This research was done in Britain. It is about the expectations of children when they enter high school. My reactions to it are quite mixed.
The study is Children’s Perception of the Value of Education by Croll and Attwood. A plain English summary is available here. The researchers surveyed 845 pupils during Year 7 (aged 11 or 12) and then interviewed 30 of them during Year 8. Sixteen schools from six local authorities in three different parts of England took part.
First, what I see as the good news: gender stereotyping is breaking down. Both boys and girls “were equally likely to want a good job, to marry and have children”. Similarly socio-economic status isn’t influencing attitudes to education – there were “few meaningful differences in attitudes to education according to children’s backgrounds”.
Some of the other findings make me uncomfortable. The children saw education as the means to employment: “Above all they wanted to secure a ‘good’ job. The children saw education as the means to achieve this . . . ” These people have bought the line that economics is the main concern – these are people just entering high school. The study doesn’t address the consequences when inevitably some of these people find that education doesn’t secure them a good job.
Here is a story to make this point. Imagine we discover that some people win a running race and others don’t. We decide that this isn’t desirable. So we study the winners to see what sets them apart. We find that the winners all had running shoes and none of the losers did. The conclusion is obvious: if we supply running shoes to the losers they will also win the race. This would be stupid wouldn’t it? Substitute qualifications for running shoes.
My most mixed reaction is to this finding: what children say at the age of 11 about school participation after the age of 16 is highly predictive of their actual behaviour. This means that high school leads to little change in these people’s expectations. As their participation in school will usually have effects on the next years after school this means: much of people’s lives is determined by themselves before they even get to high school. Do we really want to live out a set of expectations we formulated before we even got into our teens?
I don’t doubt that our early expectations are this powerful. But I think our living them out usually leads to unfortunate consequences. How much did we know of the world and ourselves before we were even well into adolescence? This is a recipe for acting on the basis of unrealistic expectations and ignorance – the consequences of which are all around us, plain to see, and distinctly depressing.
Which brings us to: What can we do about it?
The first step I think is awareness. Getting a sense of what our expectations are. There are many ways of becoming conscious of this. A couple of simple ways are:
Imagine yourself in old age, sitting in a rocking chair, recounting your life to a grandchild, or a young child.
Recall as much as you can about yourself before high school: what you longed for, hoped for and expected.
Then become aware of how you have changed since then.
You could make a list of what has happened, how you have changed and what you have learned. It will probably be quite extensive.
Then you can become aware of how some of your earlier expectations limit you. Some may have served you well, others are likely to have been limiting or unfortunate.
Finally, you can think of one simple and easy thing to do to set aside these limitations of your early decisions.
If you liked this post, you might also like:
IMHO#2 TA’s Scripting is Very Valuable
Would you like to feel less stressed?
Could you do with more joy in your life?
The answer is living authentically. Buy the book or sign up for the course now from my Living Authentically website.
Tags: education, expectations
You’ve had a very busy week, Evan!
I try to tell my life as my cousins would hear it – the ones who are not young adults.
It would really be relevant to the 11-year-old (as of this May) right now, and I am getting seriously ready to write The Book this year and next. And it would be good to tell it to the 2-year-old too.
As to the running race analogy: it’s already been done. What about the book Outliers? Think of what Usain Bolt do and also Oscar Pistorius. And then there is Cathy Freeman who ran barefoot and was very motivated by her (late) sister Anne-Marie to do the best she could.
(Saw something on Sunday which made me think who and what I want to be when I am 80. There were these infants and toddlers playing with octogenerians, and especially this woman who had never held or touched a baby and only came out for a little while).
When I was a small girl I wanted to be in the country. I was attracted to a sense of power and pace. My favourite nursery rhyme was “Three Blind Mice”, and my favourite fairy tale was “Chicken Licken”.
Hi Adelaide, a person who had never held or touched a baby – remarkable. I find it hard to imagine this really. I haven’t read Outliers I’m afraid – only read reviews of it so probably shouldn’t comment. Let me know how you go with writing The Book, I’d like to know. Thanks for your comment.
Hi Evan — yes, that is a sobering thought to me as well — that so much of our adult lives is dictated by our childhood programming, most of which has no relevance to our current situation. I’ve also read psychologists who say that our “life scripts” are written even before our early formal education, like in the first year of our lives when our relationship with our mother dictates our relationship to the rest of the world. The kind of work you are doing, I think, helps us to actually get some choice around the script we follow.
Thanks Chris. I’m not sure where I’d make the cut-off for the life-script. Well before linear rationality kicks in (usually around 10-12). For me my life decision (I’m unacceptable because incompetent) feels like age four. The routines/programs in support of this took a while longer to evolve it feels to me. I can agree that the first year may lay down some very strong feelings (it’s tricky I think – because the person or people who bring us up in the first year are usually the ones who bring us up for the rest of our childhood too.). I do hope my work gives us some choice around the script, thanks for this. I think you are doing similar things – though we come from different places in doing it. Thanks for your comment.
Hi Evan,
As usual, I’m coming from what most would say is the pessimistic view. But, it is also my experience, the way I think I viewed life when I was 11 or 12. And how, in reflection, I see the ways in which my life unfolded. Specifically, what was or wasn’t self-directed.
The first thing I thought when I read the general statements of the children in the study was, conditioned. In my opinion, these children, more than likely have heard, for many years already, and repeatedly from all kinds of sources, what’s ’supposed’ to be. Or how life is, or that’s just the way it goes. I call these ‘promises’, even though there is some bottom line realism contained in those statements, the other reality is the truisms will not necessarily fulfill one, their life or the lives of others. I also see it as another form of nurture sorely lacking.
I think the ‘comparison’ aspect begins very early. I think about kindergarten or even younger kids being asked by their teachers what they want to be when they grow up. The answer then is usually ‘hero’ related, either what a parent/caregiver does for a living, especially if the parent is actually a fireman or doctor. Alternatively, from some sort of fictional source, book, movie, etc.. However, a precedent in this young mind starts to get ’set’. He is told he has to study hard, eat right, be good, on and on, in order to do what daddy does, including daddy promoting follow-in-my-steps instruction. What kid wouldn’t be hugely affected by that? To me, it hardly sounds different than an 11 year old parroting good grades, right education, which he’s now heard for years, equals good job and happily ever after.
Obviously you’ve touched on one more touchy subject for me. All I can hear repeating in my head is ’stifled’. I wish I could shout it from rooftops somewhere so those 7th graders would at least have heard there may be options, truer truths, specifically their own, which they don’t have to decide on or know at age 3, 5 or 11. I think skill sets is where emphasis should be in all areas. Physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and anything else an adult can see, in personal reflection, he somehow ‘missed’. There really need to options in my opinion, with a much more well rounded picture.
Off my soap box…
Barbara
Hi Barbara, I think ‘conditioned’ says it well. I hope you find a way to shout from the rooftops, this stuff needs to be said loud and clear. I like your emphasis on skill sets – all through my schooling I was told to study things but never actually told how to do this. One skill I would have valued acquiring. How I wish we could get over our obsession with comparison – and, in Australia at least, it is getting worse. Still there are lots of people like us, who loathe the comparison, around these days. Thanks for your comment, as passionate and insightful as ever.
Hi Evan
I’m glad I finally found some time to dive into your writings, my friend
Well, you know my opinion on schooling and teaching methods, so I won’t go into detail now.
I also feel bad about young men going to school to ensure a “good job”, whatever that is. We should go to school to make ourselves “more”, in as many ways as possible. We should go there to learn, not to be taught by force.. whatever.
Nice points there
Hi Zoli, I’m glad you got here too. I entirely agree with your comment.