Paul Tough is cool Part 2: Getting Nerdy

So as I mentioned recently, I got to hear Paul Tough talk about how cool Attachment Theory. Paul Tough + Attachment = a double score in my book. If you're interested in a little sample of Tough's writings, check out this article. As I also mentioned, I was too nervous to ask any questions or make any comments in the public space after the talk, and only barely got up the guts to approach him directly. My thoughts were a bit insecure and a bit nerdy, getting into research studies I felt vaguely familiar with. If I had had more chutzpah, here are a few of the things I would have wanted to engage on:

First of all, if you don't know about Emmy Werner, you haven't had too much of a conversation with me about children or education. I'm enthralled by her work. So because that's probably true of most people reading this post, I'm gonna tell you about her now. Werner did a 32 year longitudinal study in Hawaii of children born in various circumstances, from wealthy to poor, two parents and none, homes with drug abuse or substance free, etc. [ Emmy Werner's work on Resilience.] After she sorted the babies born according to degrees of risk factors [like poverty, single parents, substance abuse], she found that a significant portion of the high-risk children actually grew up to be "competent and caring adults." Or in other words, despite being born into rough circumstances, the majority of those children were resilient. She found three protective factors that lead to resilience:

1)  Presence of a Caring Adult [Certainly consistent with attachment theory! But if not the mother, someone like a teacher or a coach or youth pastor can certainly play this roll]

2) High Expectations

3) Meaningful Opportunities [such as community service or leadership]

Her studies are certainly much more involved, but that's the nutshell as it's been taught to me. Isn't that inspiring and hopeful? Aren't those things as a community that we should be able to provide children? Even, and especially, children who may not have had positive attachments until they get exposed to a broader community, such as through a school. So cool. I think her study should be required knowledge for anyone working with children!

More later . . .