This was the title of the first presentation of
the recent Cambridge Day I attended. The speaker
was Tim Murphey and what follows is a summary of his workshop.
Tim began by defining his terms and explained
that, in this context, ‘agency’ meant ‘control’ or ‘choice’. He went on to hypothesize that:
agency + altruism = thrill
In other words, giving people the choice and the
control to be able to help others is thrilling, exciting and, ultimately,
fulfilling. If we can pass on this
thrill to our students, then they will be helping themselves and each other.
As an example of this, Tim gave us a speed
dictation which, in a language classroom, would be too difficult for an
individual student to write down by themselves.
The aim, therefore, is to get students to collaborate, both before the
activity by deciding what each of them is listening for, and after, by helping
each other to fill in what they’ve missed.
The main thrust of Tim’s presentation was the
importance of student curiosity to keep them engaged and make them want to
learn. He suggested using split stories,
beginning the lesson with a story, but leaving the punch line until the very
end of the session. Pique the students’
interest and then leave them wondering until the dying moments of the
lesson.
As an alternative to a story, you could ask a
philosophical question at the beginning of the lesson and answer it at the
end. The example Tim gave was, ‘Why is a
turtle trying to fly more beautiful than a bird sitting in a tree?’ The answer – because the turtle is striving
for something beyond its present capabilities.
This is what we are trying to inspire our students to do!
When students are asked questions, it makes them
curious; just giving them information is like water washing over rocks – it
doesn’t sink in! (I love this
analogy!) It’s imperative that we, as
teachers, cultivate curiosity in our students.
This idea is supported by anthropological study. Consider this question:
Why did we stand up 6,000,000 years ago?
a)
To reach more food.
b)
To reduce the body’s exposure to the
sun.
c)
Because we were curious and wanted to
see further.
All three possibilities have some truth to them,
but the third seems to carry the most weight with anthropologists. Humans are curious by nature and because of
this curiosity altruism came to the fore.
Let me explain.
As a result of us standing up, the birth canal in females became narrower
provoking earlier birthings – at nine months instead of thirteen. Babies were born, and still are,
prematurely. Caretakers, therefore, had
a longer and harder job in that they had to spend more time with their
babies. There were positive consequences
of this, however:
Ø There
was increased emotional bonding between babies and caretakers.
Ø There
was increased communication – the beginning of real language came out of
parental babbling.
Ø There
was a more rapid development of cultures and communities – the advent of
slings, babysitting and the beginning of mutual aid in the form of midwives.
So, this was the beginning of altruism and we
already know that humans have innate curiosity.
Now, Robert Sapolsky, a neuroscientist, added to our knowledge with his ‘signal
– task – reward’ theory. He argued that
humans respond to a signal to fulfil a task in the expectation of getting a
reward. This reward doesn’t need to be a
physical prize. Merely fulfilling the
task is reward enough because it triggers a dopamine rush to our brains. If challenge is added to the equation, then
it is even more motivating – it is exciting; there is an element of risk.
So, how do we use this to advantage in our
classrooms? Well, by changing activities
frequently – every five minutes for young learners and lower levels. This increases the number of times students
can expect to get the dopamine rush and so it keeps them highly motivated.
This is all very well, but we need to remember
Maslow’s hierarchy:
In other words, people’s basic needs of food,
water and shelter are paramount and need to be satisfied long before they can
self-actualise or learn. Two billion
people still live in the bottom level and if we can’t lift them out of poverty,
then they can’t learn. We need to help
these people so that we can help ourselves for the good of mankind. A noble thought and not one that necessarily
has practical application in our daily lives, but, nevertheless, something to
bear in mind as we teach.
So, what gets students motivated and keeps them
motivated? Motivation triggers neurons
in the brain:
- Most nerual firing - DOING IT!!
-
Next – WATCHING a person doing it.
- Next – SEEING a thing and imagining doing it.
- Next – HEARING the word.
- Next – THINKING about it on your
own (random association).
- Finally – AUTOMATIC FIRING (neural obsession, like love).
We produce mirror neurons; that is, to understand what other people do, we
imagine ourselves doing it. These are empathy
neurons. In the classroom, therefore, near peer role modelling (learning
from people most similar to ourselves) is really effective.
Darwinism talked about collaboration, and even cross species
collaboration, as having a bonding effect. It put forward the idea of ‘social
capital’ – people of like minds working together – and of ‘bridging social
capital’ where different types of people work together. In the language
classroom, this manifests as cross-age or cross-level teaching.
Social evolution, therefore, can be summed up as:
CURIOSITY > CARETAKING > COMMUNITY > AGENCY > ALTRUISM
Examples of this in the real world are:
· Wikipedia – the online collaborative encyclopedia
· The increasing number of NGOsoperating globally
· The growth of micro-financing
In the classroom, we need to encourage students to help each other. We can
ask them to write their ‘language learning histories’ and publish them for
others to read. By giving each other hints and tips we give all of our students
agency which, when combined with altruism, gives them the thrill of learning
leading to effective, measurable outcomes for students and teachers alike. We
provide value added education!
For further information, see Tim Murphey’s videos here.
