"Mind in the Making": Q&A with Early Childhood Expert Ellen Galinsky

Ellen Galinsky, Co-Founder and President of the Families and Work Institute, has contributed more than 40 books and reports to the field of work and family life. Her latest book and campaign, "Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs," is a scientific approach to learning. It explores seven life skills that equip children with the ability to navigate today's technology-laden world: Focus and Self Control, Perspective Taking, Communicating, Making Connections, Critical Thinking, Taking on Challenges and Self-Direct Learning.

Galinsky talked with JCCF Intern Mina Dixon about "Mind in the Making."

Tell us about "Mind in the Making" and how you landed upon the seven critical skills that children need.

I was conducting interviews with children from the third through the 12th grades when I began to do a study on children and learning. I was struck by the differences between the older and younger children.

The older children were flat, expressionless, turned off by learning. It became clear to me that they didn’t have to drop out of school to drop out of learning.

The other image was of young children who were unstoppable learners. They wanted to see to touch, to feel, to experience, to master everything. So I began in 2001, with partners from New Screen Concepts, to film some of the best research on child development, thinking at the time that we would do a one-hour television program on learning.

We had the opportunity to look at some of the best research across many different disciplines. It was immediately clear that [this project] was going to be much more than a one-hour television show. Sharing this research would be a life’s work.

Secondly, because I do research myself on the workforce and the workplace, it became clear to me [that there were] gaps in the skills needed in the 21st century and the skills that people actually had. I had done a series of studies, beginning in 1992, and had talked to employers, employees and senior leaders for a long time. I could see the kinds of skills that employers wanted emerging in children, but I could also see that we weren’t promoting them.

So then I wasn’t willing to do something on learning in general. I switched to focus on the seven life skills. I call them life skills because these are the skills that help children now and in the future. I arrived at these particular skills because I could see from the research how they were strongly linked to children thriving socially, emotionally and cognitively now, and as adults thriving in the future.

So my list of skills is different from other experts’ lists…because [it is] solidly evidence-based.

You collected research and conducted interviews for eight years. What was that process like?

We made a map in general of the important areas to cover. We looked at who’s done the classic research and who’s done the cutting-edge research. Then we vetted our list with an informal list of advisers. Before we would go out to film, I would read 10 to 20 articles tied to the person so that I would have a clear idea about what we wanted to film. These researchers were going to recreate their studies for us and we needed to know what we wanted to film in advance.

It was interesting because I had read about experiments like the visual cliff a million times but I’d never seen them or experienced them in that way—and I’m in the field! Seeing the experiment is quite different. And for the general public, for teachers, for parents, for people who aren’t in the field, it’s completely memorable. You just can’t forget what you’ve seen.

In the book, you incorporate your own parenting experiences, the perspectives of other parents and hundreds of research sources. What were some of the challenges in juggling these perspectives?

I had some goals in trying to present this information to families and to the public. Parent books make people feel guilty. They think they’ve screwed up their children even if their children are only two days old. I’m exaggerating, but there is a tendency to feel that if you’re going to hear about science [pertaining to child development], it’s going to tell you that you’re doing something wrong. So the first challenge was to make this compelling [without inducing guilt].

The goal was to make it clear what the research shows—we wanted to inspire rather than set these little guilt traps all over the place. And I think sharing the stories of parents and their real experiences makes the book a multidimensional fabric, a multidimensional experience.

For the reader of the book, there are so many different aspects to look at: there are the stories of the researchers themselves and the work that they’re doing, there are stories of me as a parent and what I’ve learned along the way, and then there are the stories of other parents. There are also a lot of how-to suggestions that are predominantly evidence-based.

The reader could look at the ways to promote perspective-taking, or look at the research, or read the parents’ stories. Because we all learn in different ways, all of these elements contribute to a more complete learning experience. I’ve looked a lot at how people learn and I’ve tried to incorporate what I know about children’s learning and adult learning and that’s the way I’ve created this book.

There were challenges; it took about 10 drafts to get the form right and to get a format that suited the material. The book could have been deadly and it could have been guilt-provoking. I really wanted it to be inspiring and useful. I worked on a chapter again and again until I could get something I liked.

"Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs" is not just a book, it’s a full initiative that includes a blog, a DVD, Major Media partnerships and community mobilization efforts. Can you speak a little bit about how these elements work together?

If you’re going to take on something as huge as trying to share the science of learning, you can’t just present the material in just one way. Just like the book is multidimensional, our efforts to communicate are multidimensional.

We’re still out filming and we’ve had teacher modules set up in about eight states that share child development research. We will be doing parent-and-teacher modules on the seven life skills . We have blogs all over the place and we have a website. We do a lot of speaking, a lot of outreach and share our work on television.

In conducting your research, did you land upon any social issues that you wished journalists would devote more attention to?

In general, I think children are less likely to get covered unless there’s a crisis or a breaking news story. There is a lot of “children and child care done terribly” or “children and child care done well.” I get a lot of, “Oh, we covered children last month.” Part of my job in creating "Mind in the Making" was to make [child development research] news, and it is news.

I hope that journalists continue to share what we know about children, not as a one-off study, or as something to cover once a month, but as something that contributes to a larger context.

How can reporters use information from your book to better cover issues that pertain to family studies and child development?

As much as they want to! There are a thousand studies reflected in that book. If they want to call me or e-mail me and say, “Have you seen a good study on X?,” I’m happy to find it for them. Reporters should think of me as a resource.