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Add Student Executive Functioning Skills to Your Student Performance Box Score

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In the 2020s, grades and test scores may be alternative facts because they no longer are credible indicators of annual student learning and learning that matters.  Our pandemic experience has exposed indicators of educational and personal development that are more essential life in and beyond school.

Americans love the box scores.  These are a summary display of numbers that tell us who is winning and who is losing.  In every event of significance in our culture there always are winners and losers because we score everything.  Sadly, at this date and time we work harder at discriminating between learning performances than we do in elevating all performances.  In education, the box scores are report cards and transcripts and the numbers of interest are grades, test numbers, and credits earned.

In June, millions of children will celebrate the end of the 2021-22 school year and their promotion to the next grade level or graduation from school.  Their smiles and the pride of their families are immeasurable and worthy of the moment.  Each child will have achieved the box scores required for promotion and graduation.  Congratulations all around!

Blame or give credit to the pandemic; two years of abnormal school life gave us pause to reflect on what we do and how we do it in our schools.  Promotion and graduation in the future may have and need different bell weathers than grades, tests, and credits.  The box scores of the past will not suffice.

Our early pandemic efforts to sustain academic instruction for 4K-12 children caused us to examine the essential nature of teaching and learning in our in-person, remote, and hybrid modeling.  Our continued pandemic efforts caused us to recognize the unheralded, non-academic, dispositional, and inter- and intra-personal skill sets and values of an education that are submerged in the usual nine month, in-person slog of a school year.  More now than pre-pandemic, educators are asking questions about learning that matters and how we understand that learning.

One of the first educational dispositions that leapt to our attention in the pandemic was executive function.  I will post-hole on executive functioning in this writing.  There are a dozen or more other highly significant indicators of education.  Post-holing on executive functions will illustrate how non-traditional, developmental topics should be considered as highly valued indicators of a child’s full education.  Think of these as a new “mattering”.

Usually, we speak of executive functioning as a set of skills that enhance our behaviors for planning and achieving goals.  In school settings, I frequently hear educators refer to these during discussions regarding children demonstrating ADHD characteristics and it always is about the absence of executive functioning skills.  I cannot remember a conversation pointing to where we teach all children these essential planning and doing skills.  We always assume their instructional existence in our curriculum – or how well children not being considered for exceptional education demonstrate executive functioning – without our teaching them.

Across multiple sources, these are the usual skills of executive functioning:

  • Adaptable thinking
  • Planning
  • Self-monitoring
  • Self-control
  • Working memory
  • Time management
  • Organization

Remote students were winners and losers as learners for reasons far beyond their completing or not completing graded assignments or even the quality of their technology.  We observed significant numbers of children in every school and in every grade who were more than lost; they did not know how to begin when on their own.  It was more than disconnection; it was lost in space.  If schools did not have a plan for how to educate children in a pandemic, many children had no idea of how to be a student out of school

As I consider usual report cards, I observe the 3 Rs, mathematics, science, social studies, art, music, physical education, and technology grades and credits.  Add to these the elective experiences that round out a graduate’s final transcript.  We aggregate quiz and test scores, grades on reports, papers, and projects, and report periodic and year end grades as indications of what and how well children have learned. 

Then, I look at report cards for any semblance of executive functioning skills.  While I am told that executive functioning is inherent in a child’s school success, no teacher raises her hand when I ask them to describe how they explicitly teach these functioning skills to their students.  The closest we come to meaningful instruction is providing children a planner/calendar or teaching note taking skills.  We are hit or miss, at best, when it comes to having a plan for all children to learn executive functioning.

I consider a 4K and Kindergarten child and their very early need to use these seven skills.  The introduction and development of phonics-based reading is essential for 4- and 5-year-olds learning how to read.  Equally, each of the seven executive functioning skills is developmentally essential for the same children.  I wonder how children learn to self-monitor themselves and exercise self-control.  I hear teachers telling them to do so, but I cannot find explicit teaching of either.  Memory is a natural brain function, yet we do not explicitly teach for short- or long-term memory.  We tell children to reread and study at home.   A curriculum that explicitly facilitates and supports executive functioning in 4K-5 has provided exponential value to each student everyday and in all subjects.

I consider how child and parent relations at home would be impacted if school invested explicitly in teaching executive functions.  Or, do we assume parents are more equipped and skilled at teaching these skills than professional educators.  This would be a true game changer for most for most families.

Executive functions become more complex with age.  We expect a level of these skills from our youngest children and a more sophisticated demonstration from older children.  We accept gaps in things organization and time management from younger children are less tolerant of those gaps in older children.  Interesting – we can label the deficiency in an executive functioning skill for many children, but I cannot point to a planned school intervention to remedy the deficiency, except in an IEP.  Except, do better next time.

This conversation causes me to wonder how an employer or a post-secondary school would value a school transcript that included the progressive demonstration of executive skill proficiencies?  Would these seven skills be more or less valued than the completion of high school Biology or US History?  Anyone want to make a bet?

A long-retired radio host finished his show with “… when you know what is right, try to do it”.  Apply his advice to the explicit instruction of children next year.  Embed a constant thread of instruction, planned activation, clarification, reinforcement, and celebration of executive functioning by every child in school.  I will bet a bag of Snickers that children who are taught and practice executive functions will not only demonstrate improved satisfaction with school but will raise the numbers in their other box scores.

Mission Creep Happens

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One day you take a pause, look around, and wonder, “How did we get here?  Is this where we are supposed to be?”.  You find yourself in a place and circumstance you had not anticipated.  A school is not immune from this wonderment.

Organizational creep is a phenomenon not a person though there may be similarities between the two.  The verb to creep is to move slowly and carefully and to creep has many applications in our language.  The botanical verb to creep is to grow by the extension of roots and branches.  Creeping is natural in nature.  In human endeavors, children creep to become taller and more adult-like over time.  Habits creep up on us, especially the late-night snack’s effect when we step on a bathroom scale in the morning.  Groups and organizations also creep, especially in their mission, purpose, and goals.  Mission creep occurs when an organization’s actions stray beyond the stated mission of the organization.  The outcome of creeping means the organization may no longer be faithful to its initial and stated mission, but become bit off-centered in trying to be something it isn’t intended to be.

Life gives us many examples of organizational creep.  As a micro example, an idea for a new project is presented to a group of decision makers.  In the initial explanation, the idea is straightforward.  The focus of the new idea is to create new eco-friendly space that people in the organization can enjoy in a relaxing moment – a break area.  Every person enjoys breaks, lunch, before and after work moments and this place will be enhance their relaxation and be eco-friendly to boot.  Keep it simple.  A budget of $1,000 is approved and the idea is launched.

Ah, but after a few months the tables and chairs no longer fit the concept and benches and tall boys are wanted.  An eco space calls for greenery and plantings are ordered and installed.  The new space is appealing and more folks use it.  At the close of year one, expenses total $5,000, well over the approved budget, but because the space is popular and used no one points to the budget over run.  During year two, users ask if they can bring some of their work to the eco area and work there.  Just a few users initially are interested, but the space will need new infrastructure.  WIFI and electrical outlets are installed.  Now more users are interested and management of the eco space is required to efficiently schedule its use.  And, to do increased maintenance.  And, to be present to support users who have work-related needs.  At the start of year three, decision makers are asked to approve hiring an eco space facilitator at $15.00 an hour.  That wage is $31,200 a year.  Mission creep achieved.  Break room becomes new work environment and $1,000 per year becomes $30,000-plus.  Simple is as simple does; it creeps toward complexity.

Or, is this example an example of a good idea becoming a better idea?  Retrace back to the initial purpose: an enhanced space for moments of relaxation in a workday.  Retrace back to the initial cost/effect: $1,000 for a small concept.  Retrace the decision making: instead of the mission driving decisions the space drove the decisions.  Creep.

Schools see unintentional organizational creep all the time.  Most creeping is additive and addictive.  A classroom wants new shelving for more reading materials for children to read while in the classroom.  Done.  Materials go digital and the classroom wants several computer carousels.  Done.  Tech goes personal.  The classroom wants an IPad for each child.  Done.  The new tech needs more WIFI and electrical outlets.  Done.  A behavioral study indicates that in class reading time increased with the addition of more reading material and remained at that level with the addition of computer carousels and IPads and WIFI and electricals.  The mission of reading improvement was overcome by the mission to change with the times. 

We also observe mission creep by inadvertently altering time for instruction.  An elementary school has a balanced approach to academics, arts, PE, and foreign language instruction.  The balance is that children receive instruction in all these subjects each day of the school week.  When annual assessments indicate that many K-5 children are not making expected progress in numeracy and mathematical problem solving, a school conducts a study looking for improved curriculum.  The new adoption requires more minutes each day for math instruction.  Done.  On another front, children whose reading achievement is below expectation are assigned to work with a reading interventionist.  The time for this additional work is carved out of the full instructional day and children who do not need intervention are provided time for personalized reading.  The upshot to these changes is that instructional time for art, music, PE, and foreign language are reduced.  At first the reduction was in minutes per day for these “specials” and later a shift to alternating day instruction in specials and then to once-a-week instruction.  Achievement assessments indicate that performance in math and reading improved with additional time.  Learning and individual growth in art, music, PE, and foreign language diminished with the loss of time.  And, interest in art, music, and foreign language decreased.  At no point did the school evaluate its mission for K-5 education or proclaim a change from a balanced time approach to an increased focus on academics approach.  The school crept from balance to imbalance.  After the fact, we find our creeping has inadvertent outcomes.

How to prevent creep?  Regularly check yourself in the organizational mirror.  In the left hand, hold up your adopted mission statement.  In the right hand, hold up a snapshot of your organizational structure including where you spend time, money, and resources.  Does your right hand reflect the priorities and commitments of your left hand?  If these align, your organization still has fidelity with its stated mission.  If not, your organization is experiencing creep.  It is time to reconsider your mission or to rescale your organizational behaviors.  Either reconsideration or rescaling may be appropriate as doing something is required to re-achieve organizational fidelity to mission and purpose.  Sometimes we outgrow our mission and the mission must change.  Sometimes we creep beyond our mission and we must realign our work to the continuing mission.