Hi Friends - colleagues,
As I was reading a recent issue of US News & World Report (Special Year End issue (2008) vol 145, # 12), there was an article about "building your own brand", presumably to make yourself more valued as an employee or perhaps someday as a job seeker, etc. While I personally feel safe in my job-- as much as anyone can with a failing state budget-- current CA shortfall, oh maybe $20 billion, I think that blogging might just be fun and actually helpful to me to reflect on what I have learned and am continuing to learn. As part of that article was a suggestion to blog about your passion---- hum, is school my passion? Yeah, pretty much. I have been teaching for 13 years in a public school in Los Angeles and before that I was known to stand before crowds of
10-50 and wax poetic for the American Cancer Society about breast cancer, nutrition and cancer, or the merits of early detection tests for colon and rectal cancers. Then there was a small non-profit I worked for after that where I would speak to similarly sized crowds about the importance of insulating your walls to save energy (and $$) in the cold winters of MN. Finally, I would also call teaching my passion since I am continually trying to do things better in the classroom--- present, assess, guide, discipline, inspire, interest, motivate, etc.
Okay, that was a lot about nothing -- so I'm currently reading this book called "The Science of Fear", by Daniel Gardner. It came out in July '08 and "fear" is a subject I have been intrigued by for many years, like 20.
Back to the book... I expected it to be about why people make bad decisions (emotionally) when reason should win out and indeed in the first 50 pages that I have read thus far there are many examples and reasons for that (more about that later). But what I didn't expect this book to be about was the psychology of motivation, and while that "M" word hasn't been used a lot (or maybe even at all in the book so far) the excitement for me is the wheels are churning for me as to how to motivate my students better.
Here is a funny example that surprised me... Was Ghandi older or younger than 9 when he died? Oh silly question, forget I said that. But what would your guess be?
The trouble is you can't forget that 9 number and because of it most people guess--- um--- what would your guess be....
most people would say around 50. Now if you take a different group of people and say Was Ghandi older or younger than 150 when he died? Oh silly question, forget I said that. But what would your guess be?
Their answer to this question is much higher than 50 because of that first number given to you is called the adjustment heuristic or as Gardner calls it in the book the Anchoring Rule, "leaving people's final estimates biased toward the initial anchor value". He clearly makes this point citing more examples like that. So what does this have to do with education? I'm not sure, yet. However, this interests me because there must be some way to use this information in the classroom to get more out of the underachievers. We need very little to motivate the classic "A students", they just show up and do the work, but the 15-30% that could do more, much more, that's where I, and I suspect most teachers need some magic bullets.
As I was reading a recent issue of US News & World Report (Special Year End issue (2008) vol 145, # 12), there was an article about "building your own brand", presumably to make yourself more valued as an employee or perhaps someday as a job seeker, etc. While I personally feel safe in my job-- as much as anyone can with a failing state budget-- current CA shortfall, oh maybe $20 billion, I think that blogging might just be fun and actually helpful to me to reflect on what I have learned and am continuing to learn. As part of that article was a suggestion to blog about your passion---- hum, is school my passion? Yeah, pretty much. I have been teaching for 13 years in a public school in Los Angeles and before that I was known to stand before crowds of
10-50 and wax poetic for the American Cancer Society about breast cancer, nutrition and cancer, or the merits of early detection tests for colon and rectal cancers. Then there was a small non-profit I worked for after that where I would speak to similarly sized crowds about the importance of insulating your walls to save energy (and $$) in the cold winters of MN. Finally, I would also call teaching my passion since I am continually trying to do things better in the classroom--- present, assess, guide, discipline, inspire, interest, motivate, etc.Okay, that was a lot about nothing -- so I'm currently reading this book called "The Science of Fear", by Daniel Gardner. It came out in July '08 and "fear" is a subject I have been intrigued by for many years, like 20.
Back to the book... I expected it to be about why people make bad decisions (emotionally) when reason should win out and indeed in the first 50 pages that I have read thus far there are many examples and reasons for that (more about that later). But what I didn't expect this book to be about was the psychology of motivation, and while that "M" word hasn't been used a lot (or maybe even at all in the book so far) the excitement for me is the wheels are churning for me as to how to motivate my students better.
Here is a funny example that surprised me... Was Ghandi older or younger than 9 when he died? Oh silly question, forget I said that. But what would your guess be? The trouble is you can't forget that 9 number and because of it most people guess--- um--- what would your guess be....
most people would say around 50. Now if you take a different group of people and say Was Ghandi older or younger than 150 when he died? Oh silly question, forget I said that. But what would your guess be?
Their answer to this question is much higher than 50 because of that first number given to you is called the adjustment heuristic or as Gardner calls it in the book the Anchoring Rule, "leaving people's final estimates biased toward the initial anchor value". He clearly makes this point citing more examples like that. So what does this have to do with education? I'm not sure, yet. However, this interests me because there must be some way to use this information in the classroom to get more out of the underachievers. We need very little to motivate the classic "A students", they just show up and do the work, but the 15-30% that could do more, much more, that's where I, and I suspect most teachers need some magic bullets.
Interesting. I came across this entry because I'm a theater director researching fear. I was talking about it to my wife who is a teacher and grad student at Columbia and using the concept of anchoring in one of her papers. Why are you reading a book on fear? Have you had any ideas of how to use anchoring in the classroom?
ReplyDeletethanks for the comment... Fear is just something that interests me. Anais Nin said "The world shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." And I am trying to get these kids (freshmen) to try new things, get out of their ruts a bit and some of those things require a bit of bravery. As far as "anchoring" is concerned, I hadn't heard of it till a few minutes ago when I looked it up. Good ideas from what I have found thus far as making my room safe and welcoming. Thanks again for the comments and ideas.
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