Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children

by Roberta Michnick Golinkoff

Even if school has kids working solo, there are other venues where kids can get the scaffolding they need to build collaboration.

Ever play Candyland—and then play Candyland again and again? Although parents may be ready to tear their hair out, their children are learning to take turns and wait until one finishes before the other launches. We all remember when these concepts were foreign to our children; they needed to learn to play board games and we were key in that mix—the scaffolds to collaboration.

LEVEL 3: BACK AND FORTH

In Level 3, children pursue their loosely defined common interests. But at least they are aware that there are “other” interests. They show a level of self-control (well sometimes at least) in that they don’t bash each other’s sand creations. Back in 1932, Parten called this associative play. You know you are seeing Level 3 when children appear more interested in one another than in the toys they are playing with.

Culture matters. Growing up a “country mouse” in a collective society—like in a kibbutz in Israel—might make you more likely to collaborate than if you were raised as a “city mouse,” where it’s more important to do things independently.

Want kids to collaborate? Have them learn that you get more prizes by helping each other than going it alone.

are they learning more than if they didn’t work together to discuss the story? Robert Slavin of Johns Hopkins University and the Johnson brothers at the University of Minnesota showed that back-and-forth discussions increase learning over the usual sitting-in-your-seat competitive kind of learning. Competition has only a couple of “winners,” whereas collaboration yields more. Collaboration expands language skills and encourages kids like Jamal and Shevon to express their ideas. Listening to others’ ideas and learning debate skills can be handy in life—with your spouse as well as on the job. Even shy children (remember that kid in elementary school who never spoke up?) are more likely to talk and take risks in small groups—and are more likely to be heard.

One group of over 200 students heard standard 3-hour lectures in quantum mechanics from a highly experienced lecturer who actually received great course evaluations. The other group of students got a “green” postdoctoral fellow to be available to answer their questions during the class. This group spent virtually the whole class working in teams to practice “thinking scientifically.”

the professor passes out a series

of challenging questions and problems to provoke them to think like physicists. As they talk over the questions little glimmers of understanding arise and their faces alternate between happy and sober. Finally, after they are pretty sure they understand the problems, they independently write a response to the questions and turn them in.

Chavrusa, also spelled chavruta or havruta (Aramaic: חַבְרוּתָא, lit. "friendship" or "companionship"), is a traditional rabbinic approach to Talmudic study in which a small group of students (usually 2-5) analyze, discuss, and debate a shared text. It is a primary learning method in yeshivas and kollels, where students often engage regular study partners of similar knowledge and ability,

Michael Schrage wrote the book Shared Minds: New Technologies of Collaboration.22

Book

Defining the goal of the collaboration is obviously the first step.

Who should collaborate is the next question. Collaboration thrives on differences in opinion, not similarities.

As Casey Stengel, legendary former manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers said, “Gettin’ good players is easy. Gettin’ ’em to play together is the hard part.”

LEVEL 4: BUILDING IT TOGETHER

are some universal characteristics that underlie these collaborations: First, these pairs all had a clear goal:

There has to be a shared passion about the importance of the goal and wanting to reach it—almost at all costs. Second, trust between the collaborators is necessary. In real collaborations, partners can disagree and dispute vehemently. Often, great joint ideas are born in their debates. After he won the Nobel Prize with Watson for discovering the structure of DNA, Crick said, “Politeness is the poison of all good collaboration in science.”26

Finally, the input of each member must be valued and there must be a sense of joint responsibility for the product that emerges. This also involves having respect for one another and the self-control to let each person speak his or her mind.

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well. If working with colleagues for a long time on the same problem sounds a lot like what you might do in industry or in a science lab, you’re right on! This is exactly how new ideas are born and evaluated. In the best Level 4 style, communities (in business, in science, in engineering, and many others) solve problems together. Organizations that collaborate at Level 4 rarely have management offer solutions from the top down; instead, solutions percolate from the bottom up as groups work together to find answers.

Wikipedia exemplifies building it together:

Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams wrote a book inspired by Wikipedia called Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.

Book

“connect and develop” is P&G’s slogan, and “PFE” or “proudly found elsewhere”

exactly what Peter Drucker predicted. With knowledge abounding, Drucker looked into his crystal ball and saw that key to future business success was collaboration outside the company and with those who in a past life would have been called competitors.

Drucker told Edersheim that we now live in a “LEGO world.” Companies are working across geographical and business boundaries to join their people LEGO, product LEGO, and idea LEGO and then pull them apart and reassemble them into a new Lego structure to start all over again.

Once we’ve established that we can work together, we do so by setting up strong lines of communication that allow us to build a common vocabulary and hear one another’s narratives.

How do you know collaboration when you see it?

just as we seek moments to grow rugged individualism, we must also seek moments to grow our social skills. We often believe that we should focus on the content, the learning of facts, and that the social stuff will take care of itself. However, these “soft skills” take practice, too, and there are plenty of opportunities to move our children from being the independent soul to one who also embraces the chance to build something as a part of a team.

Collaboration is critical to many of the outcomes we want for our kids. Happiness requires friendships and self-control. Research has suggested that people who feel like they belong and have social companions are healthier and more fulfilled individuals. Cognitive skills also need collaboration so that the weaknesses I have are balanced out by the strengths you have. This is why collaborations often—though not always—yield better outcomes than working solo. And finally, being part of a community fuels what we as individuals do best: thinking about how our place in the world makes a difference for others.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. —George Bernard Shaw, cited in Marlene Caroselli, Leadership Skills for Managers

Moving from the age of technology to the age of information parallels historic shifts that we have seen before, when society leaped from an oral system to one influenced by Gutenberg’s printing press.

“The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.”2 If only Priestly had been around to see Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter! Humans are hungry for communication and connection.

Ninety-five percent of people between the ages of 18 and 24 sent or received an average of 109.5 text messages a day in 2011, according to the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project.

Data

We found that babies learn words better from people than from television; this by itself is a well-known finding. But we also found that it didn’t matter whether the human teaching the word was sitting right next to the baby or on Skype. It turns out that those conversations with grandparents really work!

Best practice