Category: learning styles

The three qualities work must have in order to be satisfying are autonomy, complexity and a connection between effort and reward.  It’s not just how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy.  Doing work that is meaningful and appreciated is worth more than money. 

Back in the early days of the Beatles before they were the Beatles they played in strip clubs in Hamburg Germany eight hours a night, seven days a week.  Most musicians only play one hour, two at the most a night.  They needed stamina and an enormous amount of energy to keep at it.   They didn’t recoil at the offer they jumped at it.   They put their heart and soul into these gigs and the crowds really began to love it.  They were recognized for their new unique sound. 

Everyone has an innate need for recognition in their jobs.  Giving recognition is the best way to build high-energy efforts and excellence.   Unfortunately many managers fail to grasp this important motivational truth.  Doing unrecognized and unrewarded work is like a prison sentence because it doesn’t have any meaning. 

David Novak CEO of Yum Brands (KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell) believes that bosses should be more like coaches encouraging those they supervise.  Novak’s strategy is to err on the side of more.  He recognizes more that he should.  He says, “why be selfish with the one thing that matters most to people.”

Novak says people leave companies for two reasons: one they don’t feel appreciated and two they don’t like their boss.   These two reasons can also explain why people become unsatisfied in relationships, why people fail to work harder, or even why some children might lose heart in school.  

Appreciation is something we all need more of. 

I know a lack of appreciation can make me question the motives of even those closest to me.   Without appreciation it’s easy to believe that someone is taking advantage of you, even when it’s not true.

Intrinsic motivation comes from a sense of satisfaction and worth.  The best way to motivate anyone is to tell them how important they are.  It’s one simple truth none of us should ignore.

Doctors recognize there are five stages to recovery. Whether its an unhealthy habit, an addiction or creating better habits the five stages are the same with the same potential for failure or success.

The first is stage is to pre-contemplate.  It means you might have thought about change, but it’s only a thought.  Like thinking you’d like to lose a few pounds.  The second is to contemplate.  You have in mind a possibility or a plan but you’ve not given serious thought about making an important change.   The third stage is action.  You do some research about diets and consider the best one for you. Nothing really happens until the fourth stage where you make a plan, the plan is the beginning of your commitment to being better. The last stage is the relapse.   Doctors know even the most dedicated person will experience a relapse.  The reason is whenever you initiate change even positive changes you activate fear in the emotional brain.   If the fear is great enough your fight or flight response will go off and you will literally run away from what you’re trying to do.   In the human brain change is difficult and uncomfortable. 

Doctors recognize that relapse is not failure; it’s merely the response of our brain circuitry.   Unfortunately many of us will give up when our brain signals this struggle instead of acknowledging this important step in the process to change.

Understanding these limitations can be useful in the classroom.   These same synaptic pathways in the brain can make learning new information or a new skill difficult.  Some children like the addict in recovery will relapse and simply decide they aren’t smart enough or the task is too hard to continue.

Teachers have the perfect opportunity to help their students become more comfortable with these relapses by creating a comfort zone for learning.   Every student in your class should be confident enough to accept their mistakes and struggles.  This confidence needs to come from you – the classroom teacher. 

Every time you present a new concept or idea preface it with the information that learning is hard work and every person has different abilities.  By doing this you give students the space they need when they relapse.   Students can also work cooperatively in small groups so that those who grasp ideas quicker can teach and work with the slower learners.   Your classroom can become a place of opportunity instead of failure.

If the only vision you had of yourself came from the social mirror your view would be like the reflection in a crazy mirror at a carnival.  The view would be distorted and out of proportion.   The social mirror is often a projection of the concerns and weaknesses of those giving the input rather than a true picture of what you are. 

Author Stephen Covey writes about a classic story of a self-fulfilling prophecy.   The story is how a computer error in England incorrectly programmed student’s grades and IQ’s.   The error was not discovered until five months into the school year.  What was discovered demonstrates how critical it is that children believe they are capable.  The scores of a lower achieving group of students had all gone up.  Their teachers had treated them as thought they were bright.  The teacher’s energy, hope and optimism reflected high individual expectations for each of these students. 

The teachers reported that during the first few weeks of school when they saw the usual methods of teaching were not successful they changed them.  They believed that their students were bright and when things were not working well they figured it must be the teaching methods.  For this group of teachers apparent learner disability was nothing more than teacher inflexibility. 

Small interventions can make a big difference in learning.  Geoffrey Cohen a psychologist at the University of Colorado has found that telling students that their intelligence is under their own control improves their effort and performance.  If students believe they possess the ability to work hard and make themselves smarter they will be smarter. 

As schools and government examine how to increase academic achievement and where to spend their dollars they must not ignore the most critical component in learning -the attitude of the classroom teacher.   They must keep in mind that small influences in children’s lives can have very big effects.   Ambitious reforms are still important but children who have successful learning pictures in their heads will be better equipped mentally to try, and to succeed.

Failure to achieve is intimately connected to a child’ self-image and ideas on self worth.  To change this paradigm you must as a teacher believe that although a child may have failed in the past he can succeed in the present.  A failing child will continue to fail if his teachers continue to remind him of his failure.  To break the cycle of failure the student must first have a caring nurturing relationship with his teacher. 

When you as a teacher refuse to label your students you will see them in fresh new ways.  Your view can help them become independent, fulfilled and capable of doing satisfying work. 

Goethe taught, “ Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can be and should be and he will become as he can and should be.”

Anyone involved in education should become excited at the prospect of injecting this kind of positive energy into a system that many regard as broken.   Administrators, parents and teachers must dedicate themselves to providing a network of support and renewal for all teachers.  Their job is too important not to do this. 

Recently the New York Times ran a health article about self-handicapping.  Self-handicapping is one way to lower expectations and protect your ego.  The way you do it is to make a disclaimer before attempting a task where failure is anticipated. 

I’ve done this unconsciously for years; I’m always quick to say that I’m not good in math, poor at navigating directions, and not skilled at team sports.  These disclaimers quickly excuse my mistakes in advance.  This is a strategy in protecting my ego. 

Now imagine your typical classroom filled with students who are self-handicapping.  This lowered self-image creates a real impediment to learning because students who are convinced of the truth of this will not even try.

So how does a classroom teacher encourage students certain of failure to try?

One important way is to create a classroom environment that is cooperative instead of competitive.   Cooperative learning groups promotes a positive kind of interdependence where individual success is not as important.   This type of structure also gives students of all learning abilities a chance to succeed.   And results show that students who are given a chance to work collaboratively learn faster and feel more positive about school.  It would also seem likely they would self-handicap less often. 

One of the consequences of self-handicapping is it constantly reinforces the negative belief of not being smart enough to be comprehend difficult subjects.   Many students believe that high intelligence is only associated with book smarts and higher graders.  When in fact there are seven measurable kinds of smart. 

Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Outliners” says high IQ even at the genius level is not a predictor of success.  He illustrates in his book that practical intelligence helps an individual read a situation. It’s procedural and is about knowing how to do something without necessarily being able to explain it.  Practical intelligence helps you handle the challenges of life.  And it is not innate but can be taught.

We’ve grown accustomed to associating smart with success and high academic achievement.  That could be why even as an adult I will avoid having to do complicated mathematic calculations.   Just to test myself and try to undo some of my old scripts I forced myself to take an online math test.  I did the equations over and over until finally I began to understand what had been missing. 

Researchers have discovered that being good at math is not an innate ability.  It’s not so much ability as an attitude.  You can master mathematics if you are willing to try.  Success is a function of persistence and the willingness to work hard to make sense of something.  

My little experiment is too late for rich academic development but it did prove to me that self-handicapping has been an impediment to learning.  I wonder if given different circumstances as a child would I have discovered a talent or even a passion that I don’t have now. 

Teachers have an opportunity to shape the beliefs of their students by giving them the freedom to have a “glorious misconception” (as Mr. Gladwell writes) about something and then the time to work enough to resolve it.   These “ah ha” moments are truly the windows of opportunity because students will tap into the possibilities. 

One of the biggest complaints I heard when working in a middle school was, “I shouldn’t have to teach that.”    Teachers were very frustrated and defensive about their efforts to engage apathetic students in the classroom.   What usually resulted was a mixture of coercion and discipline.   The coercion was to force students into a learning situation and the discipline was the result when they did not comply.

Most teachers will agree that about half of their secondary students make no consistent effort to learn.  Nowhere are there more frustrated people than the teachers in  classrooms who are attempting the impossible task of persuading large numbers of students to work in school.  

Dr. William Glasser author of Choice Theory in The Classroom, and Schools Without Failure says, “We are mistaken if we believe that discipline, dropouts and drugs are what is wrong with today’s schools.  Serious as they are, they are symptoms of a much larger underlying problem, which is that far too many capable students make little or no effort to learn.   Choice theory explains why this problem exists and how though learning teams we can begin to solve it.”

Glasser suggests that creating learning teams in the classroom engages more students and eliminates the type of competition that leads many students to frustration and failure.   Moving to working together in small learning teams motivates almost all students for the following reasons:

1. Students can gain a sense of belonging by working together in learning teams of two to five.  The teacher selects teams so that they are made up of a range of low, middle and high achievers.
2. Belonging provides the initial motivation for students to work, and as they achieve academic success, students who had nor worked previously begin to sense that knowledge is power and will want to work harder.
3. The stronger students find it need fulfilling to help the weaker ones.  They  find power and friendship that are part of a high performing team.
4. The weaker students find it need fulfilling to contribute as much as they can to the team effort because now their contribution matters.  When they worked alone a little effort got them nowhere.
5. Students need not depend only on the teacher.  Their own creativity and other members frees them from dependence from the teacher and gives them both power and freedom.

Many teachers will be tempted to reject this model simply because it is in conflict with the traditional picture that exists in their heads.   Even a system that is flawed continues to be supported because it takes a shift in perspective to embrace change.   In essence teaching is just structuring the way you want to learn.  To achieve the end in mind a teacher must create the best environment in which students can excel.

W.C. Fields said, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.  Then quit.  There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.”

Children are keenly aware of their pecking order in school.  The structure of school guarantees that competing and comparing are ever present.  Ask any student and they can name the “smart kids” and the “dumb kids.”  Even in play children often choose up teammates based on their abilities to help insure a win.   Being labeled a quitter is a stigma of weakness. 

Ironically psychologists say that individuals who are able to adapt their attitudes about winning and changing or altering a goal are healthier.  These persons have less stress and have stronger immune systems. 

So how can a classroom teacher create an environment that accepts quitting?

First it’s important to re-define what quitting means.  Children must understand that quitting does not mean not trying.   Quitting is also not failure; it is restructuring the final goal.  The joy is in running the race, not trying to win it.  Quitting is knowing when something is not going to happen perhaps that goal is impossible.   Everyone cannot obtain all A’s.   The classroom must also be a quality environment.  

The elements of a quality environment are:

• Relationships are based on trust and respect.  Teachers convey to students that they have the student’s best interest in mind.  Students feel safe.
• As part of all curriculum students learn valuable life skills, speaking, listening, reading, writing, and problem solving
• Students learn how to self assess.  Self-evaluation means constantly working toward improvement.  “If it ain’t broke, work to make it better.”

Self assessment also teaches children how to let go of an unrealistic goal.   Goal reengagement – seeking a meaningful alternative buffers frustration and increases optimism.   If students approach learning with optimism then difficult tasks are not so scary. 

Learning does not have to be a contest.  If students can measure their own progress against themselves and not against the group then they can begin to realize their own potential.

This year’s presidential election was an historical event.  For many Americans this was the first time they felt empowered by the election process.   Unfortunately after the limelight fades many will allow the work of government to continue without interest or input.   The attitude and approach to civic education is an often-neglected one, yet it plays a critical role in determining how children develop, how they will view themselves as citizens and later apply their learning to community involvement. 

How can we teach our children to respect the rule of law if they do not understand the reasons for the rule?  Children must learn the importance of participatory democracy and they can only do that by understanding the history behind the struggle for a representative government and the right to vote.

Civics education does not have a benchmark standard in many of our schools.  Yet teachers can incorporate civic lessons into many parts of the curriculum.  In the movie Mr. Holland’s Opus, Richard Dreyfuss played a band teacher.   He captured the importance of civics in this speech.

He said, “We need to remind our kids and ourselves of the importance of where we come from.  We have to paint a picture of republican democracy that is as romantic and irresistible as it really is.  We have to teach our children our history, our mythology, our culture, with passion, with wit, with rigor; and by doing that, we will create the possibility of that civic virtue that ties thinking individuals to their communities.”

Some simple lessons for teachers are:

1. The Day I Was Born – students practice online research by using their birth date to determine historical and literary figures that share their birthdays.  Student can compare their figure to current day American and imagine how their person would act in today’s current political climate.
2. Why do civilizations fall?  Students can do online research on ancient civilizations and construct timelines for their demise, make compassions to current day problems, and hypothesis solutions.
3. The right to vote.  Students can chronicle the struggles of women gaining the right to vote in American and other countries, and the civil rights movement.
4. Peace Corps project.  Visit Worldwise schools at www.peacecorps.gov/wws/ for lesson plans and information to connect with Peace Corps volunteers.  Students can gain understanding on this global scale community involvement.
5. Arrest.  The purpose of the activity “arrest: is to give students first hand knowledge about an arrest of a classmate and their subsequent trial.  Students become active participants in the legal process as they become witnesses, jurors and defendants in a trial simulation.

Encouraging active citizenship among the young requires more than just election year reminders to study the issues or watch the candidates.   It means teaching students the founding principles and understanding how they should apply today.    Allow students to practice freedom by giving them a real voice in shaping the school culture.  Creating a free student press and encouraging freedom of expression.   Schools are the best place to teach students how to engage in vigorous robust debate while keeping a tone of civility and respect.   And last students must practice tolerance by learning about other world religions and cultures.   Ignorance and hatred are the greatest threats to our democracy. 

One often-ignored fact about learning is:  if you are free to fail you are free to try.   It’s not the skills you actually have that determine how you feel but the ones you think you have.   This idea at first glance might seem like a form of self-delusion but on the contrary if you believe you are capable you get into the flow of creativity and learning in any activity.    If no one is telling you you’re not good enough you are free to just explore your possibilities.

Think how empowering this thinking can be in school.   Most children begin their school careers at the age of five with a mixture of excitement and fear.  The excitement is about being big, riding the bus, having school stuff like a backpack as they join the ranks of the “older kids.”    The fear is connected to the idea of failure.   Unfortunately for some children they experience the failure first and it leads them to doubt their own abilities.  They are now not good enough.

Why does the school culture create this thinking? 

It’s not intentional but the language of school itself has more negative words than positive ones.  It begins with the rules punctuated with the word “don’t.”  Don’t create limits and judgment.    Other negative language comes in the form of assessment, children are rated and the rating in the form of grades begets competition. 

The Latin root of the word compete is competure which means to seek with.  During the Golden Age in turn of the century Paris artists lived and worked in each other’s pockets.  All new innovations, new trends were immediately known and could freely be incorporated into the work of others.   There was a lack of envy.  So instead of taking possession of ideas, they shared.  

Teachers are fortunate because they can create the type of learning culture they want in their classrooms.   To help students become more adventurous in their learning begin by:

• Finding opportunities for cooperative learning groups.  Encourage students to explore answers together, help them share and listen by modeling that in the larger group.
• Make all classroom rules begin with Do.   Look for ways to affirm and reward positive behaviors.  Invite students to contribute to the good list and make a habit of using more encouraging words.
• Devote one day a week to “fun learning.”  Fun learning is based on what if thinking.  What if can be applied to any content area.   Take a social studies lesson and ask students to rewrite the past with a what if hypothesis.   Students can be unencumbered and allowed to explore new possibilities.
• Be patient with students freewheeling thinking.  Keep in mind a lot of crap will be created but crap plays an important role in discovery.  It’s the fertilizer that allows the good stuff to grow. It’s an important ingredient in all-creative thinking and in all discovery.       

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered, the point it to discover them.” 

Galileo Galilei

Are you leading your students on the path of discovery?  

The commitment to learning needs to be more than just obtaining competency in a certain subject area, it needs to be a desire to know more.   A teacher who leads their students into the unknown nurtures that desire. 

So what is the unknown?   It’s the great mystery of life, whether that is how the universe came into being or how numbers, order and sequence affect our daily lives.  Once the search begins the mystery unfolds.

The current bestseller list is full of titles that explore the mystery.

• The Drunkard’s Walk by Leonard Mlodinow, is about how randomness rules our lives.  The author explores how chance and probability affect our financial markets and our own individual choices.

• Change your Brain; Change your Life by Daniel G Amen.  The book gives instructions for conquering anxiety, depression and anger

• Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks.   The author devotes his book on the cognitive miracles of music.  It is a study about the pathologies of musical response and what they teach us about the anatomy of the human brain.

• The Power of Limits by Gyorgy Doczi.  Explores the discovery of patters in nature, and how these patterns are repeated again and again. 

• Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.  A book about how we think without thinking.  It explores our choices and how we come to make them.

All of these books give their readers something more to think about.  Perhaps that’s a good position for every teacher, give your students just a bit more to think about, give them a glimpse of the bigger picture help them become an explorer. 

Galileo is remembered not just because he put forth the model of the sun-centered universe but also because he stood alone against the authority of the science of his day and of the church.   He represented the humble reasoning of one man and was strong in that conviction.  

Jane Goodall’s animal observations have helped her understand some aspects of human behavior and its place in nature. She recalls a story about a young male elephant who was the lone adolescent in the herd.  Everyday he would station himself on a path that was used by buffalo on their way to drink at a pond.  He hid in the undergrowth and then as the buffalo appeared he burst from his hiding place and charged toward then, ears out with a great trumpeting sound.  The startled buffalo would scatter in all directions.  The young elephants game of surprise was something the buffalo did not expect.  Jane Goodall was able to look into a peephole at the young elephant and witness his joy and creativity at play. 

The desire to play is intrinsic; it is a state of being that is intensely pleasurable.  It has the ability to energize and renew a natural sense of optimism, an optimism that opens us up to new possibilities.   Recently scientists have begun to view play as a profound biological process.  They are learning that play sculpts our brains; it makes us smarter and more adaptable and is central to brain development.

When children play they learn trust, empathy and social skills.   Fourth grade teacher Amy Whitcomb part educator and part comedian at the Rooftop School in San Francisco uses her love of play and fun to teach math.  she says, “my general philosophy is if it’s not fun they are not going to want to learn.”  She has learned to keep her inner child alive and uses it to engage and teach her students.

Play optimizes the learning process and increases performance.  There are patterns of play like the periodic table of the elements.  A teacher can use this table to integrate play into their lesson plans

• Attunement Play - simply means you are attuned to one another; it’s spontaneous, like laughter or a loving smile.  Get into the habit of connecting to your students daily with this infectious type of joy
• Body Play and movement – think of simple movements like skipping.  Skipping is a lesson in gravity, flexibility and rhythm.  Any movement that is done for its own sake is intrinsically playful.
• Object Play - hands playing with all types of objects help the brain develop problem solving.  The manipulation of objects creates curiosity and innovation.
• Social Play – creates bonds, fosters belonging and is a celebration.
• Imaginative and pretend play - the ability of the young child to create their own sense of their mind takes place through pretend play.  It remains the key to innovation, creativity and discovery.
• Storytelling – narrative play – is the way most children love to learn, it is play under a microscope.  A story helps make sense of the world, helps to understand others and gives children a way to expand their own consciousness.  Stories can give your own life with, drama, love and comedy.
• Transformative – integrative and creative play - uses fantasy, theatre, art and music to give enrichment.

A transformation in education is possible, if educators apply the understanding from the science of play.   Students are primed for learning through play, when they have fun at learning, they will pursue it for it’s own sake.  It is how nature assured us how to learn about the world and our places in it.