By Dr. Mike Davis, Head of School

As a historian, I am often drawn to stories of leaders confronting difficult decisions. There is an intensity to high-stakes decisions that I find compelling. Considerations of justice, ethics, efficacy, as well as many other contextual factors all help shape a leader’s or an individual’s decision making. Often, there is no one right course to pursue, and that complicates things for the decision maker. As history looks at leaders, one who made a great decision is often called “visionary.” To one who makes anything less than a great decision, well, history is not always kind.

 

As the leader of a school, I ponder how we foster the kind of decision making in children that comes with asking the right questions? How do we support the right balance of self-confidence and self-awareness to make informed judgments? How do we ensure young people experience the consequences of their own decisions and actions in a way that allows them to grow from those experiences? Every day, I get to be part of the formation of judgment in young people. It is arguably, one of the most important things that we as teachers and parents do.

 

As any parent can testify, the decision-making process of our children — from a young age to early adulthood can often be a mystery. It can be simultaneously confounding and inspiring. One minute, our children can do the most amazing, sweetest thing we have ever seen. In the next, we as adults can feel like our children are characters in Lord of the Flies! The process of forming judgment plays out in a variety of ways, both in and out of the classroom.

 

Our understanding of the brain has helped us better understand how young brains form and function. This research actually makes things a bit harder. We know that the formation of the frontal lobe—the area of the brain responsible for impulse control and rational decision making is not fully formed until the age of 25. We live in a world in which we don’t use this knowledge to excuse or rationalize away poor behavior or decision making.

 

To do so would set up a child for failure later in life. An article posted on the Brain Connection website, research Deborah Yurgelun-Todd found that, “while adults can use rational decision making processes when facing emotional decisions, adolescent brains are simply not yet equipped to think through things in the same way.” So, decisions that seem obvious to adults about doing the right thing in an ethically challenging situation are not so for teenagers and young people. Dr. Yurgelun-Todd observes, “Good judgment is learned, but you can’t learn it if you don’t have the necessary hardware.”

 

Any authority will say that just because “hardware” may not be there, doesn’t mean that parents should not intervene or guide their children when they make mistakes. Helping young people understand the implications of their actions is critical for their development. I often joke with parents new to the school that we all need to hang a photo of a certain parent of a troubled Hollywood childhood actor on our bathroom mirror to remind us every day why we shouldn’t be “friends” with our kids, but models of moral authority. There are consequences for our actions and words. Sometimes, we can talk through those lessons. Other times there needs to be a response that helps drive the message home.

 

Underlying all of it is a need to be compassionate, understanding, and upfront that our efforts as adults come from a place of love and support. I asked a couple of teachers and administrators to weigh in on this subject. What they say is illuminating.

 

During the Lower School years, we expect children to make some poor choices as part of the process of learning to be a good person. We use those times as teachable moments and almost always, even young children are able to say, “If I could do it over, I would do it differently” and gain a better understanding of their choice or behavior. Oftentimes, young children cannot anticipate the impact of their decisions because they have not encountered situations that require them to make some of these right or ethical choices.

 

Sometimes the situation is too complicated or happens too quickly, and children just react. They really don’t know why they did something. If they have the opportunity to talk it through with a caring adult, they can understand how and why a choice was wrong or hurtful, and they want the opportunity to do better next time. Children take pride in showing that they have learned from a mistake and do better next time.

 

I grew up Italian Catholic so that was a huge head start on “Moral Development.” Mortal and venial sins were fun to discuss, and first confession brought you to examination of conscience and then absolution. Honestly, so many of these concepts are part of my teaching although not taught in a “religious” way. I ask kids to touch base with their consciences when necessary and sometimes even use writing as a way to wade through an issue.

 

Actions have consequences, and being coddled and protected by the realities of life isn’t useful. You just have to pay the piper when you mess up. I try to run a classroom that is firm and fair and consistent as well as loving and filled with high expectations. It is my optimistic belief that children will make good decisions when all of this is in place.

 

Teaching judgment is one of the joys and privileges of teaching English literature. By examining a character’s judgment, both good and bad, students are able to hold a difficult situation at arm’s length, examine it, and reach their own conclusions. For example, right now my ninth graders are reading The Kite Runner, a book in which the main character, Amir, makes a crucial decision to put his own safety over that of his friend and servant, Hassan. Later, he feels so guilty about not protecting Hassan that he frames him for a crime so that Hassan will be fired from his family’s service. Amir's first instance of questionable judgment cascades into really bad judgment. My students are grappling with several questions: What were Amir’s options? What would have happened had he made a different decision? What were the effects of his decisions? Can we sympathize with him at all? What is his moral code, and has he violated his own morals? What decisions in our own day-to-day lives are moral decisions, and what decisions are simply decisions? When is it difficult to abide by our own moral codes? In this way, we’re weighing the causes and effects of someone else’s judgment and decision-making, and applying that model to our own decision making. Furthermore, because these are thorny questions without clear answers, I get to learn alongside my students, seeing something new each time I read a book.

 

In my role as dean, the process is similar except that it doesn’t involve a character’s fictional decisions. It involves a student’s actual decisions. Usually, I’m talking to a student after he or she has made a poor decision and some of the negative effects of that decision have already emerged. Though the process is more difficult if the student is feeling defensive, I ask the same questions I’d ask in a literature discussion: What can you tell me about this situation? Why did you make this decision? What were some of the outcomes? Who did this decision effect? What were your other options? What can you do next time you are in this position? I try to withhold giving my own judgment as long as possible. Ideally the student starts to arrive at some different conclusions than the ones that led to the poor decision in the first place. I always want the student to articulate to me what he or she is going to do to try to prevent arriving in this situation in the future, and if that fails, what different route he or she might take next time this situation arises.

 

When I meet with students to discuss decision making or how to handle a situation, I usually start by having them identify their desired outcome, and then we evaluate if it is realistic or not. Children are usually thrown off by me asking, “What do you want to do about it?” as I think many of them don’t really stop to think how they can impact a situation or that just complaining isn’t a good way to handle it. I have them come up with as many possible ways to get to their outcome and talk about the pros and cons of each idea. In the end, I ask them to choose how they want to handle it, asking questions and posing possible bumps along the way to help them anticipate what’s to come.

 

I find it empowering for students, particularly in Middle School, to have them drive the solution and in the end, have them feel like they were in control and solved the problem on their own, even if it required additional and ongoing support. This gives them the confidence to face the next situation and not run from it or act passively or aggressively.

 

I often role-play situations to have them practice in-the-moment thinking and help them formulate what they want to say and how they want to act.

 

We sometimes forget as adults that part of the mistake making that children do is the product of doing something for the very first time. If we are honest with ourselves, it is unrealistic to think that children will make the right decision the first time they passionately disagree with a friend, stand up to a bully, get really frustrated in class, experience jealousy or encounter any number of other complicated social situations. So often we can help students grow by being clear about community expectations so that they know what we believe the “right choice” is and by helping each develop a wider variety of behavior options. I believe that children bring their “A game” to school and truly try to do the best they can. When they make mistakes, it creates an opportunity to help each learn new skills, new behaviors and new perspectives. Many “oops” moments are because students haven’t explored all of their options before choosing to take action. The more skills and strategies at a child’s disposal, the more likely it is that a better choice will be made.

 

There are some unifying themes here that are instructive. Science tells us that young people don’t always perceive the world, themselves, or their own actions in the same way that we do as adults. That is important knowledge for teachers and parents and should help us be more compassionate when confronting behavior or decision making that can be troubling. When I asked teachers to think about this, Ms. Kolsun Jackson had another key point that I always try to keep in the back of my mind: “Always be ready for that ‘teachable moment’ by talking with kids about the choices they have made, and what the consequence of these choices was, and what a smarter, more thoughtful choice might have been.” She notes that the “parent piece is huge. I love the idea of the MIRROR. Parents just have to hold it up and let it reflect their own behavior. What kids see at home will be a huge influence on them. Consistency is all. Kids want to know what the consequences will be. They look to parents for guidance.”

 

Clearly defining expectations is critical in any learning situation—be that in the choir room, the science lab, the basketball court, or at home. As adults, we are guides for our children as they navigate a wilderness of competing ideas and life decisions.

Imagine you are a young person, reading the news today. With social media and (de)evolution of popular culture, the pathway for knowing what is “right” and “wrong” is not always as clear.

 

As adults, we help young people – not by shielding them from our complex world – but engaging them in it. Using literature and news stories in family conversations is a great way to talk to children about the power of actions and words. Taking on discussions of ethical decisions in real-life (yet abstract) case studies can help students put themselves in the positions of others and begin the process of learning to think like a leader. The influence we have as adults on young people is life-long.

 

As Ms. Kolsun Jackson notes, “Common sense is not a complicated task. For me, it is why I have had 42 successful years in teaching. I learned common sense from a lot of amazing Italians who got off the boat at Ellis Island in 1916. They are with me every day.”