the second marshmallow

By now, everyone is familiar with the Marshmallow Test, I hope. If not, here’s a summary:

The Marshmallow Test is also referred to as the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. It was first conducted in 1968 by Dr. Walter Mischel et al. at —no surprise —Stanford University. It covered delayed gratification; the children in the study could receive one marshmallow now or wait for two marshmallows. The mythology around the experiment is considerable, with people asserting that it proved that the ability to delay gratification at a young age (they were preschoolers in the study) correlated with increased achievement and success later. All of this naturally correlated with intelligence. There was even a study later that correlated delayed gratification with lower body mass index. This was something that was drilled into us in beginning psychology: for a child to be successful, they needed to learn to delay gratification. When I took those courses, I never questioned it —just absorbed it like a sponge and thought of ways to help kids work on it.

What the experiments did not address was the elephant in the room: socioeconomic status. Getting out into the real world, the non-controlled experiment that is society in the US, I’ve had the opportunity to witness firsthand how that factors into kids’ decision making. I am haunted by one girl in particular.

She joined us when she was placed with a foster family. Her background was significant for neglect, and she was an emergency placement but she had been there for a month or so when I started working with her. When I work with kids, I generally work on things that are hard for them to do, so I do use prizes. I don’t center everything around tangible reinforcement (fancy speak for bribes or rewards), but they’re there if I need them. Everyone has chance to work towards different levels of rewards. A long time ago, I set it up so that the less desired prizes were easier to obtain than the more desired prizes which required a longer wait. Sound familiar? Yup. The Marshmallow Test.

She didn’t wait, though. She wanted Play-Doh (a need to wait item), but opted for crayons (a shorter wait item).

“Are you sure?” I asked her.

Yes, she said, the crayons now instead of the Play-Doh in two weeks. I never force the issue, and she got her crayons.

And she was moved to another foster placement by the end of the week.

Was she wrong to take the crayons? I don’t think so. One of the things the Marshmallow Test doesn’t consider is the element of trust that needs to occur between the person with the prizes and the person trying to earn them. Is it worth it to take the chance that the more highly-desired item will be both available and obtainable at a later time? Sure it’s been promised, but will it be there? Will you actually receive two marshmallows for waiting?

The longer I live, the more I wonder if that young lady is far wiser than I am. It’s maladaptive (fancy speak for dumb) to continue to have faith in waiting for something when all you’ve been shown is that waiting is a way to lose opportunities rather than gain them. “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” became a cliché for a reason —it contains an element of truth.

I find myself thinking about her lately, and I hope, wherever she ended up, that she’s okay and that the crayons brought her some joy. I’m really glad she didn’t wait.

bookends

Summers are generally project time for anyone who works in education. Much is made of “yeah, but you get summers off” when talking about what it’s like to work in schools, but what maybe people don’t realize —or maybe they do but don’t care —is that during the school year, particularly in special education, we work pretty much 24/7. We can’t leave work at work because it makes the job undoable when we’re there. We would, but we literally can’t. For me, in a job with a considerable amount of official paperwork that is constantly coming and going and screwed up needing fixed, there’s that in addition to regular duties. It’s hard, is what I’m saying, so when summer comes, there’s a lot of catching up to do with everything else.

I collect the boards that my son broke in tae kwon do in the same way that I collected his teeth when he was young and still have his first haircut in an envelope. The boards may be slightly less creepy, come to think of it, but the point is, perhaps I’m more sentimental than I’d like to be. When I told him I was making the bookends, he told me to throw them away. Part of me agrees —the idea was to save them for him, as they’re his. If he doesn’t want them, isn’t attached, that’s a good thing. He still has the knowledge that he did it —physical proof doesn’t matter so much. But the other part loves him and thinks, what if he changes his mind? It was easy enough to do. I just stacked the boards into two groupings and glued them (in the photo above, the two groupings are set up end to end). The splinters from where they split are still there, so they need to be handled with care. I debated about shellacking them, but opted for simplicity, particularly as he’s ambivalent about the whole thing. If he decides to throw them in the trash later, that will be up to him, and I’ll be fine with it. For now, here they are. I am very proud of him.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got at work was from a principal I worked with. She gave me an article (this is the best way to reach me, the written word —tell me something and it’s in one ear and out the other) on parenting and working as a teacher. It is impossible to be the parent you want to be and be a teacher. Has education made me a better parent? Exponentially. Has being a parent made me a better educator? Absolutely. The issue is resources. There is only so much time and energy to go around. I frequently work six days a week and much longer than contracted hours —again, during the day doesn’t work if all of the outside work doesn’t happen. It’s literally impossible. So what happened to my son while I was doing work for other people’s kids? He got dragged along. He probably got ignored, if we’re being honest. And while that teaches self-sufficiency, it doesn’t teach a young person that they are valued and loved. It’s easier now that he’s a teenager and I am deeply uncool, but you still need to be there.

And so, bookends.