Author Archives: Andrew Watson

If you teach middle or high school—or if you parent teens—you have no doubt wondered at the chaotic muddle of teenage lives. How can adolescents possibly be so…adolescent?

As you stare in bafflement and awe, dread and bemusement, you may occasionally wish for a wise, insightful, humorous guide: a Virgil who can talk your Dante through the wild experience around you.

Well, let me introduce you to your Virgil: her name is Lisa Damour.

Introductions

Dr. Lisa Damour directs Laurel School’s Center for Research on Girls. (If you don’t subscribe to their newsletter, you should: https://www.laurelschool.org/page.cfm?p=625&LockSSL=true.)

With this experience—combined with her private psychotherapy practice, and her work at Case Western Reserve University—she knows not only the research on adolescence and adolescents, but also their daily school reality.

She understands teens, she understands teachers, and she understands schools—and, she knows from the research. How’s that for a guide?

To help make sense of adolescent muddle, Dr. Damour describes seven predictable and healthy transitions that teens must undertake to arrive at successful adulthood. In her view, many of the puzzles of adolescent behavior—and many of the questions on how to help teens effectively—become manageable and even plausible when understood within this transition framework.

No More Peter Pan

In Damour’s transitional framework, adolescents must first “Part with Childhood” to arrive at adult maturity. As teachers, we don’t always know our students before they come to our classrooms, and so it can be difficult to know their younger selves—and how hard they must work to shuck those selves.

Many of the surprising behaviors of adolescence aren’t so surprising when understood as our students’ fierce attempts—either knowing or unknowing—to put aside childish parts of their past. Feisty rejection of adult authority, indifference to helpful guidance, abrupt swerves between competence and incompetence: all of these dramatic, teenly behaviors make sense when seen as their awkward attempts to negotiate this treacherous first transition.

Deep Pools

One of Damour’s strengths as a writer is her ability to conjure vivid analogies—analogies that both clarify a situation and suggest how to manage it well.

For example: when thinking of your role in a teen’s attempt to part with childhood, consider a swimming pool. (Yes, a swimming pool.)

The water represents the mature, grown up experience in which teens want to swim. And you—the teacher, the parent—are the edge of the pool. You establish the boundaries within which the teens take on their mature experiences. And, crucially, you provide a reliable handhold when they need to hang on to something solid.

In this way, Damour explains one of the most puzzling and painful parts of working with adolescents: “the push off.” After exhausting themselves trying out mature experiences, teens may need to swim back over and hang on to the pool’s edge for a while. That is, they stay close to us, relying on our strength and support. And then, the need to part with childhood strongly reasserts itself, and the teen pushes off. Hard. Suddenly, adult support and experience are as foolish and useless as they were dependable and necessary just a moment ago.

Although Damour does not say so, I think this “pool” analogy helps explain some difficult teacher/parent dynamics as well. Sometimes, teens can hang on to “edge-of-the-pool” teachers in place of “edge-of-the-pool” parents: a hurtful vision for any parent already missing the close connection of years past.

Behind the Lines

Many years ago, I relied on a wonderful school counselor for guidance and advice. During one of our conversations, she said: “I’m not trying to give you a script here…”

I interrupted her: “Why not? I really like your scripts!”

It turns out, her husband hated it when she scripted conversations for him, so she was avoiding providing me with lines.

This counselor’s husband would like Untangled as much as I do, because Damour provides both sample scripts to follow and the logic behind them.

Here’s an example (lightly edited with ellipses) on the topic of sexting:

Find an opportunity to say something such as, “I’ve heard that some boys think it’s okay to text a girl…to ask her to send nude photos or do sexual things. This goes without saying, but just to say it, that’s totally inappropriate behavior on the guy’s part…” Your daughter might brush you off with, “Geez, of course I know that it’s wrong!” but your breath wasn’t wasted…Your daughter will be glad to hear that she’s not the one acting crazy.

For me, knowing both the lines and the reasons behind them makes her suggested words especially helpful.

“More Alike Than Different”

If you didn’t look closely at the subtitle to Untangled, then I may have succeeded in keeping a small secret up to now: Damour centers her book on the experience of adolescent girls. (Perhaps Damour’s next book will focus on boys. Potential title: emBATtled MAN)

I’ve postponed mentioning this focus for a simple reason: much of Damour’s analysis and guidance applies equally well to girls and boys. And—although she pauses every now and then to note gendered differences in adolescent experience—Damour is refreshingly non-doctrinaire about those differences. As she writes in her introduction, “Fundamentally, girls and boys are more alike than they are different, so don’t be surprised to discover that some of the stories and advice that follow speak to your experience of knowing or raising [or, I would add, teaching] a teenage boy.”

In short, while Untangled is informed by the experience of an all-girls school, it will benefit teachers of boys as well. (In fact, in her section on LGBTQ identity, Damour talks briefly about students who identify as transgender. In other words: gender is important in her analysis, but not absolute.)

Final Thoughts 

Given my enthusiasm for Untangled, you may wonder if Damour is a relative, or a creditor. (For the record, she is neither. My niece did attend Laurel School, but they never met.) Although this is one of the most helpful books about adolescents I’ve read in a while, I do think that teachers should approach it ready to make two kinds of translations.

First, Damour focuses on families: adolescent girls and their parents (and, to a lesser degree, siblings). Little of her advice is framed specifically for teachers. As a high school teacher, I do think that the “Seven Transitions” framework is greatly helpful in understanding our students’ behavior. Translating this framework to a teacher’s perspective, in other words, should be easy to do.

Second, teachers will necessarily balance Damour’s experience with their own; in some cases, we may simply disagree. I myself was surprised to read that—in extreme circumstances—she believes that paying students for grades is a least-bad option. For me, the other options would need to be dire indeed to resort to such a strategy.

Damour writes not only about a teen’s need to part with childhood, but also about several other key transitions: joining a “new tribe,” managing emotions, sexual discovery, and so forth. In each of these chapters, her insight, knowledge of research, humor, and empathy all make this tumultuous time seem familiar and manageable to the adults who teach and parent them.

Untangled was released February 2, 2016 and is available here.

A previous article argued, paradoxically, that remembering can cause forgetting. Today’s entry reverses the paradox: forgetting, you see, benefits remembering.

You read that right: if you want to remember, it helps to forget.

Let me explain.

Today in class, I taught my students a new verb tense (or a new technique for proving that lines are parallel, or the Ideal Gas Law). I’ve got twenty practice problems for them to do: what’s the best schedule for those problems?

When I learned French (and Geometry, and Chemistry) in high school, the answer was clear: do all the practicing right now. Whatever I studied in class today, I should practice tonight. In other words, I did those 20 practice problems then night after I learned the new material.

There is, of course, another conceptual option: I could ask my students to spread that practice out over time. They could do five problems tonight, and five tomorrow night, and so on.

Either plan seems plausible: which was is better? Happily, teachers don’t have to guess—we can look at research.

Here’s an example². Hal Pashler’s research team had students come to his lab to learn an unusual math procedure, and practice it by doing 10 problems. A week later, half of those students returned to take a quiz on this procedure; the other half of the students took the same quiz…a MONTH later.

Then, Pasher had another group of students learn the same unusual math procedure—which they practiced by doing 5 problems (not ten, five). They all returned a week later, and did five more practice problems. A week later, half of those students returned to take the quiz; the other half of the students, again, took that quiz a month later.

So, both groups studied the same procedure, and did ten practice problems. The only difference: the schedule on which they did that practicing. Half of them did all the practice at once; the others spread their practice out.

Which group did better?

To put that picture into fewer than a thousand words: by spreading their study out, the second group remembered twice as much as the first group did.

Why did this technique work? Simply put, the second group had time to forget. The first group spent all their time learning. The second group learned, and then forgot, and then learned again. The forgetting benefitted ultimate remembering.

Two serious problems, however, might interfere with our ability to put this research result to practice.

Problem number 1: the students.

Pasher’s research result feels intuitive to most teachers—we’ve always known its’s better to spread practice out over time—but it feels profoundly counter-intuitive to students. They feel deeply in their gut that they should practice, practice, practice RIGHT NOW.

To help students see the benefits of spacing their practice, I regularly show them Pasher’s study. Students LOVE the idea that they can double the amount they remember (61%, instead of 31%) without doing any more practice problems.

Problem number 2: the syllabus.

Although “The Spacing Effect” sounds like a good idea when I think about any one topic, it leads to a potential problem with my syllabus. In the old days, I’d teach one topic on Monday, and then have my students practice that topic Monday night. On Tuesday we’d do the next topic, and they’d practice it on Tuesday night. In short, my syllabus looked like this:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
In Class	Topic A	Topic B	Topic C	Topic D	And So On
Homework	20 A Problems	20 B Problems	20 C Problems	20 D Problems	And So Forth

However, if spread my practice out—perhaps by doing 5 problems per topic each night—my new syllabus will look like this:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
In Class	Topic A	Topic B	Topic C	Topic D	You
Homework	5 A Problems	5 A Problems 5 B Problems	5 A Problems 5 B Problems 5 C Problems	5 A Problems 5 B Problems 5 C Problems 5 D Problems	Get The Idea

The result: Thursday’s homework is a mess. It seems entirely possible that Spacing benefits learning when you do it with one topic in the psychology lab, but that—when teachers try it in the classroom—the muddled syllabus might undermine all the benefits that Spacing should provide. In brief: Spacing Good, Muddling Bad.

Researcher Doug Rohrer has investigated this question, and here’s what he found³.

He had one group of students come to his lab to learn four unusual math procedures. These students read one tutorial, and did practice problems for that procedure; they then read the next tutorial, and did those practice problems, and so forth.

Topic A		Topic B		Topic C		Topic D
A Practice Problems		B Practice Problems		C Practice Problems		D Practice Problems

Another group read all four tutorials, and then did the same practice problems. However, their practice problems were all jumbled together:

Topic A

Topic B

Topic C

Topic D

B

D

A

C

D

B

C

A

C

B

A

D

A

C

D

B

You can see that the first group looks like my first syllabus: nicely organized; the second group looks like Thursday night on my second syllabus: a jumbled muddle. (Rohrer, more politely, calls this second structure “interleaved.”)

When it came to the practice problems, as I feared, the students in the jumbled group didn’t do very well: they got 60% of the problems right, compared to 88% in the traditionally organized group.

However, what happened when Rohrer’s groups came back two weeks later to take a test? The jumbled group, once again, remembered about 60%. The traditionally organized group remembered 20%.

Yes, 20%. Their score fell 66% in two weeks.

Why did that happen?

Two ideas seem most plausible.

First: Rohrer’s first group learned the four math procedures, but they didn’t practice deciding when to use each one. Because their practice problems always aligned with the technique they had just practiced, they never had to figure out when to use which one. So, two weeks later, they struggled to know which equation to use.

Second: Rohrer’s group had more opportunities to forget. Because their practice problems required them to switch from technique to technique, they never could get into a groove. Each problem, they had time to forget the techniques they weren’t practicing, and so had more opportunities to remember those techniques anew.

These two research pools lead to these conclusions: spacing benefits learning (because it allows forgetting). And, spacing requires a jumbled/interleaved syllabus—which also benefits learning (because, again, it allows forgetting).

A final note about research. The “Spacing Effect” is very well documented, and at this point is not controversial. The benefits of interleaving, however, have been shown by fewer studies; and some of the studies with high-school aged students have been equivocal¹. But this much is clear; the combination of spacing & interleaving leads to more learning than the traditional syllabus.

Because, as you now remember, forgetting can help you learn.

References & Further Reading

1. Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58. [Paper]
2. Pashler, H., Rohrer, D., Cepeda, N. J., & Carpenter, S. K. (2007). Enhancing learning and retarding forgetting: Choices and consequences. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 14(2), 187-193. [Paper]
3. Rohrer, D., & Pashler, H. (2010). Recent research on human learning challenges conventional instructional strategies.Educational Researcher, 39(5), 406-412. [Paper]

• Brown, P., Roediger, H. L., & McDaniel, M.A. (2014) Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. [Book]
• Carey, B. (2014). How we learn: The surprising truth about when, where, and why it happens. New York: Random House. [Book]

When teachers say we want our students to learn, we might also say we want them to remember; after all, if I’ve learned something, I can remember it later on. Sadly and surprisingly, there’s a curious danger to remembering: remembering can cause you to forget.

Yes, you read that right. The wrong kind of remembering causes forgetting.

Imagine the following mental exercise—a mental exercise that resembles many research studies¹:

To start, you study a list of words in four different groups—say, Animals (dog, cat), Instruments (guitar, violin), Foods (pizza, steak), and Furniture (sofa, table). After a while, you recall half of the words in two of the groups. For example, in the Animal group, you recall the word “dog” (but not “cat”), and in the Foods group, you recall the word “pizza” (but not “steak”). And you don’t recall any words in the Instrument or Furniture groups.

When I test you on all these words several hours later, there are three logical categories.

First, there are the two groups of words you didn’t recall all: Instruments and Furniture. You’re likely to remember—perhaps—50 % of those words.

Second, there are the words and groups you did recall: the word “dog” in the Animal group, or “pizza” in the Food group. Because you recalled these words, you’re likelier to remember them, so your score will be higher—say, 75%.

Third, there are words that you didn’t recall (“cat,” “steak”) even though you recalled other words in Animal and Food groups.

Take a moment to ask yourself: what percentage of words in this 3rd group are you likely to remember?
Perhaps—because you practiced their groups—you’ll remember them at the 75% level. Or perhaps—because you didn’t practice these specific words—you’ll remember them at the 50% level.

It turns out both answers are wrong. You’ll remember even fewer of those words: say, 40%.

Why? Because practicing some of the words in the Animal and Food categories makes it less likely you’ll remember the un-practiced words. In other words, recalling some of the words prompts you to forget the words you didn’t recall.

The wrong kind of remembering caused you to forget.

In the neuroscience community, there is an active debate about the mechanisms that cause “retrieval-induced forgetting.”^2,3 And while that debate is fascinating, it doesn’t really help teachers answer our constant question: “what should teachers do in the classroom with this scientific information?”

I haven’t read any research that addresses this question directly. (More precisely: I don’t remember having read any research that answers it; perhaps I read it, and forgot the source.) But I think the potential dangers of retrieval-induced forgetting (often abbreviated RIF) should shape our practice in very specific ways—in particular, the way we review.

Here’s an example. In yesterday’s class, my students discussed the five ways that the French and Indian War lay the foundation for the American Revolutionary War. To begin today’s class, naturally, I ask my students what conclusions we reached. One student calls out: “The French and Indian War cost a lot of money, and the British government decided to tax the colonies to pay for it. Those taxes helped spark the revolution.” Exactly so. Another student adds to the list: “George Washington gained essential military training and a cross-colony reputation for bravery.” Because we’ve gone over these two key points from yesterday, I assume my students will be prompted to remember the other three. Confident in this assumption, I move on to today’s new topic…

But there’s a problem here. Yesterday, my students got a list of five key points; today, we began class by reviewing two of them. I hoped—in fact, assumed—that my two-item review will help them remember the other three points. However, if the RIF research is true, then my two-item review will in in fact make it less likely that the students will remember the other three items. Because they practiced two of the examples in this group (“ways that one war set the stage for the next”), they are less likely to remember the un-practiced examples in that group.

When I first read this research, and started thinking about my own teaching practice, I realized with increasing alarm how often I review this way. If we studied ten vocabulary words yesterday, I’ll prompt students to recall two or three. If we looked at eight subject-verb agreement rules, I’ll asked them to jot down two, and discuss them with a partner. Of course, teachers must help their students review the material they learn, but if the first review is incomplete, we may very well be reducing—not increasing—the long-term likelihood that our students remember all the information.

In my own teaching, the RIF research has led to this guideline: the first two or three times I go over a topic, I make sure to cover all of the material that is a) conceptually related and b) equally important:

• “Conceptually related”: RIF results from partial review of conceptually related information only; it influences Animal and Food words, not Instrument and Furniture words.¹ For this reason, I don’t need to review an entire lesson—just the logically connected pieces of it. When I go over five essentials for a strong topic sentence, I don’t also need to review the highlights of “Young Goodman Brown.” We discussed both topics on the same day, but our discussion of the short story was conceptually distinct from our discussion of effective writing.
• “Equally important”: when we go over all five ways that the French and Indian War led to the Revolutionary War, I don’t need to go through the detailed specifics; they’re not as important as the main concept. If I think of my lesson plan in an outline, I should cover all (or none) of the points on the same level of that outline.

One final danger to consider: student directed review might be especially prone to RIF. If students come up with their own list of key terms to remember, for example, their incomplete list might prompt them to forget the examples they didn’t include. As teachers, we need to find mechanisms to ensure that student generated review covers all equally important information.

Of course, research into RIF continues, and we don’t yet completely understand how and why it happens. For teachers, the key point to keep in mind is this: whenever we prompt our students to review, we must be sure that RIF doesn’t cause them to forget what we want them to remember.

References & Further Reading

1. Jonker, T. R., Seli, P., MacLeod, C.M. (2012). Less we forget: Retrieval cues and release from retrieval-induced forgetting. Memory & cognition 40(8), 1236-1245. [Paper]
2. Dobler, I.M. & Bäuml, K.T. (2013). Retrieval-induced forgetting: dynamic effects between retrieval and restudy trials when practice is mixed. Memory & cognition 41(4), 547-557. [Paper]
3. Mall, J.T. & Morey, C.C. (2013). High working memory capacity predicts less retrieval induced forgetting. PLOSOne 8(9), e52806. [Paper]

• Johansson, M. et al. (2007). When remembering causes forgetting: Electrophysiological correlates of retrieval-induced forgetting. Cerebral Cortex 17(6), 1335-1341. [Paper]