The Heart-J Center is very excited to announce its Winter 2020 lineup of retreats and workshops! For all you lifelong learners out there, if you’re interested in creativity, wellness, outdoor adventures, and a refreshing, relaxing experience, please check us out at www.heartjcenter.org/2020-programs.
Here’s the PDF of the program catalog to get you even more jazzed! Click image to open. See you soon!
I love a creative article about creativity! Linear, abstract, convergent, divergent, logical, intuitive — connect with your beginner’s mind and take a few minutes to enjoy this delightful article by Ralph Ammer from Medium.com.
Isn’t one of the core purposes of education to increase civic competency? And not just to help us understand the issues, become more connected to our community and our fellow community members, but to develop deep skills like empathy and compassion? So what do we need to learn and what do our young people need to learn if we’re going to solve the challenges ahead? STEM is critical, but there’s so much more we need to know if we’re going to save this world of ours.
So let’s embrace MESH (as any good liberal arts major would have you do). “Forget STEM, We Need MESH“‘s author Tim Wise is speaking truth when he writes
“… without an equal commitment to comprehensive civics education — an examination of subjects that touch on the relationships between people, government, the economy, and media — all the technical know-how in the world will be for naught … For this reason, I would suggest a renewed focus on MESH education, which stands for Media Literacy, Ethics, Sociology, and History. Because if these are not given equal attention, we could end up with incredibly bright and technically proficient people who lack all capacity for democratic citizenship.”
Our communities need us. And we need to know how to help. Keep learning.
Check out Scott Belsky’s article, “Creativity is the New Productivity.”
If productivity, previously scarce and valuable, is increasingly abundant and commoditized, then we must shift our investments — from how we educate our children to how we plan our careers — to creativity, a truly scarce resource whose value is on the rise.
https://marker.medium.com/creativity-is-the-new-productivity-d287d6ad7533
Nuff said. But do read the article!
Let’s embark on a reward-seeking journey.
What do lifelong learners and the dedicatedly curious know? They know that learning feels good. If you can remember an “aha!” moment that you’ve had, didn’t it literally feel good? A flash of pleasure. “The pleasure of finding things out,” a la Richard Feynman. If you can’t remember a sweet “aha!” moment, we really need to work on that. Seriously. It’s too good to miss out on.
Neuroscience has a lot to say about the role of dopamine in both learning and motivation. An essential neurotransmitter, dopamine gives our nervous system a running account of how likely it is that a given situation will be rewarding. Research also points to dopamine’s role in whether or not we retain information that we’ve learned.
Here’s my question: What actually happens? We say that “learning feels good,” but why? What is it about that moment, “aha!” or otherwise, that gives us that feeling?
In his interesting book “Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends On It,” author Ian Leslie explores the mechanism of human curiosity. Why are we curious? What drives us to find things out?
According to Leslie, the work of psychologist George Lowenstein points to the answer: our curiosity is activated when we perceive a gap “between what we know and what we want to know”:
It’s not only the incongruity that evokes our desire to know; it’s the absence of information. Information gaps often come in the form of questions: What’s in the box? Why is that man crying? What’s a four-letter word meaning “suffering”? You have some incomplete information — there is a box, there is a man crying, there is a crossword puzzle clue — and you want to find the missing part.
Leslie, p. 34
When we notice this gap, it’s not because we don’t know anything about the subject, though. Lowenstein’s information-gap theory proposes that information “fuels curiosity by creating awareness of ignorance, which gives rise to a desire to know more.” To feel curiosity requires that we know enough to know that we don’t know. We tend not to be curious about things we know absolutely nothing about.
So, we’ve noticed a gap; and here’s where the dopamine reward system comes in. Remember that dopamine tells us how likely a given situation is to be rewarding? When we perceive that information gap, dopamine signals us that a good feeling could be right around the corner. “An information gap isn’t simply recognized rationally; its onset is like an itch that we have to scratch … The emotional force of curiosity is what impels us forward on our intellectual explorations even when there’s no pressing need to do so and keeps us inquiring even when we’re weary or confused. A curious person knows that she won’t feel emotionally fulfilled until she finds the information or the understanding she seeks. So she keeps reading or questioning until the gap is closed (Leslie, p. 41).”
Go deep into human evolution and this makes sense. We’ve been wired for who knows how many hundreds of thousands of years to pay attention to puzzles and mysteries. Our minds are formidable pattern-recognition instruments, taking in observations and inputs and looking for the connections that will help us make sense of the world. This is a constant mental process that’s always running, even if we’re not consciously aware of it. We simply have to figure things out. It’s one of the hallmarks of our species.
And when we figure something out — when we make a connection, when we fill a gap — it feels good.
Brene Brown makes the same point in her book “Dare to Lead.” She writes about the dopamine reward system in a different context, but the basic mechanism is the same: “In the absence of data, we will always make up stories,” she writes (Brown, p. 258).
It’s how we’re wired. Meaning making is in our biology, and when we’re in struggle, our default is often to come up with a story that makes sense of what’s happening … our brains reward us with dopamine (that “aha!” moment) when we recognize and complete patterns. Stories are patterns. The brain recognizes the familiar beginning-middle-end structure of a story and rewards us for clearing up the ambiguity.
Brown, p. 258
It’s all learning, though, isn’t it? Our finely-tuned social-emotional apparatus is learning every time we engage with other people. We are hyper-conscious of gaps because social functioning is so very critical to us humans.
Be curious about your curiosity. The learning and dopamine system operates subconsciously (I mean, who has time to consciously pay attention to all that?), but step into your curiosity every once in awhile and watch as you scratch that knowledge-gap itch. Didn’t that feel good?
Stay curious, my friends.
I so feel for school teachers when they get this question. And it seems to me that the question isn’t even so much why do I have to learn this? as “why should I put effort into this unknown thing that, on its surface, doesn’t feel interesting or relevant to me? Why should I work at cracking this nut? What’s in it for me?”
At least they’re asking why 🙂
Whether we teach in an informal education space or in a professional setting, whether we’re a trainer, consultant, facilitator, instructor, leader, manager, mentor — whatever your role, we should all consider the question “why do I have to learn this?” Adults may be less likely to raise their hands and actually ask that question, but you can be sure that they’re still thinking it.
Would you be ready for this question, just in case someone did raise their hand? Could you make a case for relevance and connect the material to the learner’s needs, in a way that satisfies the learner (and not just the curriculum)? What makes it worth learning?
Lory Hough, in her Harvard Graduate School of Education article “What’s Worth Learning in School?” explores the central ideas in David Perkins’ book Future Wise, which in turn examines the question of what he calls the lifeworthiness of what we learn.
“Knowledge is for going somewhere,” according to Perkins. There are short-term, local destinations for some learning, and because these are easier to identify it’s tempting to think, This is worth learning because completion of this module is required in quarter three. But this approach threatens to result in a teeth-grinding slog through information that will be forgotten as soon as the box is checked.
“What’s worth learning?” is such an interesting question, because obviously there’s no fixed, definitive answer. Which makes it all the more important to ask. Take the time to ask yourself the question every time you get ready to teach someone something (including yourself).
Begin your learning experience design with the end in mind, the goal, the purpose, the why, the lifeworthiness — not the content.
We obviously can’t always know what’s important to learn today to equip ourselves to handle an unknown tomorrow. We still have to make best guesses about what learning is lifeworthy. Perkins points out that traditional formal education is grounded in a perspective that no longer holds: that young peoples’ lives will be much the same as their parents’. “Wagering that tomorrow will be pretty much like yesterday does not seem to be a very good bet today,” he writes. “Perhaps we need a different vision of education, a vision that foregrounds educating for the unknown as much as for the known.”
It’s not just kids. Depending on how long you’ve been in the professional world, you can see what I mean — the world is changing so rapidly, for all of us, kids and adults alike. This isn’t the professional life I would have imagined for myself ten years ago, for instance, much less thirty years ago when I took on my first professional position. Maybe more to the point, is this world what you imagined when you were in your early twenties?
It’s interesting to see that when we think about the kinds of learning that still have currency and a long shelf life, what we run into are skills, rather than content knowledge. Some examples of lifeworthy learning could include:
These are all skills, not specific bits of information, not content. They’re the skills we need to grapple with unfamiliar content, new ideas, and unknown and unguessed-at problems. As experts, we have an understandable blind spot when it comes to what we teach because the content, the “what,” is so ingrained in us that it’s easy to forget the nuances and grounding that helps make that content relevant — the why and the how.
That’s just one of the many reasons that a successful learning experience starts with the end in mind. Goal orientation is a must. How can we teach more “lifeworthy” material?
Words matter; and because words matter, so do definitions. It’s useful to unpack meanings, especially when we’re learning. So let’s talk about what we mean by learning.
Right off the bat, I want to say that learning does not equal school. We learn everywhere, all the time. Good, that’s out of the way.
Second, think of learning not as a point in time (a fact memorized, for instance), but an experience. Learning is a journey, with a starting point and a path; perhaps headed for a fixed destination, but more often encountering a series of signposts that lead us farther along. For something simple — something you can Google — the journey can be a pretty straight line. But for really deep, delicious learning, we loop and circle, branch and diverge, sketching out a beautiful recursive spiral that can continue all our lives.
Okay, but how do we define learning?
Definitions abound. Many focus on acquisition — gathering facts or information, developing and improving skills. Some speak of process, which is cool, because it reinforces the idea that learning isn’t just a moment. The idea that I like best about learning, though, is that it’s a change in state. I like it because it encompasses a diverse range of experiences. It can mean that we’ve
Not a complete list, by any means. Learning can also inspire us to change our behavior, or abandon an attitude; the point is, that when we think of learning as a change in state, we can see that what we’ve experienced has made us a different person.
Now for the unpacking. Learning, knowing, understanding — are they interchangeable?
Is knowledge power?
I want to make the case that when we’re talking about learning, understanding is the mountaintop. The sine non qua. The Colosseum, the Louvre Museum, the smile on the Mona Lisa. It’s all that.
I was very fortunate in my own learning journey to come across Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe’s work around understanding. It was a game-changer. Among other things, it made me realize that unpacking the differences between knowing and understanding is essential when we’re designing learning experiences.
Simply put, knowledge consists of factual information. I know that the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066. Understanding happens when we make personal meaning from knowledge. I understand that the Battle of Hastings led to momentous shifts in English society, disrupting the balance of power, bringing changes to language, culture, land ownership, etc. which still resonate over 950 years later.
Understanding is fundamentally different than knowing. We are overwhelmed like never before by the sheer volume of facts and information out there, and the amount just keeps getting more mind-boggling enormous every second. It’s bonkers, but I can take a five minute break from writing this and go pick up some knowledge about quantum computing, beer making, and the natural history of lemurs without leaving my computer. I can get an answer to practically any straightforward question by asking Google. But I have to make an effort to understand. It has to mean something to me personally (i.e. be relevant) so that I’m inspired and engaged enough to do the work. Understanding is different than knowing because:
Striving for understanding is also a great cognitive workout because it requires us to exercise habits of mind such as critical thinking, curiosity, and creativity, as well as calling us to come at our learning with a growth mindset.
For learning that truly makes a difference, to ourselves and the world, understanding is the goal. When we understand, learning sticks. When we understand, we can transfer what we’ve learned to new situations — and isn’t that the magic of learning?
Understanding is power.
(If you’d like to learn more about understanding (!), Wiggins and McTighe’s Understanding by Design framework is an excellent resource. It’s a learning geek’s paradise.)
(*lifelong learning! My emphasis.)
The second point I loved about the Harvard Business Review article I wrote about last week is the critical role that psychological safety plays in any learning environment we find ourselves in — including at work.
Any engagement we have with a team or work group should be a learning experience. That’s why we’re putting our heads together — there’s something that we don’t know yet. If we leave a meeting without having learned something, I have to wonder why we bothered in the first place.
To fully realize the benefits that diverse thinking styles can bring to our teams, everyone has to feel safe. Safe to speak up, safe to offer a divergent opinion, safe to make a mistake or to not know something. Safe to learn. Because learning is risky. Trying new things is risky. Asking questions is risky. Good teamwork — and good learning — requires psychological safety. More than smarts, more than brilliant plans, more than any other single thing. Safety is the make-or-break.
There are costs to not being able or willing to do this. In their HBR article “The Two Traits of the Best Problem-Solving Teams,” authors Alison Reynolds and David Lewis write “When we fail to foster a high quality interaction, we lose out on the benefit of discourse between people who see things differently. The result is a lack of deep understanding, fewer creative options, diminished commitment to act, increased anxiety and resistance, and reduced morale and wellbeing.”
We miss opportunities for better ideas and solutions when we work only with people who think the same way we do. Worse, our discomfort with different thinking styles can leave us feeling threatened, and we can react in ways that negatively impact the whole team. That kind of chronic stress is not going to help your project.
You’ve probably been there, and you know: it can just get uncomfortable. A meeting can turn on a dime, and not in a good way, when this struggle is activated.The struggle plays out not only because we may work with people who aren’t aware of different thinking styles, but also because when growth mindsets and fixed mindsets tangle, there’s tension. And we’re often unaware that this hot mess is going on — that’s the problem. When it happens, learning is over.
So how do people behave when there’s psychological safety? What can we do as individuals to create and protect the safe space we need to learn, collaborate, be creative, and solve problems?
What are some other approaches you use to create a safe environment for learning?
To me, bottom line, this is a leadership issue. And we’re all leaders. Safety first! Great ideas await.
I came across this Harvard Business Review article (“The Two Traits of the Best Problem-Solving Teams”) and not only is it awesome, but it has much to say about the power of harnessing different thinking styles, and how absolutely critical a safe environment is for creativity and problem solving. And learning.
There are two important points in this article: one, that cognitively diverse groups are better problem solvers than groups that are overloaded with any particular cognitive style; and two, that the benefits of cognitive diversity are only realized if the environment is safe. Let’s look at the idea of cognitive diversity first, and next week we’ll make the connection to safe learning environments.
I will cop to the fact that I’m fascinated by the concept of cognitive diversity. We do indeed think about the world in different ways, use different approaches, and have different lenses through which we see. We have different ways that we learn. Of course, as humans we tend to unconsciously assume that everyone sees things the same way we do! To avoid that trap we have to actually pay attention; we have to be willing to step outside of ourselves and consider not only that other people have different perspectives, but that they may well actually just think (and feel) in a way that’s different than ours. Our understandings can be so much deeper if we’re aware of this and can work with it.
My fascination stems in large part from experience — the experience of so many meetings over so many years where we couldn’t seem to move the ball forward, or it felt like we were just plowing the same furrow over and over again, or where I got that actual knot in the stomach because of the unspoken tension and conflict that ended up silencing those divergent viewpoints. You can see this happen in groups with low cognitive diversity (when too many people think the same way) and in groups that don’t understand cognitive diversity and the positive impact it has (when someone comes at things from a different angle and we unconsciously become uncomfortable or defensive). These are the sorts of frustrations we experience when different ways of thinking aren’t considered, welcomed, or respected.
But with just a little awareness of the different ways people think, and of our own thinking style, we can help create a better and more effective problem solving space for the people we work (and learn) with.
Tools to assess how we think are everywhere. They’re so ubiquitous that you’re a rare person indeed if you’ve never “typed” yourself in some way. You may have been Myers-Brigg-ed, DiSC-ed, Enneagram-ed, or any number of other assessments, and they all have something valuable to teach us about the way we think. And they help us understand how and why other people think differently.
One of my recent favorites is the Thinking Wavelength from Tom Paterson’s StratOp strategic planning process. The Thinking Wavelength exercise gives you insight into your relationship with a number of dimensions, including risk aversion, tolerance of ambiguity, and how you feel about change. But beyond learning about yourself, the Thinking Wavelength helps you see how including different cognitive styles is an essential ingredient for effective teamwork and a robust learning environment. It’s a great reminder that there are other thinking styles, and that the real power is in the combination of thinking styles within a group. It’s rocket fuel for learning.
No one “thinking wavelength” is better than the others, and we benefit greatly from the mindful inclusion of many wavelengths. And yeah, it does feel easier and more comfortable to work with others who share our thinking style, but we’re simply missing out if we don’t have a diversity of styles around the table, with space, respect, and safety for all. The kinds of learning that lead to breakthrough and innovation depend on that diversity.
If you’d like to learn more about the power of cognitive diversity, see “Teams Solve Problems Faster When They’re Cognitively Diverse,” also in Harvard Business Review.
Vive la différence.
I think a lot about the environments we create for learning and how important they are. I imagine you’ve had experiences where learning was fun, playful, exciting — where you felt comfortable and confident. And then there were those other experiences. When you felt nervous. Anxious. Bored. Self-critical.
Not, as they say, conducive to learning.
Particularly as adults, we often bang into barriers to learning. These barriers mostly arise from our own beliefs about ourselves. Do any of these sound familiar?
I mean, ouch. And we’ve all been there. These barriers, these beliefs, are not trivial. But any learning experience we engage in is risky. Any learning experience requires us to acknowledge that there’s something we don’t know (yet). And we may very well not get it right the first time (or the second, or third …).
So to fully embrace our potential as learning human beings, we have to knock those barriers and beliefs down. Enter the growth mindset, developed by Dr. Carol Dweck and beautifully explained by progressive educator John Spencer:
The best learning environments are spaces that encourage a growth mindset. No matter what you’re learning — how to build furniture, how to become a more effective leader, how to speak Spanish, anything — you’ll only learn if you feel safe. How can we create environments where it’s safe to take a risk, try something new, even fail? Environments where we can move into a growth mindset? Think about:
We can’t learn if we’re afraid to try. Keep safety your number one priority in the learning environments you create. Here’s a parting thought from Mr. Edison, again: “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”