Drama Queens: Gotta’ Love Them!

 

When I first saw this I had a really good chuckle, and then I shared it with our guidance counselor, Bill Clark.  I cannot begin to estimate the number of conversations we have had over the years about the “drama queens” that create such chaos at school.  A few years back I referred to these girls as ones who “starred in their own soap opera.”  They love attention.  They believe that their experiences are different than anyone else’s.  And, they end up causing a lot of trouble and a lot of collateral damage.  A drama queen is an attention hog who isn’t happy unless they have 1) caused a number of people to express a level of concern and 2) they have caused emotional damage for at least one other person. In my years of public education, the unscientific estimate is that there are generally one to three of these in each class of 70 to 80 students.  

Social psychologists have written at length that we are currently living in a period of unprecedented narcissism among young people.  Never before have we had a generation of teens and young adults that are more wrapped up in themselves than those that we have today.  This is reflected in their music, as noted by Tim Elmore who recently wrote about how many of the popular songs today have “I” or “me” in the title.  The Youtube phenomenon allows anyone who wants to be seen or noticed to put their “show” up for anyone to watch.  I was amazed how popular and recognizable people I have never heard of from online “channels” are who were running the Amazing Race.  If you own a smart phone, you can shoot video and  get people to watch you!  

From the perspective of a school employee, working with drama queens becomes very time consuming and emotionally draining.   They can become a real problem.  Digging into this, there are various definitions that describe these people.  Wikipedia defines a drama queen as a person who habitually responds to situations in a melodramatic way.  The Urban Dictionary has a similar definition: an overly dramatic person.  Webster defines them as a person (especially a woman) who acts as though things are much worse than they really are.  In an article published in Scientific American, they are referred to as a person who reacts everyday with excessive emotion and behaves in a theatrical, attention-grabbing way.  Does this sound like anyone you know?

At school, the individual that has to deal with drama queens more than anyone is our counselor.  However, they have an impact on nearly everyone they are in contact with.  They often become “time suckers” and force people to spend time with them.  In order to do that, other work they may have, or other people they need to attend to, are often pushed off to the side, to be attended to later.  At times they create chaos because of the reactions and responses from other students.  Sometimes they turn quickly on their closest friends and the resulting fall-out taxes the resources we have available.  It is not unusual for them to threaten violence toward themselves or others, and many of them suffer from depression or anxiety.

Drama queens are very real.  Some of the ones we have at our school have become one due to trauma they experienced in childhood.  Research by the Child Trauma Academy found that some "children who experience trauma undergo changes in brain chemistry that result in them becoming moody, oversensitive to stimulation, and unable to accurately assess certain social and environmental cues."

Neglect is another factor in young people craving the attention and acting in the manner of a drama queen.  Parents that ignore or dismiss a child’s thoughts, feelings, and emotions may find their child behaving in a much more dramatic fashion in order to get their attention.  In fact, some children develop borderline personality disorder (BPD) and will do whatever is necessary to get attention, from dressing provocatively to telling wild stories.

A 2004 study by John Gunderson of Harvard Medical School suggests that drama queens may have come about due to their DNA. According to Gunderson,  "27% of the relatives of a person with BPD display aspects of the disorder’s problematic relationship style.”  Simply said, drama queens are often the progeny of drama queens.

When we accept that these students and their over-reaction to sometimes common events may have their behavior ingrained on their brain, we can develop strategies to that help us teach other students to distance themselves from them, and at the same time practice empathy.  As adults we can also be better equipped with strategies to help them acknowledge that their problems are no different than those faced by others.  Giving them time initially is a basic human response, but the learning  comes when lines are drawn  so that the drama queens develop an awareness of others.  When that is reinforced consistently, there can be less drama in our queens!

The Cubs Have Nothing On These Guys!

On May 7, 2016, the Leicester City soccer team hoisted the Barclay Premier League cup high into the sky in front of their fans signifying that they were the champions of the most prestigious league in professional sports in the world.  Actually, they clinched the title five days earlier when the second place team, the Tottenham Hot Spurs from London were tied by their across town rivals Chelsea, making it impossible for them to accumulate enough points to catch Leicester City.

Known as the Foxes, the story of this championship team is the most amazing story in sport in terms of the underdog or the unexpected.  Taking home the trophy energized a community as it represented every David over Goliath, small city versus big city, small-budget versus deep pockets story one could conjure up.  A team of journeyman players, some who has spent more years playing in the “minor leagues” of professional soccer than on the big stage, came together and put on a season-long display of teamwork and unselfish play that will be long remembered by their fans and sports aficionados.

How impressive was their victory?  In a nation know for betting parlors setting a line on nearly any competitive event, and in a league with online betting companies sponsoring more than one team, the consensus odds on Leicester City winning the Barclay’s Premier League prior to the start of the season was 5000 to 1.  Comparatively, the odds for defending champions Chelsea were 6 to 5 and for Manchester City they were set at 12 to 5.  They finished 10th and 4th respectively.  The longest shot to win the Kentucky Derby rarely has odds less than 80 to 1!  Actually, there is really no analogy to make here because of the truly ridiculously small chance that anyone gave the Foxes to win it all.

To add more perspective, Leicester City had never won a championship of any kind in their 132 year history!  Hey, at least the Chicago Cubs won a World Series 107 years ago in 1908!  To compare, Cubs fans have another 25 years to wait before they can truly complain, though one would have to believe that they have the best shot of winning it all this year that they have had in decades. 

In England’s incredibly fair tiered system, Leicester City was in the third tier as recently as 2008.  To put that in perspective, that would be as if the recent World Series champion Kansas City Royals were playing in Double A ball eight years ago.  All of the leagues have what they call relegation, and in the highest level, the Premier League, the three teams at the bottom of the standings at the end of the year move down a league and the top three teams from the second division move up.  It happens all the way up and down the league structure.  So that means that in seven years the Foxes moved from tier three through second division and into the “major league” of British soccer.  And then they become champions!  That is an incredible story!

Hopefully for long suffering Cub fans this will be the year.  Perhaps the odds are too good for that to happen since they were the favorites of Vegas oddsmakers prior to the start of the season.  But if not, maybe they should call a Leicester City fan to see how they deal with years of frustration and disappointment since they had more practice . . . until now!

It Has Come To This!

I am actually writing this article on the morning when the headline  on CNN.com says AMBUSH, in reference to six cops shot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which comes on the heels of a brutal week when two unarmed African-American men were killed by cops, and then five cops were killed by a lone gunman in Dallas, with another seven injured.  Then throw in the crazed truck driver that mowed down hundreds of people in Nice, France, killing at least 80 and one has to ask “Have we all gone mad?”  Racism, terrorism, guns, religion, politics . . . all of these have played a role in  what is going on.  I was a very young boy and have little memory of the “hot summer of 1969” when cities in our country burned, primarily due to civil unrest.  I am worried about what is happening right now because just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does.

Over the course of my 54+ years on this planet, I have seen unthinkable things happen, some of them to the extent that I have really questioned humanity and whether there is really any hope for the human race.  As I have gotten older it has been harder to accept the atrocities that man has been responsible for, yet I continue to believe that there is more good in this world than bad, though that belief is really getting a challenge here in the summer of 2016.  Toss in the incredibly mean-spirited and boorish campaign being led by our Republican candidate for President and my faith is really being tested.  With all of that said, I recently saw something that I never thought I would see.

Since I have been the principal at North Fayette Valley High School, one of the neatest things I have had the honor of being part of is the exchange with Uberlingen Gymnasium in Germany.  This is truly an incredible experience and in the three that I have been involved with, I have seen nothing but positive experiences and goodwill between people from two different cultures.  Yes, many of us in our community are of German ancestry and these folks really aren’t much different from us.  However, in the last two exchanges, because of world events there has been at least a little bit of trepidation about travel because of concerns of what is happening in other parts of the world.  From a more personal standpoint, my wife loves to travel and has been to Europe a handful of times in addition to a few other countries, and in recent years we have started paying attention to what the State Department has said about safe travel in other parts of the world.  In all honesty, along with my daughter, I was very concerned about traveling to Mexico last Christmas, even though we were headed to safer part of the country dominated by the tourist trade.  It is not uncommon for us to hear about “no travel” warnings because of unrest in various parts of the world. 

However, did you ever imagine that our country would be the one where warnings were given regarding travel?  Can you believe that other countries are warning their citizens that it is not safe to travel to the United States of America?  Well, it’s true.  On July 10, 2016, The Bahamas' Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration warned its citizens traveling to the United States of "recent tensions in some American cities over shootings of young black males by police officers.  The government of the majority-black Caribbean nation emphasized in a statement that its travelers should avoid crowds and demonstrations in the U.S. Young men, specifically, should "exercise extreme caution in affected cities in their interactions with the police ... Do not be confrontational and cooperate.”  That warning came ahead of the Bahamian Independence Day when many Bahamians travel to the United States.  Earlier this year, the United Kingdom cautioned its LGBT community to steer clear of North Carolina and Mississippi due to recent legislation passed in both states.  It seems that the shoe is on the other foot.

I have never had the courage that my wife has had when it comes to exploring new places.  She can tell you a number of embarrassing stories about my fears when we have traveled, even here in the United States!  But that said, I believe that most of us have a strong belief in the safety of our country.  No, there are places that many of us would not feel safe, but we have a choice of whether or not we go to those places.  However, it seems very strange for the United States to be lumped into a group of countries that includes Iraq, Syria, Mali, Bangladesh, Mali, Laos, and Venezuela as dangerous places for visitors.  It seems disheartening to me that we are included on the same list as those countries where one would have to fear for their safety.  Yes, it has some to this.

Updated Information on the Effects of Social Media

I understand if people think that I have gotten a little lazy this summer with my blog posts, relying upon the work of others and just passing it on to you rather than writing my own.  And yes, to an extent, that is true.  However, I have been writing on a number of topics so that I have at least all of my first semester articles ready before school starts next month.  For this one, I am falling back to Tim Elmore again and am sharing three articles he posted in the past couple of weeks about social media.  Elmore has conducted a number of focus groups as part of his research and shares about what he learned about social media.  There are three articles that will basically give you the pro’s and con’s of social media.  After reading them myself, all of these observations are true about students at North Fayette Valley High School.  I believe that we have taken a very reasonable approach that has evolved over the years in terms of access to phones and media, but in the past year we have had conversation that perhaps we need to tighten things up.  This fall there will be at least a few teachers that will not allow student to have possession of their phone in their classroom.  I think after reading these articles you will understand why.

Six Potential Downsides of Social Media

The Potential Upside of Social Media

Raised in a Day of Social Media

Iowa, Did You Know?

Five years ago this August I was in attendance at the School Administrators of Iowa Conference in Des Moines when this video was shown for the first time.  I had not watched it again until one of our teachers sent it to me recently. To truly digest it all a person needs to watch it two or three times and then reflect a bit upon some of the statistical information that is presented.  I can hear people saying “change is tough” and others “why do we have to change?”  Rarely do I have conversation of any length with people when some reference to the past isn’t made, often nostalgic.  But the reality is that change happens and things are not the same as they once were, and they are not going back.  Iowans are bright, hard-working people, and despite what critics say, we are still providing a top-notch education for our students thanks to dedicated and committed educators.  Can that be sustained?  Not unless changes are made.  Can Iowa compete in the global economy?  Only if changes are made.  Take a little time to watch this video.

Iowa, Did You Know?

We’re On The Right Track

According to one analysis of educational requirements for the class of 2014, 32 states did not require that all graduates take four years of English and math through Algebra II or its equivalent, which is often defined as the minimum to be prepared for college.  At North Fayette Valley High School we have started to pay closer attention to the college readiness data produced by ACT when our students take that assessment, and we are finding that we are coming up a little bit short.  We recognize that we need to assess where we are at in terms of course offerings and requirements, as well as how we work with students who intend to go on to a four-year college and their course selection while in high school.  

There is some good news off the top as we have required four years of English Language Arts for a number of years.  And, we made adjustments a few years ago offering more specific courses with the goal of meeting the various needs of students going on to different types of post-secondary programs.  So from the perspective of providing quality preparation for college bound students in the area of English Language Arts, I am confident that our students are ahead of the curve.

When it comes to math, there has been research duplicated over the years that supports the idea that the best predictor of college success is whether a student takes a math class their senior year in high school.  We recognize the importance of this even though our requirement is three years of math to meet graduation requirements at NFVHS.  We strongly encourage our students to continue their math study, and during the 2015-16 school year, 52% of our seniors took a math class.  42% of those students have taken Algebra II or higher, though that does not include students who may have taken at least Algebra II or higher their junior year but are not taking a math class their senior year.  Of our seniors taking math, 36% have taken our Functions class or higher. 

Based on the data it would appear that we have some work to do in the area of math preparation.  That said, while we have between 85-90% of our students go on to post-secondary education, a large percentage of those students will go into a two-year type program where the math requirements are not quite as high.  This is somewhat of a double-edged sword because for years the perception  about going on to a two-year program has been that it does not require as rigorous of academic preparation.  However, in our changing economy there is a high demand for young people in highly skilled job areas that require a high level of math.  Because of that we have been pushing more of our students to continue their math study, but that has been a challenge because of long held perceptions.  As with many things, changing beliefs and attitudes takes a lot more time and effort than changing a rule or policy.  

 

“Students and their families rely on and trust the high school diploma as a signal of readiness,” said Alissa Peltzman, the vice president of state policy at Achieve, a nonprofit that performed the study. “It needs to mean something. Otherwise, it’s a false promise for thousands of students.”

When one looks at that quote we recognize that we need to give some serious consideration to our math requirement.  Are we doing a good enough job preparing our students?  Do we need to require four years of math for all of our students?  How do we help our students and their parents better understand the importance of taking high level math regardless of the college path that lies ahead?  This is certainly something that lies in front of us as we work through the implementation of Iowa Core Standards and work to better assess our student’s learning.

Failure and Motivation

Through one of our teachers I have run across a website that I find very informative when it comes to explaining how the teenage mind works, and more important, how we as parents and teachers can better work with our kids.  The website is called Mind/Shift: How we will learn and can be found at http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/.  I have not read a lot of articles up to this point but have added it to my Favorites and drop in from time to time.  A number of the articles I have read reference the breakthrough book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck.  The fundamental tenant of her work is the difference between fixed and growth mindsets.  At NFVHS we have had some exposure to her work and while I have started and stopped a couple of times, her book is at the top of my summer reading list.  

The article that I have shared with you from Mind/Shift deals with how parents can support their children when they experience failure in school.  How we react when our daughter comes up with a low mark sends a powerful message that she internalizes.  Most important, when we react appropriately, learning takes place in a manner that the child can move forward.  Give this a read!

Talking About Failure: What Parents Can Do to Motivate Kids In School

http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/05/08/talking-about-failure-what-parents-can-do-to-motivate-kids-in-school/