LEANING IN to Single-Sex Education (originally appeared on The Huffington Post)

So much ink has already been used up discussing one of the hottest books in recent memory, Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In. For that reason I was hesitant to add my two cents, even though I had many thoughts while reading the book (Not the least of which was, "Wait, I feel like I do all this, so why am I not Sandberg?!" Although, I still have nine more years to become the fifth most powerful woman in the world I suppose...). But I realized that I hadn't read some of things I was thinking, so I wanted to share. The below piece, originally published on The Huffington Post, focuses on single-sex education as one way for young women to learn how to lean in. I also want to add that I found it pretty egregious that Sandberg didn't discuss Larry Summers' 2005 remarks on women and science. I understand that he is her mentor, but it just screamed out to be addressed. I suppose it's yet another example of why women need to lean in, but I would have appreciated hearing her perspective on the incident (more than knowing that the incident with her children and lice occurred on a private jet as opposed to commercial aircraft-- since the private part didn't really matter for her overall point).

Most of my other thoughts (besides my own personal anecdotes and experiences) have been addressed by others far more eloquent than yours truly. But I'd love to hear what you think, so feel free to leave me a comment here or on Facebook/Twitter!

When people find out I'm the product of eight years of all-girls' schooling they often ask what the best part of the experience was. I usually answer, only half-joking, "I rarely had to shave my legs."

Lately I've been thinking more seriously about my single-sex education after devouring Sheryl Sandberg's now infamous Lean In. One of Sandberg's bigger points is that a lot of work needs to be done long before women are in careers, graduate school, or even college, in order to teach them how to lean in. Given this focus on childhood and adolescence I'm surprised that all-girls' schools haven't been discussed in the same breath as Sandberg's long-term project. Based on my experience, and my research on competition, gender, and education, promoting all-girls' education in the grade school years is a useful strategy to raise women who know how to lean in throughout life.

In Lean In Sandberg explains that as a child she used to organize all the neighborhood children and tell them what to do. But to this day she cringes when her siblings tell this story because: "When a girl tries to lead, she is often labeled bossy. Boys are seldom called bossy because a boy taking the role of a boss does not surprise or offend."

My professional, adult self certainly understands this sentiment, but my 13-year-old self would have been confused. At 13 I would have said that of course girls need to be bossy -- who else would lead? I always thought of girls as the sports stars and the valedictorians, because at my school they were.

I took this attitude with me into high school, a building that sat next to an all-boys' school. Some of my classes were coed. The boys came over for European history and drama, classes where I always positioned myself in the front row, preferring the "visiting" boys sit behind me. To my teenage self they were clearly infringing on my territory and I made sure I outperformed them. That confidence translated when I went next door for Latin, where I righteously covered my tests with my arm to make sure the boy sitting behind me couldn't cheat off of me (a trick he only got away with once).

When I arrived at Harvard (also Sandberg's alma mater) I was never afraid to raise my hand in a seminar, and I quickly learned that the best way to be heard meant jumping into the discussion and not waiting to be recognized. I credit my earlier classroom experiences for my chutzpah.

But being a social scientist I can't help but look to the literature (incidentally, the well-researched footnotes are one of Lean In's strongest features, and worth a read), and that's when the picture becomes more complicated. A 2009 study by professors at UCLA's Graduate School of Education & Information Studies presented data that graduates of all-girls' schools show stronger academic orientations, especially in math and computer skills, and higher standardized tests scores, than their coed counterparts. Other studies have acknowledged that all-girls' education doesn't necessarily improve academic performance, but they haven't found that it hurts either. A well-publicized 2011 Science paper disagreed, proclaiming that single-sex education can have a long-term negative effect by promoting gender stereotypes.

CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING ON THE HUFFINGTON POST BOOKS!

Short of being able to do twin experiments (where one identical twin goes to a coed school and the other goes to a single-sex school), we may never know the precise effect of what learning in a single-sex environment does for girls. But we can know how people assess their experiences -- like me and my former classmates.

Thanks in part to Sandberg and her Facebook team, I know that many of the girls I attended middle and high school with have made a variety of different choices as women: some are married, many have children, and some are stay-at-home moms while others are doctors or lawyers (one even premiered at the Metropolitan Opera this month, while still nursing her five-month-old son). We all learned as young women the hard-to-measure notion that females can be leaders in any area just by looking around us at our peers. This knowledge and the confidence that comes with it can't be discounted.

And while we're at it, ladies, it's also worth remembering that shaving your legs every day isn't a necessity -- and not doing so leaves more time for all kinds of leaning in.

My Review of Brooklyn Castle (originally posted on The Huffington Post Entertainment)

It's always great fun to see visual depictions and analysis of activities I've studied. Unlike Dance Moms, the drama in the recent documentary Brooklyn Castle isn't manufactured. It brings an important story, and activity, to a broader audience-- in a way not done since the 1993 movie Searching for Bobby Fischer. Below is my review of the documentary, originally published on The Huffington Post as "Cheering for a Mate in Two", but I wanted to add a few other thoughts.  Chess is one of the three competitive activities I studied for my dissertation (and now FORTHCOMING book!), Playing to Win. I actually met two of the stars of Brooklyn Castle when they were still in grade school. I've written about the Bryant twins (and Justus Williams, who is also a focus of Brooklyn Castle) before, but here I am with them the summer we first met. Hard to believe they are now thinking about college.

I wanted to quickly highlight some things in Brooklyn Castle that might surprise you, and say that these are totally consistent with all my research on scholastic chess.  These include seeing kids cry at tournaments, noticing that most of the kids have little to no desire to be professional chess players and instead want to be doctors or lawyers or involved in business, observing that most of the kids are scared to lose their ranking and rating (especially in a public way) and that this is especially true when it comes to competing against a teammate and not a total stranger, and noting that while it shouldn't matter how much money you have when you play chess resources clearly matter in terms of keeping kids off the streets and getting them access to the best coaches. All of this is competitive kid capital in action.

CLICK HERE TO READ OVER AT THE HUFFINGTON POST!

You might not know how to play chess. Or you might think chess is boring. But that shouldn't stop you from seeing a documentary about some special middle school kids who are pretty good competitive chess players and anything but boring.

Brooklyn Castle features a group of students and their teachers at I.S. 138 in Brooklyn. Approximately 65 percent of 138's students live below the federal poverty line. But the school offers them the opportunity to pursue about 45 different activities afterschool. One of those activities is chess.

And pursue chess they have. The school has won more national championships than any other junior high in the country. In fact, last year they became the first middle school team to ever win a high school championship.

Brooklyn Castle follows the school's chess club for one year, from spring 2009 to spring 2010. Students come and go but the supportive teachers and administrators remain the same. Over 100 kids vie for a spot to represent 138 at state and national championships; the team roster shrinks during the course of Brooklyn Castle thanks to the economic crisis and subsequent school budget cuts. It's serious stuff, but the filmmakers have made the students' and teachers' reaction to all the dramas entertaining.

Despite financial setbacks the students achieve a variety of personal and team goals both on and off the chess board. Eighth grader Pobo runs for school president and another eighth grader, Alexis, studies for the exam he must do well on in order to be accepted into a selective public high school. Eleven-year-old Patrick has more personal goals, like earning a high enough rating to represent his school at a chess tournament, which is particularly difficult for him given his ADHD.

In many ways Patrick is the most intriguing subject in Brooklyn Castle because he was the only one of the five featured students portrayed as a true underdog. While we are often told that the kids of I.S. 138 are poor and that the school faces serious budget cuts, what we see is slightly different. In the end the school finds a way to send its top players to multiple events throughout the year that require travel and hotel stays. These kids are coached -- sometimes privately -- by Grand Masters, an opportunity thousands of young chess players would relish. Alexis, whose immigrant family isn't well-off, is shown studying for that selective high school test with a prep book. Even if his family did not buy the book and it was donated, Alexis has access to a resource that tens of thousands of NYC students simply don't have. Because Patrick isn't one of the top players on the team, like Alexis and Pobo, he doesn't get as many extras and he has to look to fellow student Pobo to "coach" him to help achieve his chess goals.

Other documentaries have shown how young students cope with differential access to resources in competitive settings in more nuanced ways. 2002's Academy Award-nominated Spellbound focuses on middle school kids like those in Brooklyn Castle. In Spellbound we see a range of experiences from across the country -- from the West Coast kid whose dad pays people to pray for his son during the Bee to the East Coast girl who lives in one of the worst areas of D.C. -- and the ability to compare gives the viewer an appreciation for what each individual student accomplishes in the finals. Another documentary, Mad Hot Ballroom (shortlisted for a 2005 Academy Award), focuses on competitive ballroom dancing in the New York City public school system among elementary school students. Both Brooklyn Castle and Mad Hot Ballroom have similar messages in terms of the need to fund afterschool programs, but Mad Hot Ballroom never explicitly lays out the need to support the arts in schools the way Brooklyn Castle does. The economic climate has certainly changed since 2005, and film-goers have become accustomed to numbers and statistics in documentaries about education (as in 2010's Waiting for Superman [for my review click here]), but the understated yet clear message in Mad Hot Ballroom may have been even more effective in Brooklyn Castle.

The best spokesperson for the importance of chess is 138's chess coach, Elizabeth Vicary Spiegel, arguably the breakout star of the film. Spiegel's calm eyes, but energetic coaching and teaching style, make you wish you had a teacher like her in middle school. Spiegel cogently explains how chess can impact children's lives by teaching them particularly lessons -- like learning how to think through problems, how to be patient, how to make a plan, etc. She is shown supporting not only her top players, but also her weaker players, like Patrick. Spiegel appears to be able to zero in on what each student needs to work on both on and off the board to help them succeed in the present, and hopefully in the future as well.

We need more coaches and teachers like Elizabeth Vicary Spiegel in classrooms across the country. We need more characters like her on film. And, we need more films like Brooklyn Castle. This documentary is better than almost any reality television show on related children's activities (like dance or beauty pageants) because of the serious tone with which it treats its subjects. Even if you don't know how to play chess, trust me, and check out Brooklyn Castle. You'll find yourself cheering for a mate in two despite yourself.

Reading Round-Up on Kids and Competitive Activities (mix of YA and MG fiction books)

Because of my research on kids and competition (especially beauty pageants and dance, which often bleeds into cheer, and athletics) and my own love of reading, I often read youth literature on these topics-- which I've written about before.  Most of the time this has meant Young Adult (YA) books, but more recently I've noticed more Middle Grade (MG) books on these topics as well.  What's the difference between YA and MG? Here's the best thing I've read about the differences between the two (and, according to a Tweet today by NYT publishing reporter Leslie Kaufman, the NYT will now break out YA and MG books on its children's bestseller list).  I would also add, as someone who has read both of Suzanne Collins' series, that The Hunger Games trilogy is YA (and adult-friendly) whereas her Gregor the Overlander five-book series is clearly MG. In any case, here are my quick takes on these five recent books, some of which may appeal to some special young person in your life for the holidays!

1) Dare Me- The darkest of this group of books, Megan Abbott's latest is definitely YA, with sex, drinking, and death taking center stage in her atmospheric and psychological novel on the young woman's psyche.  Outside competitions take second-place to the internal competition on this high school cheerleading squad.  Even if you don't know anything about cheerleading you can appreciate this book (in fact, some hardcore all-star cheerleaders may be distracted by the way competition operates for this high school squad).  Teen girls will love this, even if it makes mom uncomfortable.

2) Fifteen Love- The latest in the Pretty Tough series, which I've written about before, this installment focuses on twin sisters starting ninth grade who play competitive tennis.  It is definitely the best in the series thus far.  The characters are believable and it is very accurately situated in today's tough scholastic high school environment; for example, one of the main characters asks on page 3, "When did high school become a career?"  And this exchange captures the spirit of the book very well:

"Right. Snowboarding. You know, it's not like you can get a scholarship or win any money messing around with stuff that doesn't matter."

"Uh, not that I care about winning money or medals, but actually, yes, I can. Ever hear of the X Games? Or the Super Jam? How about the Olympics? They're adding more action sports events every year!" I roll my eyes. "But it's not about the fame and glory for me-- it's about having fun." [page 10]

3) Pinned- Sharon Flake's latest also focuses on two ninth graders-- Autumn and Adonis.  The two are very different, but are drawn together.  Autumn is a top wrestler on her high school's team here she is the only female (female wrestlers are quite the topic on this blog and in general these days) while Adonis is the team's manager. He doesn't wrestle because he doesn't have lower legs.  The book will appeal to those who like to read, like Adonis, and those who may struggle, like Autumn.  Autumn's chapters are written as she speaks; I'm not a literacy expert but I did wonder if that might make it more difficult to read for those who find reading challenging already? In any cause, it's beautifully voiced and presents universal themes in a different way.  My favorite passage from the book is at the very beginning, when Autumn explains what she likes about wrestling: "You work hard and discipline yourself, and you can be somebody in this sport. And it don't matter if you big or small. Fat or skinny. Rocking killer grades or not."

4) Prettiest Doll- Set in Missouri this middle grade (in my opinion) novel is quite an accurate portrayal of life in child beauty pageants away from the all high-glitz circuit presented in shows like Toddlers & Tiaras. With elements of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler  (one of my all time favorite stories), you don't have to be interested in pageants to be interested in this book.  I like that the pageants aren't sensationalized, presenting both the good and the bad, and that other important issues in children's lives are discussed.  The book, which is a quick and enjoyable read, also addresses a variety of complicated parental relationships well and has a lasting and realistic take-away message.

5) Someday Dancer- Sarah Rubin's debut novel will appeal most to young dancers who don't quite fit the traditional ballet mode.  The most interesting feature here is that the book is set in the late 1950s, so it offers a very different perspective on adolescence, art, and dance.  The main character discovers modern dance, just after modern dance is "invented."  Several dance greats make appearances, which means that those interested in the arts will learn something about its history.  That such young girls traveled by themselves, overnight by bus, to pursue their dreams may shock some readers and enchant others.  But such sacrifices are also made by young dancers today (which you can see more of if you watch the STUPENDOUS ballet documentary First Position).

I'm looking forward to blogging about some other YA novels soon-- and sharing some new reading news for 2103 soon!

Turkey Trots for Tots

Prodigies are always a hot topic, and with the publication of Andrew Solomon's Far From the Tree, they have been back in the news.  While prodigies tend to come from fields where it is not necessary to go through physical maturation first (like music, math, chess, etc.), that is beginning to change as some parents push their kids to become pint-sized phenoms at younger and younger ages.  With the development of the Internet and many more organized competitions in a variety of fields it's become easier to develop skill and talent in a variety of fields and activities. Running is one such area.  Unlike baseball and football, which require specialized skills (although, as I wrote about last month, even football is seeing young stars in areas like quarterback), kids learn to start running shortly after they learn to walk.  Three female running prodigies have recently made headlines.

1) Mary Cain-While she might not seem like a true prodigy given that she is 16, Cain is a prodigy when it comes to (middle- and long-distance) running-- a sport where women often do not peak until their 20s and even 30s.  Cain is setting records (she set the American high school record in the 1500m at the World Junior Championships) and she is already so good that she caught the eye of legendary running coach Alberto Salazar, who is coaching her long-distance (pun intended).  Cain is so good that she stopped running for her high school team and is now running as an independent-- though she is careful to preserve her NCAA eligibility.

2) Katylynn and Heather Welsch-  The Welsch sisters likely aspire to be a runner like Cain someday.  Today the girls inspire strong feelings-- sometimes admiration and awe, but more often concern and consternation.  At only 12 and 10 they often compete in 13-mile trail runs and even in marathons.  Their father coaches them in running and biking and pushes them to run faster than some men.  The long NYT feature on them raised some question marks as it describes tears, injuries, and a high-level of parental involvement.  While it's true that it's difficult to say what is best for a child, and I wouldn't presume to do so, I will hazard a guess that 4-6 years from now these girls won't be competing the way Cain does.  Burnout and/or the puberty monster (hopefully they will hit puberty at a normal rate) will likely strike. Extreme, young athletes like the Welsch girls raise questions about how young is too young for little bodies.

My husband, who is a serious runner, is eager to get our son Carston running.  Given John's competitive style, which I've written about before when it comes to our son swimming, this is not surprising.  It also shouldn't be surprising that when John found out there was a kids' race as part of his traditional turkey trot race, he signed up our ten-month-old...

The "Kids' K" was 100 yards and Carston "ran" in the 4 and under age division.  While he did start walking on his own about a week before the race, we had him use the little wooden walker he likes to use to tool around the house.

We also made sure to get a training "run" in beforehand to see if he could actually do the full distance.  While slightly tongue-in-cheek, you can definitely get a sense of the fun chaos in our house-- and our different parenting styles-- from this video.

So how did the actual race go? Before the race started Carston was very interested in the race official, as you can see.

You may have noticed that according to his bib he was number 1.  No, he wasn't the first one to sign up-- every child is given the number 1.  Even among the youngest kids I find this (as someone who studies kids and competition) slightly ridiculous.  In a race it is very clear-- even to a three-year-old-- who finished first, second, third, etc.  In other competitions like chess and dance it's less obvious so I can understand other choices, but not so in running.

In any case, we held the Little Man back until the final heat in the 4 and under set (there were four, from what I could tell).  He obviously got off to a pretty slow start.  Here he is on the race course.

After getting a lift to the finish line (distracted by the cold and crowd he lost focus, unlike in his training video), he ended strong-- but only barely before the 5-6 age division started.

At the finish line every child got a medal.  As I discovered while research Playing to Win, younger kids are quite taken with participation awards.  But once they hit first grade or so they become much savvier.  For this reason I'm sure that the 8-12 year-olds in particular would have much preferred an actual trophy if they won.  In any case, I'm sure that someday Carston will appreciate his first medal that is just about his current length! In the interest of full disclosure, which gives you some real insight into how I feel about this medal, when his relatives said, "Oh, look what you won!" I replied, "Well, he didn't really win it, but I guess he earned it."

After the Kids' K, I bundled the Little Man up so John could push him in the five-mile race.  John was actually the first person to finish the race while pushing a running stroller, so there's hope for Carston's competitive juices yet-- if only he'd been awake to see the big finish.  By mile 2 Carston was out cold and he slept right on through the finish line and the walk back to our car.

Running is a great activity for kids.  It burns off energy and can promote overall health.  But like most things, when taken to an extreme it can be a negative experience.  I don't envision Carstonr unning endurance races at age 10, but it'd be great if he was setting records at 16...

In any case I'm guessing even next year at 22 months he won't be very competitive at the Feaster Five.  But I'm sure he'll enter, if only to get another shirt like this one.

The Competition-Performance Relation and Dance

When I read Matt Richtel's article, "The Competing Views on Competition," last month in The New York Times I couldn't stop thinking about what one of the chess moms I met told me while I was researching Playing to Win: "Raising kids is a big experiment and I won't know till later if I did it right."  The truth, of course, is that we may never know if we did it "right." One of the main takeaways of Richtel's article about the role of competitiveness in raising healthy children is that there is-- not surprisingly-- a lot of competing (pun intended) advice out there about kids and competition.  As evidence he mentions a meta-analysis that was forthcoming in Psychological Bulletin. 

I recently got my hands on the article, and the two responses to it, and was struck by two brief excerpts.  The first is from the main article, "The Competition-Performance Relation: A Meta-Analytic Review and Test of the Opposing Processes Model of Competition and Performance."  Don't let the long title scare you, because here is the main find: "The take home message from the present research is that at the level of individual psychological processes, competition appears to be neither entirely beneficial nor entirely detrimental to performance.  Rather, our work indicates that the competition-performance relation varies as a function of the type of achievement goals pursued."  This also means that it can vary for the same person in different situations.  It's not realistic to turn away from all forms of competition because, as some critics explain in a response, "Competition is pervasive and an important aspect of human life.  Many people every day are involved in mandatory competitions in educational and career settings whether they want to be or not."

One setting in which competition is a fact of life is the dance world, which I've written about before as competitive dance is one of the featured activities in Playing to Win.  Dancers are constantly ranked in class and in roles for productions and in formal competitions.  Those formal competitions have become even more public as of late.  Recently my DVR has been filled with shows featuring dance competitions-- some of them healthier than others.  Below are my thoughts on some of these shows.

1) Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition- While So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing with the Stars started the competitive reality show craze over dance, Dance Moms started the candid reality show craze.  But the teacher featured in Dance Moms, Abby Lee Miller,obviously had to get in on the competitive reality show market too. So Lifetime came up with this (also featuring Robin Antin of Pussycat Dolls fame, who has her own family history with reality shows, and Richy Jackson, known to many for his association with Lady Gaga and Laurie Ann Gibson). This show is pretty bad-- and the viewers seem to agree as the show earns significantly worse ratings than Dance Moms. The show isn't just about the kids' dancing, it's about whose mom creates more drama and makes better TV.  In this case the competition is more about character than talent.

2) Down South Dance- This one-hour TLC special featured two rival clogging teams.  Clogging is a cross between Irish dancing and tap and involves lots of group precision and rhythm.  The show-- which seemed like a pilot for a possible series-- is in the vein of other TLC shows, setting up dramatic rivalries among big personalities in a relatively obscure activity.  Of course, this being TLC,  injuries, momma drama, and poaching were all plot lines.  In any event the competition here is definitely between teams.

3) The Big Jig- This one-hour TLC special featured five American girls competing in the 2012 Irish Dancing "Worlds."  At this point I'm guessing that each year we can expect a one-hour TLC special about the Irish Dancing World Championships given that TLC showed the 2010 competition by showing Jig (the careful viewer will notice Julia O'Rourke is featured in both), then the 2011 championships shown over the summer in Strictly Irish Dancing.  This special got quite the Toddlers & Tiaras treatment, following the exact same format (seeing the girls train at home a week before the competition, interviews with the moms and girls, seeing them at the event, setting up some other drama for the cameras, etc.).  In addition to the formula there are some child pageant-like elements included the curled wigs, the heavy make-up, and the sequined dresses that can cost thousands.  Now, based on what they showed, seems like some of the Irish dancers might drink pageant go-go juice too. How do we know? Well, they did show one girl become sick on stage (*multiple* times, which wasn't really necessary, I might add)-- and her vomit was bright pink.  Too many pixie sticks?

In any case, the competition shown here is more like what we would expect and each girl handles her own victories and losses in her own way.  I loved 10-year-old Grace who was thrilled to come in 9th, only to find out that due to a computer glitch she came in 13th. She said she was sad, but then she "Grace-ified it," and felt better. None of the featured girls won, and while tears were shed, in general they genuinely did seem focused on their own performance goals and less on the top spot.  I suppose when you train all year for 2-3 minutes of dancing you have to keep perspective.

One other show I'd like to mention that I recently LOVED is PBS' Broadway or Bust.  While dance is a small component of this high school musical theater competition, the main focus is singing.  In any case, this three-part series on the week-long competition is fascinating and fun to watch.  I especially loved that the kids genuinely seemed amazed by one another's talent.  While there was only one male and one female "Jimmy" winner, all of them seemed to gain so much for the experience itself that it felt less like a competition.  As the judges explained every day is an audition if they want to be professional performers, so they have to learn how to be friends now.  made me anxious for Smash to come back.  Along with my other new favorite dance shows, Breaking Pointe and Bunheads.  And would you believe I still haven't seen First Position?! Can't wait for the DVD to come out!

I'm guessing most of the winners' parents worry less about whether their parenting decisions were the right ones... Then again, the truth is, we all worry. And we always will. Some kids thrive in competitive situations and the trick is figuring out if your child is one and what the best competitive outlet is for him or her.