Science, Play and Joyful Education

            One can find information on almost any topic on the internet.  This week I came across two articles related to my explorations into a new joyful foundation for education.

            The first was from The Huffington Post January 18, 2011.  It is by Joe Robinson, author of the book, Don't Miss Your Life: Find More Joy and Fulfillment Now.  I have not read the book, but his article, The Key to Happiness: A Taboo for Adults?, provides a kind of foretaste of the book.

            Mr. Robinson’s article is about the beneficial effects of play, especially for adults.  He writes: “Adults are oblivious to what they knew as kids -- that play is where you live.

Grownups aren't supposed to play. We have problems. We're too busy. We have important things to do. It turns out, though, that there are few things more important to your happiness than frequent doses of play. As a study led by Princeton researcher Alan Krueger found, of all the things on the planet, we're at our happiest when we're involved in engaging leisure activities. Why not do more of that?”

            I agree wholeheartedly with this thought, and I discussed the same in my booklet, Joyful Education.  Here are some other good quotes from the article:

 

“We live in a culture obsessed with wringing an external result from everything we do. Play doesn't operate on that metric. It's not about the end but the experience. This has made play one of the last remaining taboos, an irrational deviation from gainful obligation. What we don't realize, though, is that it's precisely the lack of a quantifiable result that allows play to tap a more meaningful place that satisfies core needs and reveals the authentic person behind the masks of job and society.”

           

“Anthropologist Gregory Bateson believed that the fixation on making everything productive and rational cuts us off from the world of the spontaneous that is home to real knowledge. Wisdom, Bateson believed, is to be found in the realms outside intentionality, in the inner reaches of art, expression and religion. "The whole culture is suffering from overconscious intentionality, overseriousness, overemphasis on productivity and work," psychologist and cultural explorer Bradford Keeney told me. "We've forgotten that the whole picture requires a dance between leisure and work."

“Studies show that play reflects more of who you are than your work. When you're engaged in activities of "personal expressiveness," ones that are self-chosen and that reflect intrinsic goals, you're operating from the "true self," says Alan Waterman of the College of New Jersey.” 

“Play is 100-percent experience.  It's done for the intrinsic pleasure, for the participation.”

“This tonic we write off as trivial is a crucial engine of well-being. In its low-key, humble way, play yanks grownups out of their purposeful sleepwalk to reveal the animating spirit within. You are alive, and play will prove it to you.”

            I think we can all benefit from more true play.  There are many ways to do this.  When I was teaching I would often ask students to discuss or write short essays on topics such as: What would you do if you didn’t have to ‘work’?  Another set of questions was: What is your dream?  What do you need to achieve it?  Got some good answers, too.  With the dream questions, though, I learned there was a third and most important question.  Only to focus on achieving one’s dream is the “they lived happily ever after” scenario.  But life goes on after the story ends and the book is closed.  The real question turned out to be: What do you do after you achieve your dream?  Answering this question brings you out of dream and into higher vision.

            The other article, by Judy Willis, a former neurologist and currently teaching at Santa Barbara Middle School, is titled, The Neuroscience of Joyful Education.  See what I mean about finding any topic on the internet?  It starts out with the statement, “Brain research tells us that when the fun stops, learning often stops too.”  She goes on to use her training in neuroscience to generate insights into learning, teaching methods and curriculum organization.  For example, “The truth is that when we scrub joy and comfort from the classroom, we distance our students from effective information processing and long-term memory storage. Instead of taking pleasure from learning, students become bored, anxious, and anything but engaged. They ultimately learn to feel bad about school and lose the joy they once felt.” 

            She goes on: “My own experience as a neurologist and classroom teacher has shown me the benefits of joy in the classroom. Neuroimaging studies and measurement of brain chemical transmitters reveal that students' comfort level can influence information transmission and storage in the brain.  When students are engaged and motivated and feel minimal stress, information flows freely through the affective filter in the amygdala and they achieve higher levels of cognition, make connections, and experience “aha” moments. Such learning comes not from quiet classrooms and directed lectures, but from classrooms with an atmosphere of exuberant discovery.”

            She shows scientifically what good teachers throughout history have known, “that superior learning takes place when classroom experiences are enjoyable and relevant to students' lives, interests, and experiences.”

            All good teachers know that an overload of stress and negative emotion interferes with learning because it lowers cognitive performance.  Through brain mapping and charting chemical flows she provides some interesting clinical evidence of the inhibiting effect of stress and negative emotion and, conversely, the heightened effect on learning of positive emotion and lower levels of stress.

            “A common theme in brain research is that superior cognitive input to the executive function networks is more likely when stress is low and learning experiences are relevant to students,” she writes.  “Lessons that are stimulating and challenging are more likely to pass through the reticular activating system (a filter in the lower brain that focuses attention on novel changes perceived in the environment). Classroom experiences that are free of intimidation may help information pass through the amygdala's affective filter. In addition, when classroom activities are pleasurable, the brain releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter that stimulates the memory centers and promotes the release of acetylcholinem, which increases focused attention.”

            So how can teachers create environments where anxiety is low while providing enough challenge and novelty for suitable brain stimulation?

            The first thing she suggests: “Make it relevant.  When stress in the classroom is getting high, it is often because a lesson is overly abstract or seems irrelevant to students. Teachers can reduce this type of stress by making the lesson more personally interesting and motivating. Ideally, students should be able to answer the question, “Why are we learning about this?” at any point in a lesson.

            Another is: “Give them a break.  Just like adults, students can reduce stress by enjoying hobbies, time with friends, exercise, or music. Even though schools are shortening recess, physical education, art, drama, and even lunchtime to add more time for core subjects, teachers can give students a three-minute vacation to reduce stress. Any pleasurable activity used as a brief break can give the amygdala a chance to cool down and the neurotransmitters time to rebuild.”

            Thirdly: “Create positive associations.  Eliminating all stress from students' lives is impossible. However, even if previous classroom experiences have led to associations that link certain activities, such as memorizing multiplication tables, to a stress response from the amygdala, students can benefit from revisiting the activity without something negative happening. By avoiding stressful practices like calling on students who have not raised their hands, teachers can dampen the stress association.”

            There is a lot more to these articles than I can include here, though they are not long.  But both point to the need to transform education, making it more joyful, creative, engaging and meaningful, so that schools  will produce people capable of transforming the world for the better.  Classrooms can be laboratories of transformation.  Both science and play will aid in that wonderful process.

            To find the article by Joe Robinson, google Joe Robinson The Key to Happiness: A Taboo for Adults?  For Judy Willis’s article, google  The Neuroscience of Joyful Education.  Would love to hear of other articles and resources.