Neuroscience, Education, and Leadership: Be Positive!

Talk It Over... With Yourself

My wife and I have this running joke: she sees me as always seeing sunny clouds and having happy thoughts, while she tends to see thunder and lightning in circumstances. However, the reality is that we both are very positive people, but (and I can only talk for myself now) my happy disposition does not come without work: I have had to work on it for many years. What I have learned over the past many years is the power of being positive (positive outlook, counting my blessings, and understanding that I can learn). 

One of the most important tools I have in aiding me to keep positive is self-talk. Now, this can be disturbing for others who accidentally discover me talking to myself somewhere, but I have to be honest here, I do it, and I have found it useful. The aspect of positive self-talk and its effects on our well-being is actually not new by any means. I have been fortunate enough to be a part of a Higher Order Performance (HOP) program this past year (run by Mr. Corey Sigvaldson) and, as part of that group, we have taken a look at the aspect of neurobiology (how the mind and the body are connected). One of the main teachings of the program is the aspect of GRIT (as explained by Angela Duckworth's book of the same name). In general, grit can be defined as passion and persistence to create long term goals. As I explored this concept, I came to the realization that grit is completely connected to how we learn in general, and how important it is for school administrators to cultivate grit. 

To start, the first and most important idea is to understand the importance of  being open and honest with ourselves, especially when it comes to our faults (ask anyone who has battled with any addiction how important this first step is). Administrators must remember that the job does not define them (we are not run by the job itself), and that the job does require making hard decisions at times, and true it is the administrator who will have to make those choices. However, we must be cognizant of the fact that hiring, firing, or doing your job should never be taken personally; it is simply part of the job. If we do begin to take it personally, it will begin to create negative feelings about ourselves ("I am not a good person; I am mean I am only focused on money; I am hard to please" ;etc.). Because this task is a part of the job itself, administrators will have to do it repeatedly, and that can begin to reinforce negative self thoughts. Ultimately, this can cause burnout, anger, frustration, and even stress created physical ailments. To combat this trend, starting your day off positively will help to successfully navigate your way through the tough decisions and will give you the physical wherewithal to make it happen when it needs to happen. Important here is the aspect of seeing your job long term; playing the "long game" when it comes to our jobs is an important part of keeping correct perspective. Izzy Hamptonstone, in her book Hockey Confidence, writes that "taking the time to look at a challenge over a longer period of time opens your mind to new ways of seeing solutions" (2016).

If we look at our job with a longer perspective than simply days or weeks at a time, we build the framework for allowing self-talk and positive thinking to change the way we work and tackle problems. How? By giving us time to train our brain; in essence, to learn. In the book The Social Neuroscience of Education, by Louis Cozolino, the author writes that "learning is believed to occur through changes in the connectivity among neurons in response to stimulation. Repeated firing of two adjacent neurons results in metabolic changes in both cells, resulting in an increased efficiency of their joint activation" (2013). Thus, the process for creating newer ways of thinking and acting that last will always be as follows: start it once and then repeat it over and over. This will first create the new neural pathways and then  reinforce them by coating those bonds in Myelin. It is these myelin coated bonds that last. 
Therefore, to go back to the original concept, beginning a process of starting your day off with positive self talk (and perhaps other positive things, such as exercise) can and will aid administrators (or any leader actually) in having the tools, the strength, and the mental hardness, to do the job and do it well.

Constructivist Viewpoint, BCED, and Reality

For those of us who have been looking closely at the new British Columbia Education Plan, the term "constructivism" will pop up once in a while. For those not familiar with the term, Constructivist theory, in basic terms, means that we "construct" our reality through our interactions with reality itself. In essence, this means that different people can have a different view of the same reality and that it is through communication, collaboration, critical thinking, etc., that we will begin to understand other points of view. In the educational field, this view has its beginnings with such prominent thinkers such as Dewey, Piaget, and Vigotsky and, when implemented in a school, classroom, or simply as an overall pedagogical approach, it has the effect of changing the role of the teacher from being the "holder of knowledge" to one that guides students to ask the right questions so that they can "construct" their own knowledge.

Though debates are always part of any change in education, I see constructivism as a positive change and one that better suits 21st Century learning. To clarify, let me give an example: students are to learn about "the urbanization and migration of people" in Grade 6 Social Studies in BC's curriculum. More specifically, students are to look at the impact (long and short) of each of these aspects (both positive and negative) and use standard competency skills to analyze, interpret and understand how this is impacting global economy. A teacher could

1. Assign the student a country or province
2. Tell them where people migrated to, or have them fill in a chart copied from an overhead
3. Explain for the student's their own interpretation of the impact of migration on Canada as a whole or even on the world in general (students take notes)
4. The teacher would then aggregate the notes and ask students to memorize what the textbook companies have said about it (this would be the learning)
5. Assessment would then be asking the student to spit the knowledge they acquired back out on the test at the end of the unit

The above is (or luckily was) a standard SS unit when I grew up. This is not a good unit, in my opinion, as it does not give any ownership of learning to the student. As well, units like this do not allow for transference of that knowledge to other circumstance, such as to other community or country urbanization situations. In fact, as students become more global, they will find (probably on their own through travel or other real-life situations) that other countries and their respective government offices see and do things differently (this is actually one of the Big Ideas for the Grade 6 SS curriculum in fact). To understand "WHY" other Governments and countries do things differently requires Critical Thinking, something the above example unit as it stands does not address. What teachers need to allow is for students to come to their own conclusions about topics, hear various views outside of their own experiences, and be able to analyze those other views against their own. It is only then that our students will be able to learn the importance of collaboration, differing viewpoints, and critical thinking.

Sounds great doesn't it? However, there is a concern: what if students come to the "wrong" conclusion? Are teachers not supposed to share their wisdom and knowledge with students so that they come up to the right answer? How can we steer them in the right direction if there is no standard end result? Are there no absolute truths in the world anymore? Also, taking any practice out of key areas and procedures can be detrimental to learning: should students never practice such things as math multiplication tables anymore?

These are very valid arguments and they do need to be flushed out - no educator wants to lead students down a path to nowhere, or a path that can lead to an untruth. I do not see this as being too big an issue if done correctly, however as the teacher, who acts as the mentor to their students, does have the responsibility of helping the student "understand" differing positions on topics - there is no untruth in this statement. However, we need to be very careful that we don't put our spin on their reality and that we don't try to put our truths to their possibilities. In essence, we need to make sure that students are allowed to learn and show their knowledge in their own ways (using their current strengths). This is true teaching (mentorship). Let me flush this out a bit more here: though mentorship is too broad to fit into this post, one of the most interesting key components of mentorship revolves around the question of what is the end product of the mentorship? Much research agrees that it is vital for the mentor and mentee to both agree with the final product before they get too deep into the mentorship. One example of this is in a student teacher / field teacher partnership. Hudson, 2014). To clarify, this does mean that for these two there is a "right" and a "wrong" way of doing things. However, it is important that the truth is clearly seen as quantifiable (what worked in the classroom and what did not), and not simply the mentor's ideas of what "will" work and what "will not". Why? Here are a few thoughts (not exhaustive by any means):
In this example, the mentorship between the student teacher and the experienced teacher will not be successful if there was no discussion between them around  “what it means to be a professional for teaching students” (

1. It puts the learning into a real life situation (the classroom)
2. It allows for critical thinking
3. The mentor can even learn something (life-long learning)
4. The student teacher can make the connections in their mind that best suits themselves 

This is the same for our students in K-2 classes: teachers and students must look at realities and learning and agree on what that learning meant (what truth is found from this learning) - but they should do it together. As a tech, I see this model of teaching in terms of being similar to a Web 2.0 (interactive) site and not Web 1.0 (just giving information) site.