Snow day *chaos*

Snow days are chaotic. It's not that thing are chaotic around my house. We all pretty much just sit around on the computer, shovel snow, and go out for occasional snow-shoeing or skiing.

But I have to say that snow days generate a bit of chaos in my head. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi would call this psychic entropy--which is when there's no order to your thoughts. For me, this happens whenever my routine is brutally ripped out from underneath me, like on snow days.

Am I really complaining about a day off?

Yes... Yes, I guess I am. But it's my own fault. What I need is more flexibility, more ability to switch from flow-generating activity to flow-generating activity on the fly. I need a mental gear box.

I shouldn't need routine. I shouldn't need for everything to proceed as scheduled. Serendipity should be welcome. Disruption and interruption should be invited. Because lots of awesome things happen when no plans have been made, like snow-shoeing with my 18-year old daughter, who also had a snow day. That's when relationships happen.

So that's my goal: To always be ready to take full advantage of serendipitous interruptions to my routine, to always have flow-generating activities ready to go at a moment's notice, and always be ready to engage in relationships whenever the opportunity presents itself, and to always maintain a flexible mindset that's focused on people and what's really important, rather than a mechanical, algorithmic schedule and tasks that I run through like some workaholic robot.

So I suppose the 4 or 5 snowdays we've had so far this winter have been good. they've shown me another area for improvement.

And I think this is a big one.

#Flow in relationships

There's this one short, steep slope on the trail where the underlying sand and gravel is exposed and the gnarled roots of old white pines form stairs and keep it all from slumping down to the bottom. Half way up, there's a yellow birch about six inches in diameter. It's roots mingle with the white pine--no, mingle is not the right word, they are tangled like the interlocking scaly fingers of of a couple of old dragons. In fact, they are growing together--growing into and around each other.

It made me think of the way relationships are like that. Our lives grow together over time, and we have to be careful with other people, because we're inextricably linked together. And the longer we've been in a relationship, the closer the ties, and the harder it is to tell where one of us ends and the other begins.

I remember Ray Kurzweil talking in How to Create a Mind about how our loved ones end up such a part of our minds that when a person's partner dies, it leaves a sort of gaping hole.

But I think this goes beyond our significant others, spouses and family members. We are all, of course, interconnected, especially with those we interact with the most--students, friends, colleagues.. We have to be so careful, but it's more than being careful. It's more than avoiding short-sightedness. It's more than being mindful of others... and compassionate. This interconnection means we are not alone. I'm not even sure we're separate at all.

But it's not easy, is it? When I'm on the trail, obstacles--rocks, mud, water, make the hike enjoyable. The challenge is part of the fun. But challenging relationships often don't seem the same way. Instead, those gnarly roots and boulders are often a just a source of stress.


But if rocks on the trail are sources of exercise and flow, why not these other obstacles? No doubt, navigating a few boulders on the trail is usually easier than relationship challenges: The wilderness of minds is much more complex than Wolf Den. But the fact remains, it's all in the approach.

Csikszentmihalyi hits on this in Flow, explaining how family relationships can be a source of flow experiences. There are certainly rules that govern relationships like these (like monogamy and societal expectation about childrearing) and as long as you have clear rules, clear goals, clear and immediate feedback, and just the right balance of challenge and skill, you've got flow.

And what about other relationships? What about our relationships with students and colleagues? Can my classroom be flow experience, just by virtue of my relationships with my students? Why not?

Of course, this takes lots of work. Csikszentmihalyi again:

"To play the trumpet well, a musician cannot let more than a few days pass without practicing. An athlete who does not run regularly will soon be out of shape, and will no longer enjoy running. Any manager knows that his company will start falling apart of his attention wanders. In each case, without concentration, a complex activity breaks down into chaos. Why shuld the family be different? Unconditional acceptance, the complete trust family members ought to have for one another, is meaningful only when it is accompanied by an unstinting investment of attention."

So let's go. Time to pay more attention to these relationships (#mindful) and take advantage of their flow-producing potential.

Taming teenage psychic entropy: Flow and school, part 3.

"Lifestyles built on pleasure survive only in symbiosis with complex cultures based on hard work and enjoyment. But when the culture is no longer able or willing to support unproductive hedonists, those addicted to pleasure, lacking skills and discipline and therefore unable to fend for themselves, find themselves lost and helpless." 

-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow

This is how the famous psychologist and originator of the flow concept wrapped up his section on the importance of being able to "tame solitude"--to use time alone constructively and enjoyably by filling it with flow-generating experiences.

This is not easy, but it is critical, and more so every day in our increasingly information-based society, where literacy and mastery if information are becoming absolutely essential. Which is why it's so critical we help young people to master this as early as possible. In Csikszentmihalyi's words:

"Learning to use time alone, instead of escaping from it, is especially important in out early years. Teenagers who can't bear solitude disqualify themselves from later carrying out adult tasks that require serious mental preparation. A typical scenario familiar to many parents involves a teenager who comes back from school, drops the books in his bedroom, and after taking a snack from the refrigerator immediately heads for the phone to get in touch with his friends (My update for 2014: takes his phone out of his pocket and opens Snapchat). If there is nothing going on there, he will turn on the stereo (My update: pop in his earbuds) or the TV (update: or PS4)."

Of course, this could just as easily be describing an adult, but let's continue..

"If by any chance he is tempted to open a book, the resolve is unlikely to last long. To study means to concentrate on difficult patterns of information (emphasis mine), and sooner or later even the most disciplined mind drifts away from the relentless templates on the page to pursue more pleasant thoughts. But it is difficult to summon up pleasant thoughts at will. Instead, ones mind typically is besieged by the usual visitors: the shadowy phantoms that intrude on the unstructured mind."

Again, teens are not alone in this struggle. That's what the #mindfulness movement is all about. The struggle is the same, though the content of worries may differ:

"The teenager begins to worry about his looks, his popularity, his chances in life (Me: Wait, did I say my worries were different? Hmm...). To repel these intrusions he must find something else to occupy his consciousness. Studying won't do, because it is too difficult. The adolescent is ready to do almost anything to take his mind off this situation--provided it does not take too much psychic energy. The usual solution is to turn back to the familiar routine of music (Mine was Pink Floyd), TV, or a friend with whom to while the time away."

Amazingly insightful passage, I think. Makes me think about how I can help my students learn the skills they need to focus and study independently. Right now I'm honing in on two key phrases of Csikszentmihalyi:

1. "To study means to concentrate on difficult patterns of information," and
2. "Studying won't do, because it is too difficult."

Can we scaffold this process of learning to concentrate and study by providing simple tasks at first for them to master independently, like rote memorization, and slowly working up to more difficult tasks, like reading for information, summarization, independent analysis, application, and evaluation?

In any case, as teachers and parents, we can't assume they already have these skills. heck, we can't assume we have them. And there's a lot at stake here.

The paradox of work

He calls it the paradox of work.

According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, people report more flow at work than during leisure, yet they're much more likely to wish they were somewhere else while at work than while at leisure. In other words, most of us don't like being at work, even though we're actually happier there. Funny.

We obviously don't know ourselves very well, or what makes us happy. And according to Csikszentmihalyi, that's flow--that state of being focussed on a task just challenging enough to match our current mastery. It brings order to our consciousness, he says, and leads to the feeling of enjoyment.


For me, the concept of flow solves a dilemma I've been mulling over for several months. I'm a big fan of Tim Ferris (4-Hour Workweek), who advocates spending as little time as possible at work so you can enjoy more leisure time. But I'm also a fan of Seth Godin (Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us), who says there's no reason to worry about boundaries between work and personal life if you find your passion and fulfilment in your work.

These two seemed to contradict each other until I noticed how Ferriss spends his leisure time: he systematically masters activities like kickboxing, tango dancing, Japanese language, and gourmet cooking. Both Ferriss and Godin are simply advocating filling your time with flow experiences.

The take home message is this: Don't spend your time doing something that's not challenging and enjoyable. Either find ways to find flow in what you currently have to do, or do something else.

Flow at school, part 2

The basketball player typically knows immediately and exactly how well she's doing, as do the chess player, the gymnast, woodworker, runner, writer, and the artist. And this is apparently one of the key components of a flow-generating activity: immediate feedback.

It's also one of the biggest challenges of teaching.

I've been trying to give students more rapid feedback. Automated quizzes on Moodle, for which students get multiple attempts at mastery, help with this, but Moodle can't yet automate formal lab report or biology project grading (though it can automate the grading of short (20 words or less) written answers).

I think the reason many recoil at the idea of automated assessment of written work is they feel it will be missing something--the human element. I see their concern, but I'm confident that hurdle will eventually be overcome as more intelligent systems are developed. And the feedback we receive from flow-generating activities is not often in the form of human comments anyway--it's a ball bouncing off the backboard, the loss of a queen, or words that just aren't flowing.

And that last example brings to mind another possibility: If we can help students master self-assessment, then they can get the same immediate feedback that amateur and professional writers get as they write. Or we could make better use of peer-review. Or how about using more informal and immediate feedback, instead of always issuing formal ratings and grades. This idea of replacing grades with feedback has been the subject of conversation on a new Facebook page: Teachers throwing out grades.

Either way, it makes a lot of sense that immediate feedback is key. The typical high school student waits days or even weeks for feedback on a major assignment. Imagine tossing up a basketball and not knowing if it went in until two weeks later. This can't help with motivation and mastery. Instead, it sends the message that the real goal is not improvement, but evaluation. if the goal were improvement, we'd give feedback immediately.

Flow at school, part 1

"Again, the importance of personally taking control of the direction of learning from the very first steps cannot be stressed enough. If a person feels coerced to read a certain book, to follow a given course because that is supposed to be the way to do it, learning will go against the grain. But if the decision is to take that same route because of an inner feeling of rightness, the learning will be effortless and enjoyable."
                                                             -Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow

Wow. This guy just nailed it.

If we don't focus on this essential first step, student autonomy and buy-in (and meaningful standards), the whole process becomes unpleasant and ineffective.

This quote is from the chapter on the joys of mental pursuits, and in its closing section, he sums it up:

"Many people give up on learning after they leave school because thirteen or fourteen years of extrinsically motivated education is still a source of unpleasant memories. Their attention has been manipulated long enough from the outside by textbooks and teachers, and they have counted graduation as the first day of freedom."

And the end result of all this? Not only will they miss out on the joy of learning, "But a person who forgoes the use of his symbolic skills is never really free. His thinking will be directed by his neighbours, by the editorials in the papers, and by the appeals of television. he will be at the mercy of 'experts.'"

There's a lot at stake here. Radical change in education is long past due.

Memorization and a well-ordered mind

"I affirm that tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind."

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4:3

I was really challenged this morning by Csikszentmihalyi's ideas on the usefulness of memorization. 

"A person who can remember stories, poems, lyrics of songs, baseball statistics, chemical formulas, mathematical operations, historical dates, biblical passages, and wise quotations has many advantages over one who has not cultivated such a skill. The consciousness of such a person is independent of the order that may or may not be provided by the environment. She can always amuse herself, and find meaning in the contents of the mind. While others need external stimulation--television, reading, conversation, or drugs--to keep their minds from drifting into chaos, the person whose memory is stocked with patterns of information is autonomous and self-contained. Additionally, such a person is also a much more cherished companion, because she can share the information in her mind, and thus help bring order into the consciousness of those with whom she interacts."

And he bemoans the effects of educational reform that eliminated rote memorization from schools:

"But for a person who has nothing to remember, life can become severely impoverished. This possibility was completely overlooked by educational reformers early in this century, who, armed with research results, proved that "rote learning" was not an efficient way to store and acquire information... The reformers would have had justification, if the point of remembering was simply to solve practical problems. But if the control of consciousness is judged to be at least as important as the ability to get things done, then learning complex patterns of information by heart is by no means a waste of effort."

In previous posts, I've argued like these early reformers, that with the internet so widely available, memorization of facts can be replaced by the web, and we will have more mental energy and time for higher order thinking. And it's true--technology builds on itself. If we still had students memorize the Iliad, we wouldn't have the time to teach them to use Google, which they can use to access the Iliad and much more.

But his point is well taken. We have to provide order to our minds. The internet can't do that for us (yet). Rote memorization is one way to do this. (Other ways include the various flow activities, from sports to culinary arts to meditation). It also serves as practice for controlling our consciousness and makes life more enjoyable.


So what to memorize? Csikszentmihalyi suggests starting with something you are intensely interested in, whether it be sports statistics, songs or poetry. The goal here, after all, is enjoyment.

But there's a higher level as well, that of order. In the next section of the book he is beginning to discuss the flow-producing effects of language, mathematics, science, and philosophy. It seems we could kill two birds with one stone if our rote memorization is part of a system of thought that could help provide order to our consciousness in general. We'll see...

BTW, here's the full passage from Meditations 4:

"Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquility; and I affirm that tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind."

It's all in the approach

"Like all other sources of flow related to bodily skills--like sport, sex, and aesthetic visual experiences--the cultivation of taste only leads to enjoyment if one takes control of the activity. As long as one strives to become a gourmet or a connoisseur of wines because it is the 'in' thing to do, striving to master an externally imposed challenge, then taste may easily turn sour. But a cultivated palate provides many opportunities for flow if one approaches eating--and cooking--in a spirit of adventure and curiosity, exploring the potentials of food for the sake of the experience rather than as a showcase for one's expertise."  - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow

And so it is with everything. It's in the approach, the perspective. Work. Leisure. Life. Approach it as an obligation, and it becomes a struggle, but let it sit in your mind as something to be explored, mastered, enjoyed, and it is transformed.