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Teach to Thorndike Affect

Before the pandemic, classrooms were set in stone—literally. A physical building, a physical classroom, with butts in seats. Blended was but an option back then—an option grounded in physicality. There was always a school, and there was always a white board with a teacher and rows of desks. Sometimes, the desks were in circles and, sometimes, they were facing the front of room where the teacher had her electronic hub for a smart board and a big screen TV. And for the most part, teachers taught to Thorndike Effect—Effect with an E. Classroom was more than a place of learning—it was also a place for prescribed discipline, zero tolerance, behavior norms, consequences, and academic outcomes. Effect—meaning results—was the watchword of schooling.

At the end of the second decade of the 21st century, a global pandemic achieved something that countless reformers had failed to accomplish from Plato through DeVos; from Aristotle’s Lyceum, Comenius’ Pansophism, Pestalozzi’s Yverdun, Lowe’s Payment by Results, and Horace Mann’s exquisite experiment in Public Education. The pandemic managed to separate children from teachers. As Silicon Valley tech wizards speed to monetize emergent new “teacherless” paradigms, much of the genius and nurture that teachers bring to the table could be lost. “Teacherless, online curriculum” is the catch phrase for post-pandemic modernity. So what are we losing in a teacherless society?

Singularity Schooling

This is a singularity moment for education. Even if, in the past, there were online components to most classes and nearly all children shared their work in the cloud, the teacher was still the fountainhead of social context and psychological safety. No one planned to have children sitting in front of computers for long hours, attending to the business of assignments online for grades that don’t seem to make any sense anymore. The following information is consistent with data that was collected by educators and observers at the Institute for Connecting Neuroscience with Teaching and Learning during the first four months of COVID-19 social distancing (134).

Many unforeseen effects emerged several months into this cultural shift. Some were to be expected and others were simply startling. Guardians, the traditional breadwinners and providers of safety—the implicit place for identity and familial bonding—were suddenly and without precedent plunged headfirst into the role of teacher and monitor. The background computer screen introduced the virtual teacher, but the adult in the room had to manage the child’s attention to detail, plan for logging-on, and staying connected (physically and socially), monitor lagging skills, and “focus” for staying on task.

For the first time, guardians were forced to experience their child in a “formal” learning space. They witnessed children in mental “shut-down,” children in reactive combativeness, and sometimes, their child became the class clown—“that child” with behavior issues. Guardians admitted, “Now I know what it is like to manage 20 of these kids. It’s impossible.” Guardians were forced to be the provider of content instead of the fund of psychological safety—a role that they had taken for granted. The safety of classroom routines and school familiarity was suddenly replaced with something that made no sense. Guardians were trying to be teachers and school was in the home.

As expected, resilient children were able to manage the added stress associated with the shifting sands of learning. But hypersensitive “orchidial” children struggled to find their place, their identity, and their safety. Even in the same family, guardians watched helplessly as some of their children engaged and handled the extra demands that were placed on them, while siblings wilted and withdrew into an inconsolable reactive place of fear and anxiety. These struggles manifested and were expressed in sleep and dietary outcomes that were unsustainable. Some children slept better, were less anxious, and studied with ease. Other children wilted under the added stress of learning in an unfamiliar home environment that was neither safe nor social.

Psychological safety was perturbed by events and surroundings. Children reported a certain discomfort with where they found themselves: a place rife with discontinuity, ambiguity, and uncertainty. Equally disconcerting were elements of online interface platforms, together with teacher inexperience with online presentations, and inconsistent WIFI access. This combination caused children to associate stress, anxiety, fear, and failure with online classes. They soon got “zoomed out,” a new term added to the behavioral lexicon that included negative reactions like “act up,” “opt out,” “zone out,” and “drop out.” Kids desperately needed connection and sense of belonging: “I miss my friends. I wish school would come back.” These were the same kids who a few months previously were screaming: “I hate school. School sucks.”

Psychological Safety

There is a lot more to school than learning English, Math, Science, Engineering, and Technology. Teachers already knew this, but the constraints of systemic thinking around STEM and a canned curriculum kept the focus on content, not on social. A clear aspect of school is delivered through a covert curriculum that is implicit in social contexts. In this space, young learners figure out who they are, how to interact with peers, and how to survive group situations.

And yet, something emerged early in the pandemic that took people by surprise. Some children began to say things like: “I can learn easier from home. There is no stress and no pressure.” These were the same kids who were often in trouble, sent to the principal’s office, or excluded from class because of behavior tantrums. Was it because these children suddenly realized that they were no longer being compared to other kids? They were not being labeled in the classroom and stratified against their peers. Class manipulation and public shaming in clipping routines were no more. They were shielded from implicit negative social contexts—the Zoom zone shielded them from stratification and label.

Some guardians reported that their children were sleeping better, that there were fewer behavior issues at home, and that their homes seemed less stressful and much happier. Here was a twist in reality. Could it be that school had been causing high levels of stress that were spilling over into homes? Existing data seem to confirm these observations. The APA had reported a dramatic increase in stress for young people since the 2000s, with the average reported stress exceeding that of adults. Eighty-three percent of stress for kids was about school (135). This aligned clearly with what guardians were discovering as children are forced to stay away from school. Stress levels are lower, and sleep and diet patterns are healthier.

Teachers who used a neural way of looking at the world were able to create a very different experience for children in virtual classrooms. In this model, the focus was not on content but on context. Intentionality is key to providing psychological safety. From the point of view of the brain, the objective was not how much math or science can be squeezed into the child; it was about how the child can become ignited in the distributed learning space. The content is but a means to an end. Affect trumped effect! How is the child feeling, as opposed to how much information can be consumed.

Psychological safety is manifest when the child can access higher-order processing and rational thought. The teacher’s job is then a matter of ensuring that the lesson is (i) inviting enough (because it aligns with the child’s interest), and (ii) exciting enough to keep a child engaged. Foundational thinking about the child’s motivation in an intrinsic place further ensures (i) a common and stated sense of purpose through (ii) autonomy and choice during the lesson, and (iii) mastery as a result of the lesson.

Strategies for Psychological Safety

When the teacher is active in growing structures that the child needs in order to process and understand any math/science content it changes the classroom. Content becomes a channel for growing the child’s brain, for igniting amazing questions that excite the child’s curiosity and innate capacity for learning. Here we describe strategies that successful teachers enjoyed during social distancing when schools were closed and children were home online. The focus is always on the child, not the content, and the end result is Affect not Effect.

• Photograph-Postcard: Picture of teacher (with cat or dog) and personal note to the child stating that she is thinking about him/her and misses him/her. Co-create a belonging classroom even via the web. Use USPS instead of email.
• Mirror Games Online: Have fun mirroring hand and face movements with single and multi-screen view of peers. Mirroring will connect with mirror neurons and grow empathy in a safe, inclusive setting.
• Handwritten Note: Send in the mail with the child’s name on it. A stark reminder of the personal touch, the weight of the tangible artifact, and a warm comforting message it contains.
• Class News Release: A personal phone call from teacher with important information about other children’s birthdays and life events (new sister or brother). Share dopamine and oxytocin with cohesion activities that are meaningful only to this group of children.
• Music Friday: Carefully selected class playlist for end of week celebration. Co-create the list with the children and host a fun party on Fridays to usher in a weekend break with gratitude and sense of completion. Music is strong social cement that causes cohesion and happy sense of togetherness.

Teacher Talk

Simple Strategies

We present here some strategies that worked for a neural educator in her distance classroom online gatherings. This is an “intrinsic” space that is fostered by choice, mastery, and sense of purpose. Techniques that I use will depend on the context and the child, but from my online bag of tools, I might decide on “storification”. In other words, I am using visuals, concrete objects, and imagination to engage children and keep them in their prefrontal cortex.

Storifying the lesson is a favorite of all children who can easily find themselves in the story. With colorful characters, students can relate to the many twists and themes that intertwine in the unfolding of events. Safety, inclusivity, equity, sense of belonging, and “Me Here Now” are essential ingredients for storification. It doesn’t take much creativity to storify any theme, any topic, or any lesson plan. Another way of saying this: I am greenhousing the children one by one.

Advanced Strategies

Gamifying the lesson is also a fun co-experience. I can come up with my own games to get the ball rolling, but it is always much more engaging and way more fun when students co-create the games with me. I regard it as part of the intrinsic operationalizing that I plan each lesson. Each child needs to see him or herself in the game. How do I add “Autonomy” to the lesson? That’s easy—just answer the question, “Where is there choice for each child?” It might be as simple as, “What color do you want to draw this artifact?” or “Where do you what to put this thing?”, or “What time (how long) do you want to do this activity?” Each child can choose something that makes it personal and real. Just add one of the five Ws to the lesson plan—What, When, Where, Why, Who.

Next, I want to add “Mastery” to the plan. Once again, I want to answer the question, “How can each child increase a skill or knowledge in this exercise—small motor and/or cognitive?” As soon as the element of competition is removed and the child is only compared against their own skill or knowledge … then can we truly make progress without labeling or stratifying. This is easy to accomplish online. The positive neurotransmitters that are released for the child when we stay in this intrinsic modality will ensure that the child will (i) want more, and (ii) feel good about their progress. Thorndike was right: “When I do something and it feels good, I will do it again.” Serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin will flow into the synapse—the currency of learning—and the child will delight in their innate capacity for excelling.

Finally, the lesson is solidly rooted in a sense of purpose. When the child can perceive a link between the lesson content and authentic real-life situations, the sense of purpose is uncovered. Making it visible is easily accomplished with a Piagetian maneuver that involves a “moment of disequilibrium”. Piaget connected conceptual change with disequilibrium. When something doesn’t make sense to the child’s conception of the world, her meaning-making will be perturbed sufficiently that she will look for solutions. Ultimately, she will want to assimilate new information to prior knowledge in an effort to rectify the situation. For instance, a child who “knows” that the sun comes out by day and the moon comes out at night will be surprised to, one day, discover that the sun and moon are both out at the same time. That discovery will introduce the “moment of disequilibrium” to the mental model about moon and night—such that any new information in relation the moon’s orbit about the earth will be adjusted to accommodate her first-hand observation. Understanding is not only immediate; it is forever.

Summary

Teachers who have already figured out that a set of neural filters makes a meaningful difference to (i) their personal worldview about learning and teaching, and (ii) how their students show up in the learning environment experience life in the classroom—brick and mortar or online—with a neural and progressive lens. Connecting neuroscience with teaching and learning allows teachers to embrace Thorndike’s original plan for education so that all children can learn with Affect.

Vocabulary

Storify, Affect, Gamify