Our children’s future!

Having two mind states leads to troubled future

Virtually all of us have two mind states available to us – the blue brain where we are at our best and the red brain where we only have access to what our childhood mind had access to leading to us becoming very self-focused, pessimistic and limited in our choices.

Each of us has had a unique set of experiences so that there is no way to predict exactly how each of us will develop through adulthood as we continue to have new experiences.

Collie and Martin* have done some excellent research with a large sample of teachers which I have unpacked from the point of view of motivation here, here, here and here.

I now want to look at this research specifically from the point of what outcomes we might expect when we create young people with two mind states who then go on to pursue a career.  In the graphic below are five clusters that the researchers drew from their data (circle sizes reflect cluster sizes, positioning is realistic but not precise).  Ideally, we would like to see all the responses to be in the top right quadrant. About 40% of the sample, in two distinct clusters fell within this quadrant.  About 40% of the remainder fell into the two quadrants where the emphasis is on avoiding failure rather than seeking success.  About 20% were in the middle, indifferent to success or failure.  Outside of the first two clusters, enjoyment and engagement are both low.

Statistically, our children are most likely to be disengaged and lack enjoyment in their adult careers.  Is this what we want for them?

Because they will become like this if we continue to condition the childhood mind with controlled motivation (reward and punishment) allowing the red brain to form and persist into adulthood.

The alternative is to nurture the adult mind through the development of autonomy and self-motivation.  This means holding every student as far as possible in the blue brain by every teacher striving to operate consistently in the blue brain with every student.

The teachers we remember our whole lives do this already, which is why we remember them.  These are learnable skills and as they are learned by adults within a school, supported by school leaders, Collective Teacher Efficacy increases, the factor that John Hattie reports as having the highest impact on student learning, with an effect size of 1.57.

We know all this, we just need to give it higher priority and believe that everyone can grow if the conditions are right.

* Adaptive and maladaptive work-related motivation among teachers: A person-centered examination and links with well-being - Rebecca J. Collie, Andrew J. Martin – UNSW February 2017

John Corrigan is an expert in helping individuals to bring their whole of mind to their daily life and increase their effectiveness and the effectiveness of those around them. This expertise scales from the individual to the team to the organisation. At the core of this work is the practice of encounter.  Earlier blogs can be found here.

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