Britain: Kids should learn to be tough

"Happiness lessons" that are used in many schools to teach children to be sensitive, empathetic and caring are under threat from a new hardline approach that advocates mental toughness. Academics say that instilling a robust attitude among pupils can improve their exam performance, behaviour and aspirations dramatically. Mentally tough children are less likely to regard themselves as victims of bullying and will not be deterred by initial failure. Having this outlook can be learnt, according to Peter Clough, head of psychology at the University of Hull.

Along with AQR, a psychometric-testing company, he is conducting a long-term study of children and evaluating their mental toughness. His ideas - based on sports psychology - have been used in industry. Dr Clough claims that a simple test and follow-up techniques can transform performance. He said: "We know that students with higher levels of mental toughness perform better in exams. They are also less likely to perceive themselves as being bullied and are more likely to behave more positively. "We also know that by using a variety of techniques - many of them very simple - we can increase an individual's level of mental toughness."

Dr Clough is working with 181 pupils aged 11 and 12 at All Saints Catholic High School in Knowsley, Merseyside. He will help to make them mentally tough and hopes this will "open doors of opportunities that they would not previously have considered". Parents and teachers are also being shown the intervention techniques.

Dr Clough said: "There is no point in working with pupils who then go into a classroom environment where nobody understands the process, and home to parents who have no interest. Showing the teachers how the techniques work means that the benefits that pupils are getting from this study can be repeated year after year."

Dr Clough and his team measured the levels of resilience and emotional sensitivity of pupils using a questionnaire. They then picked almost 40 pupils with low scores. They are now using techniques to improve their rating, such as visualisation, anxiety control and relaxation, improving their attention span and setting goals.

It comes a week after two academics said the emphasis on Seal (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) was "infantilising" students. Dennis Hayes and Kathryn Ecclestone, of Oxford Brookes University, said that teenagers were encouraged to talk about their emotions at the expense of acquiring knowledge. This left them unable to cope on their own. They pointed to the increased presence of parents on campus, and of counsellors and support officers, saying that "everyone was looking for a disability to declare".

Dr Clough said that he helped children to set realistic goals and used techniques that worked rapidly. These include imagining scenarios and random-number tests that forced them to concentrate. He said: "Really concentrating is a skill a lot of them have never had. We try to get them to realise they are in control of their lives and need to stick a foot in the door when they get the opportunity. No one else is going to make that decision. "They don't recognise that people who are successful sometimes have less ability but more drive. They are drawn to a 'shortcut culture' of instant success and dream of winning The X Factor, but don't see that you need to practise before auditions."

Of happiness lessons, which aim to boost self-esteem, Dr Clough said: "All the positive thinking in the world isn't going to make a third look like a 2:1."

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To Curb Truancy, Dallas Tries Electronic Monitoring

Jaime Pacheco rolled out of bed at dawn last week to the blaring chorus of two alarms. Then Jaime, a 15-year-old high school freshman, smoothed his striped comforter, dumped two scoops of kibble for the dogs out back and strapped a G.P.S. monitor to his belt.

By 7:15, Jaime was in the passenger seat of his grandmother's sport-utility vehicle, holding the little black monitor out the window for the satellite to register. A few miles down the road, at Bryan Adams High School in East Dallas, he got out of the car, said goodbye to his grandmother and paused to press a button on the unit three times. A green light flashed, and then Jaime headed for the cafeteria with plenty of time before the morning bell.

It was not always like this. Jaime used to snooze until 2 p.m. before strolling into school. He fell so far behind that he is failing most of his classes and school officials sent him to truancy court. Instead of juvenile detention, Jaime was selected by a judge to be enrolled in a pilot program at Bryan Adams in which chronically truant students are monitored electronically. Since Jaime started carrying the Global Positioning System unit April 1, he has had perfect attendance.

"I'm just glad they didn't take him to jail," said Jaime's grandmother Diana Mendez, who raised him. "He's a good kid. He was just on a crooked path."

Educators are struggling to meet stricter state and federal mandates, including those of the No Child Left Behind Act, on attendance and graduation rates. The Dallas school system, which, like other large districts, has found it difficult to manage the large numbers of truant students, is among the first in the nation to experiment with the electronic monitoring. "Ten years ago the issue of truancy just slid by," said Jay Smink, executive director of the National Dropout Prevention Center. "Now the regulations are forcing them to adhere to the policies."

Nearly one-third of American students drop out of school, and Dallas has the seventh-worst graduation rate among large school districts, according to a study released in April by America's Promise Alliance, founded by Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state.

At Bryan Adams, 9 of the more than 300 students sent to truancy court this year are enrolled in the six-week pilot program. The effort is financed by a $26,000 grant from Bruce Leadbetter, an equity investor who supports the program's goals. The bulk of the money pays the salary of a full-time case manager, who monitors the students and works with parents and teachers. "I can't do anything with them if they don't come to school," said Cynthia Goodsell, the principal at Bryan Adams.

Kyle Ross, who runs the in-school suspension program at Bryan Adams, was skeptical of the electronic monitoring until he saw that it worked. "We're always yearning for something tangible to use as tools to teach self-efficacy," Mr. Ross said. "Everyone's so overwhelmed. We'll try anything."

Dallas's experiments in tracking truancy started three years ago. Last year, case managers used a G.P.S. system to locate a truant student on the verge of overdosing on drugs, and they discovered that a student had skipped school because he was contemplating suicide.

Ricardo Pacheco, 18, who is no relation to Jaime, said electronic monitoring had helped him get on track last year, despite advice from his friends to "just yank it off." "It was easier to come to school each day, stay out of the streets and be home every night," said Mr. Pacheco, a father of two young children and a former gang leader. Now he is about to become the first male from his father's side of the family to graduate. "They all dropped out or are in jail," Mr. Pacheco said.

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Australia: Stupid woman revives failed Leftist idea

The heavy diversion of teacher attention to problem students required in "integrated" schools deprives normal students of needed attention

QUEENSLAND Liberal Senator Sue Boyce has called for special schools to be scrapped and disabled children sent into mainstream education. Senator Boyce, who has a daughter with Down syndrome, said it was time someone was "brave" and "crazy" enough to push for total integration of students. "We won't fix education until we abolish special schools," Senator Boyce told a Down Syndrome Association of Queensland fundraiser last week. "If mainstream schools had no option but to accept children with disabilities, they would concentrate on how to make it work, not how to avoid getting involved. "And if all the human and funding resources currently tied up in special schools were handed over to the mainstream system, it would be so much easier to make it work."

Senator Boyce said her 24-year-old daughter had always gone to mainstream schools and is now a bakery assistant. "In the 60s and 70s, no one believed a child with Down syndrome could be educated," she said. "Special anything is a way of excluding them from the community."

She said she had yet to express her opinion to her Liberal Party counterparts because it was her "personal view". But Education Minister Julia Gillard said special schools had an important role in educating many Australian students. "The Rudd Labor Government has promised an education revolution to ensure no Australian kids miss out on a quality education," Ms Gillard said last week. "Unfortunately, it seems the Liberal Party's only plan for education is to shut down schools."

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