Free Will Is Far From Free

"Free Will" (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by Headphonaught

“Free will” is a misleading term. We can take action to self-actualize, but detractors and restrictors always impact our decisions and efforts. Everything about us is influenced by the external environment including the interactions we experience with others. Character is something we display on our terms, but the choice is impacted by the sum total of how we think, and those thoughts are based on our experiences. We can't completely manipulate the influences in our lives that control our perspectives and outcomes.

This Next Big Idea podcast, "Free Will: Are We Better Off Without It?" is very thought-provoking regarding who we are and how much that’s determined by our personal desire to be “ourselves”. In his exploration of free will, Robert Sapolsky's work offers a compelling challenge to "personal autonomy". From his teenage years, Sapolsky was captivated by the concept of free will, ultimately concluding that it doesn’t exist. His conclusion is rooted in his background as a biologist, neurologist, and neurosurgeon, where he argues that human behaviour is influenced by a complex web of biological, genetic, and environmental factors, rather than by an independent, autonomous will.

"The world is really screwed up and made much, much more unfair by the fact that we reward people and punish people for things they have no control over  -Robert Sapolsky 

Sapolsky’s stance is not just a theoretical perspective; it’s one that he builds on extensively in his book Determined. He delves into mechanisms like brain chemistry and genetic predispositions, that shape our actions, decisions, and thoughts. According to Sapolsky, the illusion of free will is a product of our brains processing information in a way that makes us feel in control, but, in reality, is created by neural activity.

Moreover, Sapolsky goes beyond the mere negation of free will; he also proposes that recognizing the lack of free will can have profound, positive implications. Understanding that people are shaped by factors beyond their control could lead to a more compassionate and humane society where individuals are judged less harshly for their actions and treated more empathetically when they struggle with behaviours often attributed to "choices."

His perspective ties into larger philosophical and ethical debates about responsibility, punishment, and the nature of consciousness. If we accept that we are not truly in control, Sapolsky suggests, we might build systems more focused on rehabilitation, understanding, and social support, rather than retribution. Considering this, a significant possibility emerges to improve how we approach support for kids in school.

A school of thought is emerging in education and social services prioritizing awareness of the lived experiences of the student, or client. Whether working through trauma-based care in Dr. Bruce Perry's Neurosequential Model, Dr. Ross Greene's Collaborative and Proactive Solutions Model, or my own HOPE Wheel Model; the awareness that we can't effectively support another person without consideration for the environmental influences they've endured is fundamental. Limiting ourselves to the person in front of us and the private logic they express without knowing the story behind their story puts us at a significant disadvantage in helping them at all. We have will, but it's not free from the barriers and determiners of our past. 

Ultimately, Sapolsky’s argument against free will challenges long-standing views on autonomy and moral responsibility and offers a framework for rethinking how we structure society and deal with issues like crime, mental health, and personal development. By recognizing the biological and environmental factors driving behaviour, we can foster a society emphasizing empathy and compassion over judgment and punishment.

Symptom Bearers

"RJ" (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) by Don J Schulte

An individual assigned as the family “symptom bearer” is used as a scapegoat for anger, wrongdoing, or trouble within the family. Rather than parents and siblings taking a look at their own role in any issues, they deflect and blame it on the IP (Identified Patient) of the family. (Health, 2023)

There's no doubt that teachers are dealing with a high volume of complex realities in their classrooms. They're working hard to serve kids who arrive from environments that may not necessarily offer the appropriate support necessary for them to survive. This is the reality. We can let that consume us, or we can find ways to function more responsively and effectively. 

I'm always looking for a silver lining. It just seems like an objectively intelligent, albeit difficult thing to do. It involves an adjustment of our lens to see things from a different, purposeful perspective. I often say we need to glare at strengths, while glancing at weakness. Individuals who are confronted by  adverse experiences beyond their control, whether they like it or not, acquire intuitive skills that the general population typically may not because they don't have to. They do this out of necessity, likely unconsciously, but that is not to diminish the reality. 

Kids who live traumatic realities tend to develop intuitive skills in order to survive their environments. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) are a set of ten identifiable environmental risk factors. 

The Adverse Childhood Experiences, or “ACEs,” quiz asks a series of 10 questions (see below) about common traumatic experiences that occur in early life. Since higher numbers of ACEs often correlate to challenges later in life, including higher risk of certain health problems, the quiz is intended as an indicator of how likely a person might be to face these challenges. (Harvard, 2013)

What’s In the ACEs Quiz?

For each “yes” answer, add 1. The total number at the end is your cumulative number of ACEs.
Before your 18th birthday:

1. Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often… Swear at you, insult you, put you down, or humiliate you? or Act in a way that made you afraid that you might be physically hurt?
2. Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often… Push, grab, slap, or throw something at you? or Ever hit you so hard that you had marks or were injured?
3. Did an adult or person at least 5 years older than you ever… Touch or fondle you or have you touch their body in a sexual way? or Attempt or actually have oral, anal, or vaginal intercourse with you?
4. Did you often or very often feel that … No one in your family loved you or thought you were important or special? or Your family didn’t look out for each other, feel close to each other, or support each other?
5. Did you often or very often feel that … You didn’t have enough to eat, had to wear dirty clothes, and had no one to protect you? or Your parents were too drunk or high to take care of you or take you to the doctor if you needed it?
6. Were your parents ever separated or divorced?
7. Was your mother or stepmother:
   Often or very often pushed, grabbed, slapped, or had something thrown at her? or Sometimes, often, or very often kicked, bitten, hit with a fist, or hit with something hard? or Ever repeatedly hit over at least a few minutes or threatened with a gun or knife?
8. Did you live with anyone who was a problem drinker or alcoholic, or who used street drugs?
9. Was a household member depressed or mentally ill, or did a household member attempt suicide?
10. Did a household member go to prison?

*Source: NPR, ACEsTooHigh.com. This ACEs Quiz is a variation on the questions asked in the original ACEs study conducted by CDC researchers. 

The ACEs quiz gives no insight into whether an individual child might be more or less sensitive to adversity and asks no questions about whether there may have been any protective relationships in place to help buffer the child from stress. So the ACEs quiz can only give insight into who might be at risk—not who is at risk—for certain later-life challenges. (Harvard 2013) Fair enough, however, where there's smoke, there's usually fire.

In fact, the ACE Score in any given case is an optic that excludes other possible risk factors opening the possibility that it may underestimate the adversity experienced by any given child. Missing from the assessment are: 

• Stressors outside the household (e.g., violence, poverty, racism, other forms of discrimination, isolation, chaotic environment, lack of services)
• Protective factors (e.g., supportive relationships, community services, skill-building opportunities)
• Individual differences (i.e., not all children who experience multiple ACEs will have poor outcomes and not all children who experience no ACEs will avoid poor outcomes—a high ACEs score is simply an indicator of greater risk) (Harvard 2013)

More recently, the same researchers that developed the ACE protocol realized the added-value of  complimentary research referred to as Positive Childhood Experiences. 

In September 2019, lead researcher Dr. Christina Bethell released the results of a study of 6,188 adults at Johns Hopkins seeking to identify Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) that could buffer against the health effects of traumatic ones. A percentage of kids with high ACE scores do nevertheless grow up to have normal development and good adult emotional health. The researchers were looking to identify the factors that created a level of resiliency in these kids that helped them to thrive despite difficult childhoods. (Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs), n.d.)

A major principle of resiliency research asserts that reducing risk factors is a beneficial action to take on behalf of kids for at-risk environments. It stands to reason that a reciprocal effort to increase protective factors should also be made. This is where PCEs enter the process. We can't always change the conditions of a child's environment away from school, but we can support efforts to help them become antifragile; the ability to navigate, cope, and eventually thrive amidst adversity. Antifragility is a state of malleability in which an individual possesses the ability to bend, but not break so their core coping ability remains stable, albeit modified. People who possess a myriad of protective factors can adapt more routinely as they respond to their environmental condition. 

The PCEs study helps shape research moving in an additional direction: increasing positive childhood experiences to build resilience in kids who have experienced trauma, and those who may in the future. The relationship between PCEs in childhood and good mental health in adults is dose-responsive; the more PCEs a child gets, the better their adult mental health is likely to be. (Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs), n.d.)

Children with PCEs become adults who are able to seek social and emotional support. The 7 PCEs are:

1. The ability to talk with family about feelings.
2. The sense that family is supportive during difficult times.
3. The enjoyment of participation in community traditions.
4. Feeling a sense of belonging in high school.
5. Feeling supported by friends.
6. Having at least two non-parent adults who genuinely cared.
7. Feeling safe and protected by an adult in the home.  (Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs), n.d.)

It seems like a simple formula because it is; reduce risk, increase protection. However, and this is a big "however", caring significant others are impacted by the same uncontrolled environmental conditions that the person they care for is. This is a difficult reality. But, and this is a big "but", we do have the ability to completely control the environments we create to support them. The process of determining what that environment looks, sounds and feels like is an effort we must constantly make to authentically create emotionally, socially and psychologically supportive environments away from home and the immediate family reality. 

What's Your Truth?

 

                                            "the truth is..." (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) by memory_collector

Those of us who work with kids from at-risk environments are challenged by the truths embedded within their trauma. How much we know about the conditions of their lives is dependent on many things, not the least of which are the protocols surrounding the appropriate disclosure of the always sensitive details. Who needs to know? Can those who perhaps want to know impactful details about the kids they work with handle the emotions surrounding the circumstances? Are there those who won't benefit from knowing these details but insist on not being kept out of the loop? 

There appears to be a fairly aggressive desire to know as "much as we can" about the kids we work with, but what if we're focusing on the wrong truths? I'm the first person to assert that we need to know as much as we can about the "story behind the story" of the kids and families we serve, but when circumstances prevent us from knowing as much as we'd hope to, I think we can totally divine a simpler construct in support our most vulnerable clients. In the very simplest of terms, there's only one truth we absolutely need to implicitly know in order to do our best work with kids from at-risk environments... our own.

I have often been involved in difficult conversations regarding the "need to know." At times when it has been necessary to disclose confidential information about a child's personal circumstances, I will typically hear teachers and other school personnel make statements like, "If I had known more about this child, I would have changed the way I interacted with him," to which I typically ask two questions in reply... why and how? 

There's one thing we implicitly need to know about kids surviving adverse childhood experiences; our personal truth in the way we feel about supporting kids no matter the type of environment they arrive from every day. Call it a philosophy, a perspective, or whatever you'd like, but the way we perceive our role as kare-givers (caring for kids from at-risk environments,) is the most important awareness we need to be clear about and one that we can never go wrong with if it emerges from the right perspective. The first part of this truth is that we can never, ever judge a child. I often find that this judgement, when it does happen, is grounded in incorrect assumptions about the child; that the behaviour they're communicating with is intentional or premeditated. It's not.

This inaccurate judgement often also manifests in damaging language (verbal and body) that gets communicated back toward the child. We act out what we're feeling, even when we don't realize we're doing it. When we feel that kids are intentional in being "bad," the tendency to take their perceived actions personally is heightened. Our best work cannot materialize when we believe kids are coming to school with deliberate intent to make our day, and their classmate's days as miserable as possible.

Kids know much more about who they're dealing with than we know about them. I often say kids are like horses; they pick up on our nuances and impressions toward them so much more skillfully than we can toward them just like a horse can feel his rider through the saddle better than the rider can feel the horse. This reality puts both the horse, and the child, at a distinct advantage with respect to the ways they respond to our actions, feelings, and words directed toward them. Kids know when we're not at ease dealing with them.

If all of us who work with kids could empathetically approach each of them with kindness and acceptance perhaps we can get by without the advantage of knowing about where they come from. We'd be expressing nothing toward them that necessarily needed to be reacted to. We would be tapping into what good solution-focused therapists know about effectively working with their clients; that you don't need to dwell on the problems to effectively set goals toward the solutions. We should harbor no animosity toward others for not disclosing details about kids we don't need to know. We could simply feel what we should feel about our role as educators; privileged and humbled to have the opportunity to support them from wherever they arrive each and every day. Defaulting to that presents very good odds that we'll build the trust and comfort necessary for kids arriving from at-risk environments not to be at risk within our classroom environments too. 

My Fathers

"F.A.T.H.E.R." (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) by timothymeaney

January 25 was the one-year anniversary of my father-in-law's passing. Krishan Syal was a good man and one of my fathers. I miss him profoundly. I wrote this for him after he died. If I could, I would like to talk to him about what I'm going to write here. We had so many conversations about important things like this. Kris was one of the most authentic men I have had the privilege to know. He cared for me, respected me, and shared what he knew. He was a mentor and a friend. He was a father at a time when fatherhood is increasingly difficult to define. We need a new definition of what it means to be a father in the world today.

I'm reading "Of Boys And Men" by Richard V. Reeves. The book is an exploration of why the modern male is struggling, why it matters, and what we can do about that. The book addresses many elements of the male experience, and fatherhood is a prominent theme. A quote from the book stuck out for me,

A man who is integrated into a community through a role in a family, spanning generations into the past and future, will be more consistently and durably tied to the social order than a man responding chiefly to a charismatic leader, a demagogue, or a grandiose ideaology of patriotism." 

- George Gilder, 1973

When I read the words "charismatic leader," "demagogue" and "grandiose ideology," I don't need to think very hard to provide many contemporary examples of each one of these types of men. These are men who are lost in their perception of masculinity. They believe that to be strong, others must be weak. They possess insecurity and fear without knowing how to be humble and authentic. Locked in a zeitgeist of days gone by, they are confused about their place in a society that no longer fears them, and can no longer be controlled by them. They deny the true nature of their emotions masking them with anger and aggression. This is a diminished state of manhood that cannot be sustained. To say that our next evolutionary step forward for humanity depends on the formulation of a new definition of fatherhood is no exaggeration. 

Read the Room...

Schools are filled with all kinds of rooms. 

Classrooms, offices, gyms, libraries, music rooms, computer and science labs, and more. The latest to emerge, and potentially the greatest of them all, is what many are calling the "Support Room." But what is a support room?

That depends largely on who you ask.

I have heard many definitions of what a support room is, but I haven't heard many definitions of what one isn't. It appears that a support room by any other name is potentially referred to as the "Sensory Room, the Calming Room, the Body Break Room, the Self-Regulation Room, the Regulation Room, and a few more. I suppose it doesn't really matter what we call these rooms if they satisfy the general purpose they're intended for... to support the needs of students who are having trouble coping in a typical classroom. 

A functional support room is simply a place in a school where kids can go to receive the added support required for any reason. In order to do this effectively, some conditions need to be established before any student actually goes to a support room. The last thing we want is the same school we always had, but now with a room full of expensive furniture, resources, and equipment added to it without the requisite thought required to make it an effective place where foundational learning relationships can be established. The environment of an effective support room starts with the rationale for it to exist in the first place, (to support the needs of students,) and extends from that base in several necessary directions. My view on how this needs to be structured is listed in rank order below; the three P's:

1. People. An effective support room MUST have the right kind of people operating them. There is no alternative. If you can't find the right people, or you can't effectively train people already within your organization, don't bother creating a support room.
2. Perspective. A support room CANNOT be another name for the "office," or any other place where challenging kids are sent to get them out of the classroom. I get it, the challenges kids present to teachers are increasingly difficult to accept and deal with, however, the manner in which we support our most vulnerable students is the measure of how effective we are as caring teachers and others who work in schools.
3. Plan. Fail to plan, plan to fail... an effective support room NEEDS a system, a process, and a philosophy if it's going to actually do what is intended. The system should be based on sound research, solid pedagogy, and the principles of kindness and care that all who work with kids are governed by.