Given the hype for STEM, defending the value of the humanities (as Martin Luther did, for one) is an important move in the broader education dialogue. And it’s one that’s not very hard to make, when there are articles like this one on how Google was planning to hire more humanities trained employees rather than more programmers. It turns out that technological change and the job market aren’t making the humanities irrelevant after all.

But for a while I’ve felt that the trade-off between STEM and the humanities is an unfortunate false dichotomy. (Logic lesson: false dichotomy – when two things are posed as mutually exclusive options when both can be embraced at the same time.) The seven liberal arts of the classical tradition encompassed BOTH the language arts of the trivium (grammar, dialectic and rhetoric, or perhaps humanities in a general sense) AND the mathematical arts of the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy).

In a way, astronomy was the paradigmatic STEM discipline, since it wove together the science of the natural world with mathematical calculations to “save the appearances” and had applications to the travel technologies of the day.

Problems with the Trade-Off Between STEM and the Humanities

Part of the problem with the whole dichotomy is that we’re left arguing about whether to privilege STEM over the humanities or the humanities over STEM, when embracing both would be mutually beneficial. After all, scientists still need to write and publish those rhetorical masterpieces we call academic papers to advance the discipline. And what culturally savvy hipster could not benefit from some of the scientific precision of mathematics and design thinking?

But the other problem, which is more to the point for this blog article, is that a utilitarian focus doesn’t serve either the humanities or STEM careers very well. And that’s because too much focus on money-making skills for the job market doesn’t end up creating the best professionals in either domain. That comes from deep work, passionately and regularly pursued. The best programmers get good at it because they love programming!

STEM and the humanities, or the seven liberal arts of the trivium and quadrivium, were discovered and developed in the first place, because getting into the flow of thought is a source of happiness and joy for human beings. Thinking along the lines of the liberal arts is more like a mental game than a utilitarian bid for power, money or success.

We get support for this notion from an unlikely source, the modern positive psychologist Mihayli Csikszentmihalyi. In his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper Perennial 2008), he writes:

“It is important to stress here a fact that is all too often lost sight of: philosophy and science were invented and flourished because thinking is pleasurable. If thinkers did not enjoy the sense of order that the use of syllogisms and numbers creates in consciousness, it is very unlikely that now we would have the disciplines of mathematics and physics.” (126)

The background for our psychologist’s claim is his idea that our consciousness as human beings is naturally disordered and chaotic, and so one of the primary ways to build human happiness is to engage in activities that order consciousness. While he explores many other ways of achieving flow, that optimal state where our skills meet our challenges and our focus is absorbed by a meaningful activity, one of his chapters is on the flow of thought, or how thinking itself can be an avenue into flow.

Mathematicians and physicists didn’t make their greatest discoveries and push the bounds of human knowledge because of utilitarian motives, but because they got lost in the joy of thought. As he goes on to explain, this claim flies in the face of many historians’ standard explanations of key discoveries:

“The evolution of arithmetic and geometry, for instance, is explained almost exclusively in terms of the need for accurate astronomical knowledge and for the irrigational technology that was indispensable in maintaining the great ‘hydraulic civilizations’ located along the course of large rivers like the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Indus, the Chang Jiang (Yangtze), and the Nile. For these historians, every creative step is interpreted as the product of extrinsic forces, whether they be wars, demographic pressures, territorial ambitions, market conditions, technological necessity, or the struggle for class supremacy.” (126)

Yes, these developments in arithmetic and geometry coincided with applications to “irrigational technology,” but that doesn’t mean that the individuals who invented them did so for such utilitarian reasons. Often it happens that the knowledge necessary for some practical application is discovered first with no thought of its usefulness or application. Then only later, and often by someone else, that knowledge is applied to a practical problem felt by the civilization.

For instance, Csikszentmihalyi tells of the discovery of nuclear fission and how the arms race of World War II is often urged as the inciting historical factor. However, the advancements in knowledge necessary to its development came before and were discovered in a more pleasurable and altogether collegial manner:

“But the science that formed the basis of nuclear fission owed very little to the war; it was made possible through knowledge laid down in more peaceful circumstances—for example, in the friendly exchange of ideas European physicist had over the years in the beer garden turned over to Niels Bohr and his scientific colleagues by a brewery in Copenhagen.” (126)

The joy of thought, of discovery and of solving abstract problems lies at the base of the advance of knowledge, in every age, time and place. As our psychologist summarizes:

“Great thinkers have always been motivated by the enjoyment of thinking rather than by the material rewards that could be gained by it.” (126)

This is supported by several quotations from the Greek philosopher Democritus, a highly original thinker: “It is godlike ever to think on something beautiful and on something new”; “Happiness does not reside in strength or money; it lies in rightness and manysidedness”; “I would rather discover one true cause than gain the kingdom of Persia” (127).

The seven liberal arts of the trivium and quadrivium are those tools of knowledge that are so pleasurable in the handling. Let’s take some time to break down a few of them and see how they work, just for the joy of it.

Gaming the Liberal Art of Grammar

In the classical tradition grammar referred to a much broader category of skills that the modern subject does today. It included all the complex skills involved in reading and interpretation, as well as the mechanics of writing. The term was derived from the Greek word for ‘letter’ (gramma), and thus referred to the holistic study of letters. The famous Roman orator and teacher Quintilian explained in the 1^st century that the best Latin translation of the term was the Latin word litteratura from which we get ‘literature’ (see Institutes of Oratory II.1).

It’s not an accident that in our psychologist’s many studies, one of the most cited ‘flow activities’ that people self-report is the act of reading (Csikszentmihalyi 117). Deep reading, getting lost in a book, is for many a pleasurable activity—the title of Alan Jacob’s book The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction (which I highly recommend) says it all.

Of course, the foundation of this great grammatical activity of piecing letters together into words is the activity of naming itself. Brining order to consciousness relies on some sort of ordering principle and words provide that. They name persons, places, things or ideas, therefore creating order in the mind for an experience or phenomenon, where only chaos existed before:

“The simplest ordering system is to give names to things; the words we invent form discrete events into universal categories.” (124-5)

In both the Judeo-Christian worldview and the Greek roots of the classical tradition, this primacy of the word is endorsed:

“In Genesis 1, God names day, night, sky, earth, sea, and all the living things immediately after He creates them, thereby completing the process of creation. The Gospel of John begins with: ‘Before the World was created, the Word already existed…’; and Heraclitus starts his now almost completely lost volume: ‘This Word (Logos) is from everlasting, yet men understand it as little after the first hearing of it as before….’” (125)

Readers of the Bible will know that in Genesis 2 God assigns the task of naming the animals to Adam in the sequence leading up to the creation of Eve. Adam, whose name means ‘humanity’ in Hebrew, is given the honor and joy of naming the animals that God brings before him—a task that is fitting for him, given how human beings were made in the image of God according to the chapter before.

In its broadest sense then, grammar and the other trivium arts of dialectic and rhetoric involve the practitioner of them in the process of bringing order out of chaos. It is a godlike activity, to borrow the phrase from Heraclitus, to name and distinguish and describe reality. Why should we wonder that such a process would be pleasurable?

Aside: Download the Free eBook “5 Tips for Fostering Flow in the Classical Classroom”

Wondering how to practically apply the idea of flow in your classroom? These 5 actionable steps will help you keep the insights of flow from being a pie-in-the-sky idea. Embody flow in your classroom and witness the increased joy and skill development that result!

You can download “5 Tips for Fostering Flow in the Classical Classroom” on the flow page. Share the page with a friend or colleague, so they can benefit as well.

Embarking on the Quest of the Quadrivium

As with the language arts, it is to the ancient roots of the classical tradition that Csikszentmihalyi goes in order to explain the flow of thought along the lines of the quadrivium:

“After names came numbers and concepts, and then the primary rules for combining them in predictable ways. By the sixth century B.C. Pythagoras and his students had embarked on the immense ordering task that attempted to find common numerical laws binding together astronomy, geometry, music and arithmetic. Not surprisingly, their work was difficult to distinguish from religion, since it tried to accomplish similar goals: to find a way of expressing the structure of the universe. Two thousand years later, Kepler and then Newton were still on the same quest.” (125)

The point that our psychologist is eager to make in this recitation is that the quadrivium arts were not abstract skills aimed at utilitarian ends. Instead, Pythagoras and his students had religious goals of a monumental nature in their numerical and mathematical work. The birth of the quadrivium was nothing less than a “quest” to “find a way of expressing the structure of the universe.”

We can easily see how such a pursuit would catch the hearts and minds of students. Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain present a similar picture of the quest of the quadrivium in their book The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education (which is coming out soon in a revised and updated version!). They point out that “there was deeply spiritual element to it as well…. Pythagoras thought that the harmony of the spheres, part of the liberal art of music, was established by the power of ‘the One’” (version 1.1, p. 53). This, along with their suggestion that “the study of mathematics ought to strike a balance between wonder, work, wisdom and worship,” seems suggestive of the type of joy and pleasure attained in a flow activity.

Of course, for that to be the case, there would need to be, not only a transcendent quest, but also a series of sub-goals and intermediate tasks with clear feedback and of limited scope, so that the rules for a flow activity could be met. When a challenge exceeds the person’s skills by too much, anxiety tends to crush the possibility for flow; likewise, make the activity too easy and boredom ensues (Csikszentmihaly 74).

The development of rules, representations and proofs seem to assist in the process of defining discrete next steps in the grand quest:

“Besides stories and riddles all civilizations gradually developed more systematic rules for combining information, in the form of geometric representations and formal proofs. With the help of such formulas it became possible to describe the movement of the stars, predict seasonal cycles, and accurately map the earth. Abstract knowledge, and finally what we know as experimental science grew out of these rules.” (125)

It seems that the experience of flow and the advancement of discovery almost require the phenomenon of the absent-minded professor. That is because one of the demands of flow is that the mind be wholly absorbed in a meaningful activity. The scientist or mathematician so absorbed has “temporarily tuned out of everyday reality to dwell among the symbolic forms of their favorite domain of knowledge” (127). A great example of this is how the philosopher Immanuel Kant placed his watch in a pot of boiling water while holding carefully onto his egg in the other hand, ready to time out its cooking.

As our psychologist concludes:

“The point is that playing with ideas is extremely exhilarating…. Not only philosophy but the emergence of new scientific ideas is fueled by the enjoyment one obtains from creating a new way to describe reality.” (127)

The Games of the Mind and the Tools of Learning

Such observations about how the liberal arts of both language and number are pleasurable activities may raise a brow of confusion for some teachers and parents.

After all, knowing that great professors, scientists and philosophers can have a grand old time in their work doesn’t solve the angst of my child or the child in my class, who is either bored by a particular discipline or filled with anxiety and self-consciousness.

So how can we help turn the tools of learning into games of the mind for our students who struggle?

Part of the advice our psychologist’s book seems to imply is a reframing of the teacher’s task. While we might be inclined to think that teachers are primarily supposed to deliver correct information to students, perhaps instead teachers should be designers of flow activities within the discipline. If our goal is to cultivate a love of learning in students, then they will have to experience the challenge and discovery of learning for themselves. Receiving the answers is not an empowering, godlike task that optimally challenges your current skills (unless you’re at least required to narrate them back…).

Some examples are probably in order here. In a humanities class, perhaps students should be involved in the process of naming new experiences and ideas that they encounter in their books. How often, I wonder, does a humanities teacher think of the work of reading as an activity in which students will encounter new realities that they will then try to make sense of through concept formation? Are we asking them to notice and describe, to discuss and distinguish? That takes a lot of time devoted to classroom dialogue and is not so efficient as telling students the answers that teacher or students have diligently culled from SparkNotes.

For mathematics instruction Ravi Jain has discussed the importance of puzzle, proof and play. If we can get students puzzling and playing with numbers and formulas, then they will get in flow and start loving the process of discovery. Answers and alternate methods will generate excitement and be stored in their memory, as they strive for greater levels of skill along the quest. It can’t just be about chugging problems and memorizing formulas for an extrinsic reward, like a grade. The best programmers weren’t grade-chasers in their programming class (if they took one and weren’t just self-taught).

After all, the quest for ordering reality through language and number isn’t just about money and success. It’s a transcendent human activity, naturally pleasurable and desirable in and of itself. When we treat it as less than that, we fail to initiate our students into their full God-given inheritance as image-bearers and culture makers.

What other ideas do you have for turning the tools of learning into flow activities?

New Book! The Joy of Learning: Finding Flow Through Classical Education

Enjoying this series? Jason Barney revised and expanded it into a full length book that you can buy on Amazon. Complete with footnotes and in an easy-to-share format for teacher training or to keep in your personal library, the book aims to help you apply the concept of flow in your classical classroom.

Make sure to share about the book on social media and review it on Amazon!

Past installments – Part 1: Training the Attention for Happiness’ Sake, Part 2: The Joy of Memory, Part 3: Narration as Flow. Future installments – Part 5: The Play of Words; Part 6: Becoming Amateur Historians; Part 7: Rediscovering Science as the Love of Wisdom; Part 8, Restoring the School of Philosophers, Part 9, The Lifelong Love of Learning.

The post The Flow of Thought, Part 4: The Seven Liberal Arts as Mental Games appeared first on .

Michael Hobbiss, a researcher from the UK on attention, distraction and cognitive control in adolescents, remarked in an interview on the Learning Scientists website, that there’s been too much focus among educators on how to grab students’ attention, and not enough on how the attentional systems actually work.

Of course, we’ve all heard of the rising diagnoses of ADD/ADHD (66% increase from 2000 to 2010!). Perhaps that fact is simply a function growing popular awareness of the problem, and therefore more doctor visits for a diagnosis. But Daniel Goleman, the bestselling author of Emotional Intelligence and Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, hypothesizes that we’re recognizing it more because it’s becoming more of a problem, even for us adults.

In his book Focus Goleman memorably tells the story of a conversation with a doctor, who recounted how professionals are beginning to self-medicate for attentional issues and narcolepsy. One lawyer was even complaining that he couldn’t write contracts without such drugs, many of which would have required a prescription just a few short years ago (8-9).

A possible cause for our crisis of attention in the modern world is our addiction to the new media and screen time. Those glowing orbs in our hands and on our desks are powerful brain manipulators. I’ve heard the attention-grabbing industry estimated at $6 trillion; that’s a lot of money, time and effort from experts focused at diverting our attention. And perhaps by the law of habit the industry’s power—and our giving into it—is turning us and our students into less focused people.

The upshot to these dire pronouncements is that there is a rich tradition of reflection on the human faculty or habit of attention. Those familiar with Charlotte Mason’s work will recognize it as a theme that she keeps coming back to. Yet Charlotte Mason wasn’t the first educational theorist to spend some focused thought on the attention, and she wasn’t the last.

So in this article, we’re going to explore the practical recommendations for training the attention that Charlotte Mason had in common with one of her predecessors, the famous British Enlightenment philosopher John Locke, followed by a slightly younger contemporary, the American educator John Milton Gregory, known in classical education circles for his book The Seven Laws of Teaching.

Then we will link up with modern cognitive psychology and neuroscience for how they support and confirm this tradition. This research will provide some greater clarity as to what’s going on in our brains and why Locke, Mason and Gregory’s sage advice still stands today. That will take us through the science of attention then and now.

The Science of Attention Then

John Locke on Attention

More than a century before Charlotte Mason, John Locke anticipated her in many of his ideas about education, including his reflections on the nature of young children and the importance of gentle training in habit. The habit of attention, proper accommodations for children, and the need for training in focus are some of those areas of substantial agreement.

In his treatise on education John Locke begins his reflections by considering the nature of children:

The natural temper of children disposes their minds to wander. Novelty alone takes them…. They quickly grow weary of the same thing, and so have almost their whole delight in change and variety. It is a contradiction to the natural state of childhood for them to fix their fleeting thoughts. (Some Thoughts Concerning Education 124)

Unlike many thinkers of his day and earlier, Locke’s reflections on children’s inattentiveness do not lead him to despise children, but instead to accost parents and tutors for their unrealistic expectations. It is absurd to expect a child to have the developed faculty of attention of a grown scholar, and taxing a student far beyond their capacity is, to him, simply an exercise in frustration.

He briefly wonders why children might naturally have a short attention span, as a 17^th century medical practitioner might be expected to do, before concluding that whatever the cause it is surely the case:

Whether this be owing to the temper of their brains or the quickness and instability of their animal spirits, over which the mind has not yet got a full command, this is visible, that it is a pain to children to keep their thoughts steady to anything. (124)

Next he moves on to propose the same type of gracious treatment and training that Charlotte Mason enthusiasts have come to appreciate from her:

A lasting continued attention is one of the hardest tasks [that] can be imposed on them; and therefore he that requires their application should endeavor to make what he proposes as grateful and agreeable as possible; at least, he ought to take care not to join any displeasing or frightful idea with it. (124)

John Locke thus recommends a tactic of accommodation and understanding toward students’ challenges with wandering attention. This is in great contrast to the usual methods of his day, which employed frequent “rebukes and corrections, if they find them ever so little wandering” (124). Locke finds these methods ineffective and more likely to stifle attention than develop it.

These ideas might make Locke seem like a softy, but he has a place for rigor and aims definitely at a student’s growing excellence in learning. He has just shifted the method of ensuring students’ attention from negative to positive tactics. As he concludes later,

The great skill of a teacher is to get and keep the attention of his scholar; whilst he has that, he is sure to advance as fast as the learner’s abilities will carry him; and without that, all his bustle and pother will be to little or no purpose. (125)

Locke recognizes the necessity of a focused attention for learning and recommends a “certain tenderness” in the teacher to “make the child sensible that he loves him and designs nothing but his good” as the surest way to inspire the child to “hearken to his lessons and relish what he teachers him” (125). This no doubt develops out of his Christian view of children as made in the image of God, a trust to be nurtured and cherished, and not harshly accosted for weaknesses they can’t help.

Charlotte Mason on Attention

Similar to Locke, Charlotte Mason focuses on attention as a habit, and a chief educational virtue at that. A student’s learning and abilities depend upon it, because it makes them possible. As she explains in Home Education,

First, we put the habit of Attention, because the highest intellectual gifts depend for their value upon the measure in which their owner has cultivated the habit of attention. (97)

Developing on Locke’s reflections about the natural state of childhood, Charlotte Mason recommended short lessons for younger children and variety in books and subjects; she famously quipped that “a change is as good as a rest.” In this, like Locke, she accommodates the attention of young students, while at the same time recommending a positive program designed to improve and develop students’ attention over time.

Her reflections on the nature of the attention are a little more up-to-date than Locke’s “animal spirits,” as she grapples with the faculty theory of her day and attempts to articulate an integrated and interconnected view of the mind:

Attention is hardly even an operation of the mind, but is simply the act by which the whole mental force is applied to the subject in hand. This act, of bringing the whole mind to bear, may be trained into a habit at the will of the parent or teacher, who attracts and holds the child’s attention by means of a sufficient motive. (102)

Here too she focuses on the parent or teacher providing the proper motive for attention in a way that attracts the child. Of course, the highest intellectual motive is that of curiosity, which should be aroused and cultivated in any way possible. (John Locke had said much the same thing, and came back to the theme of curiosity again and again in his treatise, which is another reason I suspect him as a source for Charlotte Mason’s reflections.) But other motives (like a sense of duty or achievement) are acceptable and sometimes necessary, as long as students are not nourished too intensely on one natural desire such that it ventures into the arena manipulation or unhealthy influence.

But perhaps the most important tactic for Charlotte Mason in the cultivation of the habit of attention is that students be expected to know and tell after only one reading or exposure. The practice of narration is the supreme way of inducing in the child that habit of attention which will make a scholar of him. The expectation that one will have to tell gives the mind the necessary energy to attend fully and completely to the content at hand. This practice, when regularly followed, is of supreme value for moving students along the path of learning just as quickly as their natural abilities will allow them.

John Milton Gregory on Attention

It is a wonder to see so many theorists speaking with one voice on the science of attention. John Milton Gregory’s second law of teaching says just what we could expect from Locke or Mason:

“The learner must attend with interest to the fact or truth to be learned.” (The Seven Laws of Teaching, Canon Press, 37)

Gregory admits the commonsensical nature of this assertion, but bemoans how often teachers break its principles in practice.

“However much teacher may neglect it in practice, they readily admit in theory that without attention the pupil can learn nothing. One may as well talk to the deaf or the dead as to teach a child who is wholly inattentive.” (40)

Like Mason, he prefers to describe the attention as more than an isolated faculty of the mind, latching onto the word “attitude” as a helpful word-picture:

“Avoiding as much as possible all metaphysical discussion, we may describe the attention as a mental attitude—the attitude in which the thought-power is actively bent toward, or fastened upon, some object of thought or perception. It is an attitude, not of ease and repose, but of effort and exertion.” (38)

The same activity of the student that we would expect from Charlotte Mason’s philosophy is here recommended by Gregory. The student must engage in the effort and exertion and the teacher’s job is to entice her to do so.

Like Locke, Gregory believes that the method of rebukes and harsh punishments for inattentiveness is counterproductive. But he explains why by making a distinction between compelled and attracted attention:

“Compelled attention is short-lived and easily exhausted. Its very painfulness wearies the powers of body and mind…. Attracted attention, on the other hand, is full of power and endurance. Its felt interest calls dormant energies into play, and the pleasure given by its efforts seems to refresh rather than weary the mind.” (39)

Clearly we are to prefer attracting attention whenever possible, and compelled attention should only be used when necessary to gather the class back together from some distraction, before attracting their attention again by interesting content or, in Charlotte Mason’s words, “a sufficient motive.”

A few of Gregory’s practical instructions connect so well with the spirit of Locke and Mason that they are worth reproducing in full:

• “Never exhaust wholly the pupil’s power of attention. Stop when signs of weariness appear, and either dismiss the class or change the subject to kindle fresh attention.
• “Fit the length of the exercise to the ages of the class: the younger the pupils the briefer the lesson.
• “Arouse, and when needful rest, the attention by a pleasing variety, but avoid distraction. Keep the real lesson in view.
• “Present those aspects of the lesson, and use such illustrations, as fit the ages, character, and attainments of the class.” (48)

Locke, Mason and Gregory seem to speak with one voice on the subject of attention. They discuss its over-arching importance for learning and attaining excellence. They recommend against negative methods and for the positive and caring influence of the teacher. Their goal is to accommodate a child’s natural state, while also developing the focus ability of a scholar in him. The process should involve the slow, faithful inducement of the child to attend as long as he can, but no longer, followed by change and variety. Over the years, the attention of the child will grow with practice, and the love of learning and curiosity will flourish in him, leading him to a willing and settled intellectual excellence.

Now let’s turn to modern neuroscience and cognitive psychology to see these recommendations confirmed and explained.

Modern Learning Science on Attention

What have we learned about the science of attention since the days of Locke, Mason and Gregory? Research confirms that the ability to focus directly correlates with accomplishment in virtually any domain of learning or life. As bestselling author Daniel Goleman puts it in his book Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence,

In very recent years the science of attention has blossomed far beyond vigilance. That science tells us these skills determine how well we perform any task. If they are stunted, we do poorly; if muscular, we can excel. Our very nimbleness in life depends on this subtle faculty. While the link between attention and excellence remains hidden most of the time, it ripples through almost everything we seek to accomplish. (2-3)

Attention is the overarching mental “faculty” that traditional educational theorists described it as. It’s a “subtle faculty” that hides under our radar and yet is always operating, having far-reaching effects on every activity or task we engage in, especially those involving learning.

But why is attention so important for learning and skill development to take place? First, it’s worth mentioning that modern neuroscience has discovered that there are at least two different modes of attention, what Barbara Oakley in A Mind for Numbers calls the focused mode and the diffuse mode. The focused mode is the experience we normally think of as focusing or attending closely to something. The diffuse mode, on the other hand, is when we are relaxed and letting our mind wander.

Dr. Daniel Levitin, Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience at McGill University, nicknames the diffuse mode the “mid-wandering mode” (The Organized Mind 41). He remarks that the discovery of this mode as “a special brain network… was one of the biggest neuroscientific discoveries of the last twenty years” (38). One of its features is that it continuously seeks to monopolize your consciousness: “it eagerly shifts the brain into mind-wandering when you’re not engaged in a task, and it hijacks your consciousness if the task you’re doing gets boring” (38). Here we have a fuller explanation for Locke’s remark that the natural state of children’s minds is to wander. In fact, it’s a natural human brain state.

Dr. Levitin goes on to explain that it is a zero-sum game between these two modes:

 “When one is active the other is not. During demanding tasks, the central executive kicks in. The more the mind-wandering network is suppressed, the greater the accuracy of performance on the task at hand” (39).

Daniel Goleman describes these two attention systems as top-down and bottom-up, drawing from research in cognitive science. The subcortical brain machinery (bottom-up) is much quicker in brain time, more impulsive, emotional and intuitive, and manages our habitual ways of engaging with the world, as we would say, without really thinking about it. The top-down focused mode is slower, more logical, voluntary, and based in the seat of self-control, the pre-frontal cortex (Focus 25-26).

Because of this we know that too much effort to stay in the focused mode, without the training up of habits of attentive focus, will deplete the brain’s reserves of willpower. At this point the brain will automatically switch into diffuse mode to find the needed rest and recreation. This explains the insight from our traditional educators of the fruitlessness of stern corrections for inattentiveness. If a child has reached her limit of attentive focus, the willpower system needs time to refresh; of course, it’s possible to light up the fear and pain centers of the child’s brain, but those will not induce attentiveness to linguistic or abstract learning.

The growing body of literature on elite performance has also illuminated how integral focus is to the development of complex skills, from liberal arts like deep reading, to world-class sports or musicianship. Attention is a necessary requirement of what has been variously called deliberate practice (Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers) or deep practice (Daniel Coyle in The Talent Code).

For instance, in his book Deep Work Cal Newport mentions two core components of deliberate practice, drawing from the research of Anders Ericsson:

• your attention is focused tightly on a specific skill you’re trying to improve or an idea you’re trying to master;
• you receive feedback so you can correct your approach to keep your attention exactly where it’s most productive.

Both of these components, the uninterrupted focus on the skill or idea and the feedback, require the focused mode of attention in order to optimize skill development or learning. Like Locke explained, when a student’s attention is focused, that student is sure to progress just as quickly as natural ability will allow. But without this focus the time is almost wasted.

Cal Newport goes on to explain the role of myelination of neural circuits in this process:

By focusing intensely on a specific skill, you’re forcing the specific relevant circuit to fire, again and again, in isolation. This repetitive use of a specific circuit triggers cells called oligodendrocytes to begin wrapping layers of myelin around the neurons in the circuits—effectively cementing the skill. The reason, therefore, why it’s important to focus intensely on the task at hand while avoiding distraction is because this is the only way to isolate the relevant neural circuit enough to trigger useful myelination. By contrast, if you’re trying to learn a complex new skill (say, SQL database management) in a state of low concentration (perhaps you also have your Facebook feed open), you’re firing too many circuits simultaneously and haphazardly to isolate the group of neurons you actually want to strengthen. (Deep Work 36-37)

The modern crisis of attention is explained! The problem is that our brains are receiving too much stimulation from our glowing orbs, and so our ability to learn and develop is hampered. Myelination requires focus of mind and avoidance of distractions.

There are few experiences this reminds me more of that the peaceful experience of standing in a classroom with a group of attentive students, who are under the thrall of an engaging book. As I or a student finishes reading, I quietly ask a student called at random to begin telling back for the class, and he narrates what was just read with graphic language, fitting details and a faithful account of the sequence of thought. Other students then add a detail or two and we proceed to discuss the deeper meaning and relevance of the text. This is Charlotte Mason’s practice of narration, and its powerful sequence trains students in the habit of attention.

In my previous role as Academic Dean of Clapham School, I’ve discussed the topic of attention before in a series of articles. I was also interviewed in a webinar for parents. I’ve listed these below in case you’re interested in going further in this topic.

• A Call for Focus in Learning: Part 1, Traditional Views of Attention
• Part 2, The Science of Attention
• Part 3, Practicing Attention
• Webinar: Attention, Please! Tips for Keeping Your Child Focused

If you’re interested in learning more about a method for training in habits generally, check out Patrick’s “A Guide to Implementing Habit Training”.

The post Attention, Then and Now: The Science of Focus Before and After Charlotte Mason’s Time appeared first on .

In particular, we referenced the British educator Charlotte Mason, as she discussed “the gradual fortifying of the will which many a schoolboy undergoes” in her chapter called “The Way of the Will” from vol. 6 Towards a Philosophy of Education.

In this post we’ll continue to engage Mason’s chapter, but, as we’ll see, the results of research on self-control and willpower from neuroscience and psychology give us more reason than ever to focus on developing self-control in our schools. The science also confirms a couple tactics for strengthening willpower advocated by traditional educators like Mason.

The Benefits of Self-control

As Christians we may be inclined to think of self-control as only a spiritual grace, and it certainly is that. It’s listed as the final virtue in the fruit of the Spirit, after all. But like many Christian virtues, there’s a common grace manifestation of it that is extremely beneficial even from a secular perspective. This is what we should expect, since we know that God set up the order of reality in such a way that acting or living in accordance with certain virtues would, in general, bring blessing. The book of Proverbs is littered with examples to this effect.

In the famous Marshmallow study from the 1970s, a Stanford University psychologist invited 4-year-olds into a room cleared of distractions one at a time (see Daniel Goleman’s Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, 78-79). They were told that that they could have one marshmallow now, or if they waited for the experimenter to return from an ‘errand’, they could have a second marshmallow as well. As we might predict, some of these 4-year-olds decided to skip the offer and immediately popped the single marshmallow into their mouths. About 2/3, however, tried to wait out the grueling 15 minutes sitting alone in an empty room with no books or toys to distract themselves. Another third caved part way through the time, but a final third made it through and received the reward. As we might expect, “the ones who resisted the lure of the sweet had higher scores on measures of executive control, particularly the reallocation of attention” (Goleman, Focus, 79).

What’s surprising and fascinating was that these same children were tracked afterward for measures of success in life (their health, wealth, avoidance of criminal behavior, etc.), and their self-control was found to be a key predictor of positive life outcomes. This study has been confirmed numerous times by other studies including one in New Zealand. As Goleman summarizes:

“The big shock: statistical analysis found that a child’s level of self-control is every bit as powerful a predictor of her adult financial success and health (and criminal record, for that matter) as are social class, wealth of family of origin, or IQ. Willpower emerged as a completely independent force in life success—in fact, for financial success, self-control in childhood proved a stronger predictor than either IQ or social class of the family of origin.” (81)

It’s important to concede that self-control isn’t everything; social class, wealth and IQ play a role in a person’s worldly success… but not the overwhelmingly determinative role that ideologues and fatalists tend to imply. Intelligence, wealth and upbringing are important, but self-control and willpower enable most children to overcome various challenges through focusing on achievable goals and working on improving their situation and abilities. This is why a growth-mindset is so important and can fuel efforts of self-control. After all, if you don’t think you can improve and grow, you aren’t likely to engage in the hard effort to deny yourself immediate pleasure or recreation for the sake of a goal.

Self-control or willpower must be exercised for many different types of goals, whether they be lofty spiritual goals like holiness and purity, or more mundane worldly goals like doing well in school, fulfilling your obligations at work, or maintaining your health. As Goleman explains,

“High self-control predicts not just better grades, but also a good emotional adjustment, better interpersonal skills, a sense of security, and adaptability.” (81)

Among psychologists self-control is one of several traits that fall under the heading of conscientiousness, which is itself a major predictor of success:

“Conscientiousness seems as powerful a boost in the long run as fancy schools, SAT tutors, and pricey educational summer camps. Don’t underestimate the value of practicing the guitar or keeping that promise to feed the guinea pig and clean its cage.” (81)

That last statement illustrates an immediate take-away for parents and educators. Sometimes we can be so focused on our students’ external development through their many activities that we fail to hold them personally accountable for faithfulness and conscientious fulfillment of their obligations. We fail to enforce rules and discipline them. The knowledge and skills they “learn” in school and extracurriculars may not in fact be nearly so important as the virtues and character traits they cultivate along the way. Instead of focusing on making sure they ‘succeed’ at these external goals, we might need to let them fail, so that they can learn the deeper lesson of the need for virtue.

Otherwise, we might be robbing them of the most valuable attainments, even from a worldly perspective. Dr. Daniel Levitin, the James McGill Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience at McGill University, summarizes the value of conscientiousness, including self-control, this way:

“Conscientiousness comprises industriousness, self-control, stick-to-itiveness, and a desire for order. And it, in turn, is the best predictor of many important human outcomes, including mortality, longevity, educational attainment, and a host of criteria related to career success. Conscientiousness is associated with better recovery outcomes following surgery and transplants. Conscientiousness in early childhood is associated with positive outcomes decades later.” (Levitin, The Organized Mind xxv)

So the benefits of self-control are many, but how do we actually cultivate self-control in our students, or ourselves for that matter?

Tactics for Developing Self-control

We’ve already mentioned that simply focusing on the virtues that a certain activity could foster, rather than the knowledge or skills alone is one of the first steps to cultivating self-control. In a way, the mere habit of attending to virtues as a key outcome for our children is half the battle. The classical tradition made virtue the main goal of education and let the chips fall where they may on less important matters. Modern education is often so concerned with perfect delivery of information and incrementally graded skill development that we can tend to miss the forest for the trees. (See, for instance, “When Bloom’s Gets Ugly: Cutting the Heart out of Education”)

Often the individual coaching it would take to come alongside a student and support him or her in taking steps for developing self-control seems like the long way around. How much easier and simpler for teachers and administrators to have an impersonal and “objective” system of grades and punishments to mete out to the masses! While the administration of fair consequences is important, when it is used to avoid the need for relationships and personal coaching for improvement, it can become ineffective and even counter-productive. The shortest way to our goal (if our goal is a student’s development of self-control!) is to work personally and individually with them on practicing the tactics and acquiring the habits that enable the virtue of self-control.

So then, what are the tactics for developing self-control? Based on modern research, Charlotte Mason, ancient Greek wisdom and the Bible, I’ve come up with two main tactics: 1) draw up a battle plan, and 2) create a diversion.

Willpower Tactic #1 – Draw up a Battle Plan

In a sense the most obvious tactic for developing self-control in a particular area is to make a plan. As long as your brain is fuzzy about what is actually off-limits or what new positive habit you’re trying to establish, it’s going to be nigh impossible to exercise self-control or willpower. Psychologists call this act of clarifying what to exercise self-control about making “bright lines.” If a person is trying to lose weight, and their resolution is something vague like “eat healthier” or “eat less dessert,” they are unlikely to be successful in the moment when impulse is pushing for just one more brownie.

This is because of how self-control works in our brains. Imagine the children trying to resist the marshmallows in front of them. The executive control centers of their brain have to reallocate attention from the tempting marshmallow in front of them to the clear goal of a second one later, and from that to other matters, so that they don’t continuously focus on the possibility of popping that tempting marshmallow into their mouths. As Goleman explains,

“Executive attention holds the key to self-management. This power to direct our focus onto one thing and to ignore others lets us bring to mind our waistline when we spot those quarts of Cheesecake Brownie ice cream in the freezer. This small choice point harbors the core of willpower, the essence of self-regulation.” (77)

Drawing up a battle plan for self-control is the first and most crucial tactic for regulating ourselves, since it gives our brain clear marching orders. Bright lines enable us to know when we’ve crossed the line into indulgence.

In the synopsis of her philosophy Charlotte Mason discussed what she called “the way of the will,” and described this process as distinguishing between desire and decision or “I want” and “I will”:

“Children should be taught, (a) to distinguish between ‘I want’ and ‘I will.’ (b) That the way to will effectively is to turn our thoughts from that which we desire but do not will.”

Effective willpower involves using those executive control centers to turn our attention from our immediate desire to our predetermined battle plan.

For example, the video game or netflicks addict has to commit to a definite time period, like 30 min. or a single show a night, and then set an alarm that gives a clear signal that it is time to stop. If your executive control center is arguing in the moment with your impulsive desires, it has to work double-time, not just at refocusing your attention on your goals but also on coming up with a plan. Overstretched in this way, it is less likely to conquer your more impulsive flesh with all its rationalizations.

Drawing up a battle plan has also been called making a pre-commitment. This could be as basic as deciding when to check email during the day, so as not to be lured through your smart-phone into the time-wasting click-bait of the internet and away from the task at hand.

The classic example of a battle plan or pre-commitment is Odysseus. Having been warned beforehand of the Sirens’ song by the sorceress Circe, Odysseus was able to prepare. Odysseus makes a pre-commitment by stopping his sailors’ ears with wax, so they don’t hear the Sirens. And in order to allow himself the opportunity of hearing them without succumbing to their deadly lure, he had them tie him to the mast, thereby making it physically impossible for him to alter his prior decision. Odysseus’ battle plan worked.

Parents and teachers can help children in this tactic by recognizing an area in which they are need of willpower support. The next step is having a supportive and understanding conversation with the student about their weakness in this area. If approached tactfully, most students will recognize the need for growth and not resent your intrusion, especially if you emphasize that you are on their side and want to help and support them. At this point the conversation should turn to developing a battle plan with them; it shouldn’t be something you simply impose.

There are two reasons for this. First, the goal is to train them in these self-control tactics, so they can deliberately apply them on their own throughout life. Therefore, the more involvement they have in the process, the more they learn by experience what it is like to develop strategies for self-regulation. Second, as human beings, we’re more motivated to enforce pre-commitments that we participated in coming up with. We have to own our self-control measures for them to be most effective.

The follow-up for this sort of process is to check in with the student periodically on how the battle plan is going. For instance, if a teacher is working with a student on not impulsively talking out in class, or on getting his homework done on time, the teacher might take a moment to ask the student how the plan is working for him before or after class. A parent might designate time limits for TV or establish guidelines for homework time or practicing that instrument. Charlotte Mason calls this process habit training, and the goal should be to develop the will of the child, not over-manage her or keep her dependent on your every whim.

Willpower Tactic # 2 – Create a Diversion

Unfortunately, given the changes and chances of life we will all encounter moments when we are caught off our guard by what might be called a surprise attack. The most famous biblical example is when Potiphar’s wife catches Joseph inside when all the other servants are away. Of course, Joseph had already experienced her advances and was able to do the only thing he could in that scenario: flee!

In our lives, though, there will be circumstances when even fleeing temptation is not an option, either because of other obligations or because the sudden temptation is more internal than external. In this case, one of the best tactics is to create a diversion. Since temptation to indulgence comes through our attention, if we can successfully divert our attention to other things, the power of the temptation is removed.

Goleman discusses how parents typically use this tactic on toddlers who are still developing emotional self-regulation and have just gotten inordinately upset. We try to distract them:

“Attention regulates emotion. This little ploy of selective attention is able to quiet the agitated amygdala. So long as a toddler stays tuned to some interesting object of focus, the distress calms; the moment that thing loses its fascination, the distress, if still held on to by networks in the amygdala, comes roaring back.” (Goleman, Focus 76)

As Goleman describes neuroscience has revealed how the brain networks for “selective attention” are crucial for the development of self-control. There’s a reason why in the marshmallow test the Stanford research team removed all the toys and games from the room. Many more 4-year-olds would have likely been able to resist the lure of the marshmallow if they had a roomful of potential diversions on hand. Of course, we still have to make the decision to divert our attention from the temptation, and in order to do that, we have to recognize it as a temptation, as crossing the bright lines we’ve put in place for ourselves. That’s why I’ve addressed the battle plan first, because we need it as a foundation for making the split-second decision to create a diversion when confronted by a surprise attack.

Charlotte Mason described this next tactic that we should train students in as the idea… “that the best way to turn our thoughts is to think of or do some quite different thing, entertaining or interesting.” If we have a mind stocked with “entertaining or interesting” knowledge and pursuits, this is an easy and effective strategy. She develops the idea further in her chapter on “The Way of the Will”:

“When the overstrained will asks for repose, it may not relax to yielding point but may and must seek recreation, diversion,––Latin thought has afforded us beautiful and appropriate names for that which we require. A change of physical or mental occupation is very good, but if no other change is convenient, let us think of something else, no matter how trifling. A new tie, or our next new hat, a story book we are reading, a friend we hope to see, anything does so long as we do not suggest to ourselves the thoughts we ought to think on the subject in question. The will does not want the support of arguments but the recreation of rest, change, diversion. In a surprisingly short time it is able to return to the charge and to choose this day the path of duty, however dull or tiresome, difficult or dangerous.”

In Greek mythology Odysseus wasn’t the only hero to encounter the Sirens. During their quest for the Golden Fleece, Jason and the Argonauts, including a host of the best Greek heroes, happen upon the Sirens by chance without having the benefit of preparation. Luckily for them, Orpheus is one of the heroes on board, and after some quick thinking he immediately begins playing and singing his own song louder and louder. In this way he is able to divert the heroes’ attention from the Sirens’ song enough to avoid crashing into the shoals and falling into the Sirens’ trap.

This illustrates how to respond with the power of diversion, when your pre-commitments fail, and you are surprised by the temptation in spite of your best efforts to avoid it entirely. For this to work, though, our minds have to have an Orpheus on board. We and our students have to have richly stocked imaginations full of lively interests. If instead our students are decidedly bored with anything because of living on a diet of low-effort entertainment and indulgence, they won’t have the resources to divert themselves as a means of self-control.

This fact draws attention to the importance of a rich curriculum and the importance of helping our students cultivate enough varied interests and hobbies. In this case, the best defense is a good offense. We need to support ours and our children’s creativity and healthy passions. As they say, idleness is the devil’s playground. Having something enjoyable and productive to do is a powerful preventative against developing unhealthy and addictive habits.

Educating for Self-control

Teaching our students these tactics explicitly and actively coaching them in the process will take us a long way toward educating them for self-control. As Daniel Goleman expressed memorably,

“Anything we can do to increase children’s capacity for cognitive control will help them throughout life.” (Focus 81)

However, the benefits are not just worldly success or positive life outcomes. From a Christian perspective self-control is a necessary ingredient in sanctification, or that holiness “without [which] no one will see the Lord” (Heb 12:14 ESV). It is important to remember that our own modeling of this virtue is as important as teaching it to our children. We can’t lose sight of Paul’s famous statements to this effect:

“But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” (1 Cor 9:27 ESV)

Preaching and teaching these things is important, but practicing them, even more so. So let’s educate ourselves for self-control first and foremost. And then as we grow in these things, sowing to the Spirit more and more, we will in time reap a harvest of self-control in ourselves, our families, and our schools. And we might even have more of an influence on our indulgent culture.

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