reason is that schools reward being a generalist. There is little recognition of student passion or expertise. The real world, however, does the reverse. Arnold, talking about the valedictorians, said, “They’re extremely well rounded and successful, personally and professionally, but they’ve never been devoted to a single area in which they put all their passion. That is not usually a recipe for eminence.”

If you want to do well in school and you’re passionate about math, you need to stop working on it to make sure you get an A in history too. This generalist approach doesn’t lead to expertise. Yet eventually we almost all go on to careers in which one skill is highly rewarded and other skills aren’t that important.

Ironically, Arnold found that intellectual students who enjoy learning struggle in high school. They have passions they want to focus on, are more interested in achieving mastery, and find the structure of school stifling. Meanwhile, the valedictorians are intensely pragmatic. They follow the rules and prize A’s over skills and deep understanding.

School has clear rules. Life often doesn’t. When there’s no clear path to follow, academic high achievers break down. Shawn Achor’s research at Harvard shows that college grades aren’t any more predictive of subsequent life success than rolling dice. A study of over seven hundred American millionaires showed their average college GPA was 2.9.

Following the rules doesn’t create success; it just eliminates extremes—both good and bad. While this is usually good and all but eliminates downside risk, it also frequently eliminates earthshaking accomplishments. It’s like putting a governor on your engine that stops the car from going over fifty-five; you’re far less likely to get into a lethal crash, but you won’t be setting any land speed records either.

http://money.com/money/4779223/valedictorian-success-research-barking-up-wrong/