This article on future visioning of schools that just appeared in Mindshift is perfectly timed for Tuesday's second meeting on ISHCMC's Principles of Learning. It raises questions about what school's should be teaching in the future and what and how students learn. On Tuesday you will read through research created Principles of Learning, decide which fit us best and create a short list that we will work with and eventually turn into ISHCMC's Learning Principles.
This exert from the article challenges some of our traditional thinking on learning, some of which we are already doing in our programmes.
"A group of progressive educators at the Educon conference discussed other qualities that successful future citizens will need and that a good education should offer. A successful student should be able to manage massive amounts of information, a crucial skill as life becomes more digital. Students should learn in ways that disregard traditional disciplines like English and math, instead focusing on real world problems that allow for crossover and interplay. The focus should be on providing student-centered experiences that bring out qualities in students that aren’t necessarily measurable. Students should learn to build and manipulate computers, not just use them. Perhaps most importantly students should be taught how to learn, especially since the content or specific skills needed in the future are as yet unknown."
The question is are we going to go beyond traditional Principles of Learning and create new ones that transform the Learning at ISHCMC and take teaching to a higher / different level? If you didn't watch this video from an earlier post now would be a good time because if you listen to what Logan emphasizes perhaps there is an important Learning Principle embedded in his thinking that we should be adopting.
This weekend Clara and Frank are in Hanoi at the Vietnam
Tech conference presenting their work that linked Math and IT and 3D printing.
Clara with Frank’s help transformed a traditional part of the Math curriculum, taking
content and applying it to an engineering investigation that eventually created
3D products from their mathematical learning. This was very different to the
normal delivery of such content.
This is our aim with the use of technology in the classroom
to transform the learning of students. The model that we are going to be using,
and you will hear more about and be able to read about for yourselves in the Developing
Professional Growth Handbook Section (I), is the SAMR model for implementation
and planning for IT in schools.
This week’s reading is an article that emphasizes this approach.
We at SLT Academic are discussing the important question what are the learning
outcomes that we expect from our 1:1 laptop programme and our present and
future investment in iPads for Primary school.
What Will It Take for
iPads to Upend Teaching and Learning?
“So
what does “transformative” mean to Burmeister? “I
no longer have to be the bottleneck of information for my students. I actually
can be the person in charge of creating incredibly deep and broad learning
experiences for kids and giving them the tools to find that factual information
themselves,” Burmeister said. “My job is to ask powerful questions. My job is
to create learning experience that gets kids engaged in a way that me just
pouring information into them so they can memorize it and regurgitate it back
to me is long gone. My job now is to get kids excited and give them the tools
to be able to access the knowledge to be able create, to be able to analyze, to
be able to compare and contrast, to be able to synthesize and to be able to
design new things out of the learning that they’re able to access via a touch
of a button on the iPad.” That’s
a tall order. Letting students take ownership of their learning may be at the
heart of what Hillview hopes to eventually achieve, but getting to that level
of transformational learning takes letting go of control on the part of
teachers and administrators. And that’s where it can be tricky, even for a
school like Hillview that’s committed to the idea of the iPad as a “positive
disruptor” — a force that will require them to think about change.”
In the Science and Math department there are already
students augmenting their learning by taking online university courses. In the
future thses should be common practice for our Grade 10-12 students. The vision
is that we will have more and more students following their individual passions
and adding to their learning by taking part in more of these courses and by creating
individual learning pathways that will
give them access to university material and courses.
Links to my Tet reading.....A Life That Matters By Dr Sanong Vora-urai.
2014 has been called the "year of mindful living," and talk of a mindful revolution seems to be everywhere from Davos to Silicon Valley. Most recently, mindfulness was the subject of a controversial cover of TIME Magazine.
TIME's "Mindful Revolution" cover in January stirred up debate among the online mindfulness community, in part for featuring a beautiful, white blonde woman meditating on the cover. As some commentators pointed out, this wasn't the first time that the magazine has portrayed mindfulness this way: Its last cover on the "science of meditation" also featured an image of a beautiful white model.
"It's one thing to feature a young, fertile white girl on the cover of TIME and promote it as 'mindfulness,'" wrote Joanna Piacenza, web manager of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, in a HuffPost Religion blog post. "It's another to do it twice over the course of a decade."
It's undeniable that there is a mindful revolution going on, and that more people than ever before are embracing the well-documented physical and mental health benefits of meditation. But unfortunately, a homogenous representation of mindfulness practices isn't uncommon in the media -- especially in the case of yoga, which is often depicted by a thin white woman with a "Gwyneth Paltrow body." But the image of the serene, young white woman closing her eyes and breathing deeply doesn't come close to telling the whole story of how mindfulness is beginning to transform lives.
Despite the often-exclusionary media representation of mindfulness, the "mindful revolution" is spreading everywhere.
"Everyone benefits from meditation," Russell Simmons, who is on the board of the David Lynch Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to bring Transcendental Meditation to in-need populations, told CNN. "This idea of letting your mind settle is in every religion, but is also in every spiritual teaching. But also everyone needs to look inside for reflection in order to work outside. Operating from a calm space has gotten to be the greatest gift that anyone can be given... all happiness comes from inside." Here's proof that mindfulness is for everyone, and that it's transforming both individuals and communities across lines of gender, race, socioeconomic status and cultural background. Meditation is helping students, especially in low-income areas.
Meditation has been proven to have a number of benefits for students: It can boost focus, attention and memory, lower stress levels and improve sleep quality, and some studies have even found mindfulness training to improve test scores. An increasing number of schools, both private and public, from elementary to high school, are beginning to integrate mindfulness into their curriculums.
At Patterson High School in Baltimore -- a school with a number of at-risk students and has a four-year graduation rate of only 86 percent -- the Holistic Life Foundation's "Mindful Moments" program is working yoga, meditation and breathing into the students' daily schedules. As part of the program, faculty and students take part in a 15-minute yoga and mindfulness practice at the beginning and end of each day.
"It's our hope that by bringing Mindful Moments to our school, students will improve their self-esteem and self-awareness, and develop a better way of making decisions," said Patterson principal Vance Benton. Veterans and soldiers using meditation to cope with PTSD.
Meditation is becoming increasingly common among a population that's at high risk for stress and stress-related health problems: Soldiers and veterans. Through Operation Warrior Wellness program, the David Lynch Foundation is bringing Transcendental Meditation to over 10,000 veterans with PTSD and their families. The program is helping to promote resiliency and well-being among soldiers, empower the families of veterans, and relieve symptoms of PTSD, which as many as one in eight returning soldiers may suffer from.
"The research... found about a 50 percent reduction in symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. The research shows a reduction in heart disease, which is a byproduct of PTSD, as well as anxiety and sleep disorders," Bob Roth, executive director of the David Lynch Foundation, told CNN on Veteran's Day in 2012. "It's medically sound and scientifically-tested." Mindfulness is transforming end-of-life care.
Meditation has been shown to have significant health and well-being benefits for the elderly. Mindfulness meditation can combat loneliness among adults and Transcendental Meditation has been shown to boost longevity in elderly practitioners.
More generally, mindfulness can help all of us to better cope with aging and death. Two Zen Buddhist monks, Koshin Paley Ellison and Robert Chodo Campbell, are starting a movement to transform end-of-life care through mindfulness and other Buddhist principles. They founded the New York Zen Center For Contemplative Care to help both the terminal ill and their families and friends come to a more peaceful acceptance of death.
Our culture has a tendency to fear and push away death, says Ellison. Oftentimes when a person is dying, the people around them become so uncomfortable with what's happening that they try to avoid facing the reality. But the more accepting and intimate we become with death -- an attitude that mindfulness can help us to cultivate -- the more we're able to accept it.
"We need to move into the fear," Ellison told the Huffington Post. "We need to say, 'I can be here, I'm scared out of my mind, but I can breathe and be with it.'" Mindfulness has become part of a revolution in mental health care.
The potential for mindfulness practices to revolutionize mental health and psychiatric care is enormous, and it's already well underway. With his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program, meditation expert and MIT medical professor Jon Kabat-Zinn helped to bring mindfulness into the world of psychiatry. So far, the research has proven meditation to be an effective, low-cost, side effect-free intervention that can reduce anxiety and depression, as well as lowering stress levels and boosting emotional well-being. Mindfulness has even been used in addiction treatment and has been shown to help smokers kick the habit.
“Get out of our heads and learn to experience the world directly, experientially, without the relentless commentary of our thoughts," Mark G. Williams, John D. Teasdale, Zindel V. Segal and Kabat-Zinn wrote in The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself From Chronic Unhappiness. "We might just open ourselves up to the limitless possibilities for happiness that life has to offer us.” Mindfulness is slowly beginning to transform the medical profession.
Burnout may affect up to 60 percent of doctors, according to Association of American Medical Colleges estimates. But recent studies have found that mindfulness prevents burnout and boosts compassion among physicians, which may improve the doctor-patient relationship. And some hospitals have actually started bringing mindfulness into their facilities.
At the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, a new emergency alert, "Code Lavender," has been introduced to address cases of emotional or spiritual stress and burnout. The Code Lavender program aims to support nurses and physicians during emotionally troubling or exhausting times, often after experiencing the death of a patient. The Healing Services Team utilizes holistic methods including spiritual support, counseling and therapeutic massage, while the Clinic also offers yoga classes and mindfulness training for its staff in an effort to promote "compassion-based care."
"[Compassion-based care] does go against an old style of medicine where it was just, 'Go go go, stay tough, don't be impacted by it, keep moving,'" Amy Greene, director of spiritual care at Cleveland Clinic, told the Huffington Post. "We're seeing that this is long-term not sustainable. Doctors and nurses are human beings." Athletes -- from at-risk youth to NBA stars -- are improving their game through meditation.
The Mind + Sport Institute (MSI), a San Francisco-based organization dedicated to helping athletes (including at-risk youth) reach their highest potential, wrote that the TIME Magazine mindfulness cover "said one thing to the male athlete (possibly of color) that we work with in the Bay Area: Mindfulness is not for you."
MSI is right that the TIME cover doesn't reflect the diverse range of athletes, of both genders and from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, who practice mindfulness. Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Michael Jordan are just a few of the many professional athletes who say that they turn to meditation to reduce stress and improve their game. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/04/this-is-proof-that-mindfu_n_4697734.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
Dear all,
Hope you all had a good relaxing Tet and are ready to return fully energized for Semester 2.
In an earlier Food for Thought I referred to the work of Angela Duckworth on resilience and hence when I read this article I thought that I should share it because it is a piece of research that many of us teachers have read about or referred to when we are discussing or thinking about how self-control and delaying gratification are markers that have been shown to point to students being successful in their futures.
We Didn’t Eat the Marshmallow. The Marshmallow Ate Us.
“In a series of famous experiments in the 1960s and ’70s conducted by the Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel, preschoolers were invited to sit alone in a room furnished only with a small desk. On the desk sat two marshmallows (or equivalently tempting treats) and a bell. The researcher told each child that he had to leave, but that when he returned, she could eat both marshmallows. If she wanted one marshmallow before then, however, she could ring the bell and eat one, but not both. Then the researcher shut the door, leaving the child alone with the forbidden marshmallows.
Some children gobbled a marshmallow the minute the door was closed, while others distracted themselves by covering their eyes, singing and kicking the desk. One resourceful child somehow managed to take a nap. But here’s the part that made the experiment famous: In follow-up studies, children who had resisted temptation turned out years later to be not only skinnier and better socially adapted, but they also scored as much as 210 points higher on their SATs than the most impatient children in the studies did.”
I was sent this video by one of my ex-students this week
because it reminded her of a conversation I had had with her Year group about
the importance of creativity in their lives and not being scared to think
differently from others. What this young man, Logan LePlante, has to say is
without doubt Food for Thought. It raises serious questions about how we
structure our learning, what is important and what we should be teaching.
Watching this, putting it together with other inspirational talks and articles
about education today, raises the question, what is it we should be teaching
our students in preparation for their lives in the 21st century? Our
old model of education based around core subjects, school structures,
authority, discipline, uniformity and regimentation, that has existed for over
150 years as a means of preparing people for a place in an industrial society is clearly outdated. Very few of the students we are teaching will
work on the factory floor, so should we be listening more to what students like
Logan are saying and applying it to what we are doing in our classrooms and
schools?
Here is the link to Dr Roger Walsh’s website as mentioned by
Logan in his talk. I know this will interest quite a few of you. Last week’s
Food for Thought focused on questioning, so here are the questions that have
driven Dr Roger Marsh’s research and investigation into Wellbeing and Happiness
over the past 30 years.
·What does it mean to live wisely and
well, and what does it take?
·How can we cultivate qualities such as
love and wisdom, kindness and compassion?
·What is meant by terms such as
enlightenment and liberation, salvation and satori?
Wouldn’t
we have an amazing school if all students who graduated from ISHCMC could
emerge with the answers or at least an understanding of Dr Walsh’s three
questions built into the way they plan to live their lives?
It has been
lovely being back in the ISHCMC community this week following the Christmas
vacation and recruitment and witnessing all the exciting things that are taking
place with students and their learning.
I feel that I
have so many things that I’ve read recently that I want to share with you all,
that I don’t know where to start. After much thought I decided that I would share
part of an article and a series of posts s about asking questions, something
that is fundamental to all our IB programmes. I read about this recently whilst reflecting
on my own teaching and also on unit questions for MYP humanities.
My search started
with this:
“To
me, a Beautiful Question is something that should feel important, meaningful,
profound—but also potentially answerable.”
A great question tends to evolve. "In
studying innovators," Berger says, "I've found that once they take on
a big question, they often proceed through various 'stages of inquiry' that
gradually lead them toward an answer. They may not always get to the answer
they want, but they do arrive at something." He has labeled these stages
as "speculative inquiry," "contextual inquiry," "constructive
inquiry"—all steps in a process that keeps the questioner moving forward
on the journey.
Berger is also trying out an idea called
"collaborative inquiry," tapping into the ideas of young people
interested in the subject. "I'm used to working alone in my cave as an
author, but this idea is so big and challenging, I just felt like I didn't want
to go on this journey by myself." So on his website
he asks people to submit their own "Beautiful Questions" and invites
them to join him in the investigation. "I'm asking a team of selected
collaborators, not a random 'crowd,' to help me as I put together the answer.
As the book's author, I'll still make all the decisions and do all the
writing—but hopefully the team will unearth some great raw material that I
could never find on my own. I'm very conscious of the fact that I'm asking
people to do something for nothing, so my hope is that I can make it an enjoyable,
enriching experience."
As the questions grow, will the answers change
Berger's thesis? "I started off with the thesis that one had to learn
how to be a better questioner," he says. "But now I'm starting to
think it's about re-learning—because the truth is, we all start out as
questioners.
"The average 5-year-old questions everything.
Yet research shows that many of us begin to question less and less as we get
older. Is it the school system, which tends to prize memorized answers over
creative questions? Is it because we feel social pressure to 'seem smart?' Or
maybe it's a business culture that discourages employees from questioning
entrenched corporate policies and practices? My book will try to answer these
and many, many other questions about questioning. So now maybe you can see why
I'm going to need help."
Which stimulated
me toa further search on edutopia about asking questions to
encourage students to become more curious and think more deeply in my class as
we are investigating a topic and moving towards an enduring understanding. Below
are three short posts that had links to each other.These gave me some ideas to improve my own
teaching skills as well as reinforcing things I was already doing, so I thought
they might be interesting to you as well.
·Keeping It Simple
“I also learned over the years
that asking straightforward, simply-worded questions can be just as effective
as those intricate ones. With that in mind, if you are a new teacher or perhaps
not so new but know that question-asking is an area where you'd like to grow,
start tomorrow with these five:
#1. What do you
think?
This
question interrupts us from telling too much. There is a place for direct
instruction where we give students information yet we need to always strive to
balance this with plenty of opportunities for students to make sense of and
apply that new information using their schemata and understanding.
#2. Why do you
think that?
After
students share what they think, this follow-up question pushes them to provide
reasoning for their thinking.
#3. How do you
know this?
When
this question is asked, students can make connections to their ideas and
thoughts with things they've experienced, read, and have seen.
#4. Can you tell
me more?
This
question can inspire students to extend their thinking and share further
evidence for their ideas.
#5. What questions
do you still have?
This
allows students to offer up questions they have about the information, ideas or
the evidence.
In
addition to routinely and relentlessly asking your students questions, be sure
to provide time for them to think. What's best here, three seconds, five, or
seven? Depending on their age, the depth of the material, and their comfort
level, this think time will vary. Just push yourself to stay silent and wait
for those hands to go up.
Also
be sure to vary your tone so it genuinely sounds like a question and not a
statement. When we say something in a declarative way, it is often with one
tone and flat sounding. On the other hand, there is a lilt in our voice when we
are inquiring and questioning.
To
help student feel more comfortable and confident with answering questions and
asking ones of their own, you can use this scaffold: Ask a question, pause, and
then invite students to "turn and talk" with a neighbor first before
sharing out with the whole group. This allows all to have their voices heard
and also gives them a chance to practice their responses before sharing in
front of the whole class.”
Four Strategies to Spark Curiosity via
Student Questioning
“British
archaeologist Mary Leakey described her own learning as being "compelled
by curiosity." Curiosity is the name we give to the state of having
unanswered questions. And unanswered questions, by their nature, help us
maintain a learning mindset. When we realize that we do not know all there is
to know about something in which we are interested, we thirst. We pursue. We
act as though what we do not know is more important than what we do, as though what
we do not possess is worth the chase to own it. How do we help students
discover this drive?
Strategy
One: Equip Students to Ask Questions
At its
essence, curiosity is asking questions and pursuing answers. The brain does not
like unanswered questions and will shift into seek-and-find mode to uncover and
understand the unknown. Questions ignite curiosity.
We
often ask students if they have any questions, but we rarely teach them how to ask
advantageous questions. Like any skill, asking questions can be taught and
practiced, and with technology enabling an increasing emphasis on self-directed
learning, this skill is more important than ever. As Wendy Puriefoy explains,
"The skill of question formulation -- a thinking ability with universal
relevance -- can make all learning possible."1 Students
should be equipped to be inquisitive explorers, to pursue learning anytime,
anywhere.
Strategy
Two: Provide a Launch Pad
Even
if students have mastered the full range
(1) of question forming, it is difficult to inquire about
topics with which they have no familiarity. When this is the case, giving just
enough information to launch inquiry can help. Limit the information to true
basics, such as a general context and term definitions. Then challenge students
to generate questions that, when answered, uncover additional information. (For
a more creative approach to launching questions, try something similar to Dr. Judy Willis'
inventive use of radishes (2)!2)
Guide and prompt as needed to encourage questions that address deeper concepts,
and connections that will help students construct understanding. If needed,
eliminate duplicity by combining questions. Once the questions are articulated,
let the search begin!
Strategy
Three: Cast a Wide Net
During
the information gathering phase of learning, the brain does its best work in an
active and receptive state. (Neurologically, this is characterized by decreased
frontal lobe activity but increased activity in the temporal, occipital and
parietal lobes, and by increased alpha and theta wave activity, suggesting a
relaxed and receptive mental state.3) Action associated with
this neurological state includes searching and collecting that is both focused
("I know the topic I am pursuing") and open to discovery ("I do
not know where I will find it or what else I may find in the process"). We
can foster this by challenging students to "cast a wide net" as they
gather information, striving for diversity in sources and source types. Not
just a summary from Wikipedia, but also a poem that addresses some aspect of
the topic; not just the labeled diagram, but also an artist's portrayal of the
idea.
Keep
the search active by praising student efforts to discover novelty. A new idea
or perspective raises new questions, and since the brain does not like
unanswered questions, curiosity continues to motivate the search.
Strategy
Four: Avoid Cutting the Search Short
Curiosity
cut off at its peak rarely regains its fervor, so allow ample time for students
to thoroughly pursue answers and novel discoveries related to the topic or
idea.
What
is found -- the answers to the questions -- must eventually be sorted and
related to known ideas or experiences for new knowledge and understanding to
emerge. However, we can spark curiosity by engaging students in questioning and
in pursuing answers. Learning "compelled" by questions is learning
driven by curiosity. “
References
1Puriefoy, W.D. (2011). Foreword in Rothstein,
D. & Santana, L. Make
Just One Change.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. 2Washburn, K.D.
(2010). The Architecture of Learning: Designing Instruction for
the Learning Brain. Pelham, AL: Clerestory Press. 3Carson, S. (2010).
Your Creative Brain: Seven Steps to Maximize Imagination,
Productivity, and Innovation in Your Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
“Most
of us have been exposed to the questioning strategies researched by Mary Budd
Rowe. She proposed that teachers simply ask a question, such as "What do
you call it when an insect kills itself?" pause for at least three
seconds, and then say a student's name: "Sally." By doing this, all
the students will automatically be thinking about an answer and only after
another child's name is said will they sigh in relief because they were not
chosen.
Creative
teachers accompany this technique with a system to make sure that every child
gets to answer questions in a random fashion. If it is not random, then once
they answer a question, they think they have answered their one question and
are done for the day. I did some online research on questioning and found these questioning and
discussion resources from UMDMJ (1)
useful.
So, if
we are not planning to use total physical response (TPR)
(2) to have all the students answer questions at the same
time, then at least we should be asking a question, pausing for three seconds
and then saying a student's name in order to get the most effect out of
questions. However, if we are satisfied with only some students paying
attention and learning in our classrooms, then we can continue as usual.”
I hope you have had a good first week
back after the winter break. I’m very much looking forward to being back in
school on Monday and working with you all again, being away in both Australia
and now Thailand I have to admit I have missed ISHCMC.
Hence as I got up early this morning,
completed all my recruitment tasks and still had some spare time before our
first interview I thought I would send you a couple of things that I read over
the winter break. The first about being the best you can adds to one of our
pillars of an Achievement Culture and is useful for us as individuals and for
the advice and direction we give to our students. The conclusion about looking
for a combination of factors certainly links strongly with us as a Professional
Learning Community and our need for developing meaningful collaboration and
teamwork throughout the school. We have so much talent at ISHCMC it is
important to share and learn from each other.
The Five Paths To Being The Best At
Anything
I’ve posted a lot about becoming the best in your
field. Looking back, what are the most successful methods for getting
there?
10,000 Hours
Let’s get the most famous one out of the way first: Hard work pays off.
Malcolm Gladwell popularized the theory in Outliers: approximately
10,000 hours of deliberate practice at something can turn you into an expert.
…the most elite violinists accumulated about the same
number of hours of deliberate practice (about 7,410 hours) by the age of 18 as
professional middle-aged violinists belonging to international-level orchestras
(about 7,336 hours)! By
the age of 20, the most accomplished musicians estimated they spent over 10,000
hours in deliberate practice, which is 2,500 and 5,000 hours
more than two less accomplished groups of expert musicians or 8,000 hours more
than amateur pianists of the same age.
That said, 10,000 hours is an average. And deliberate practice is not
just going through the motions.
You’ve spent more than 10,000 hours driving but that
doesn’t make you ready for NASCAR or Formula One.
Even in this age of hyperspecialization in sports, some rare individuals become
world-class athletes, and even world champions, in sports from running to
rowing with less than a year or two of training. As with
Gobet’s chess players, in all sports and skills, the only real rule is that
there is a tremendous natural range.
There are also genetic
advantages in the area of music, math and writing.
But, as Norton and Olds saw, as winner-take-all markets emerged,
the early-twentieth-century paradigm of the singular, perfect athletic body
faded in favor of more rare and highly specialized bodies that fit like
finches’ beaks into their athletic niches. When Norton and Olds
plotted the heights and weights of modern world-class high jumpers and shot
putters, they saw that the athletes had become stunningly dissimilar. The
average elite shot putter is now 2.5 inches taller and 130 pounds heavier than
the average international high jumper… Just as the galaxies are hurtling apart, so are the
body types required for success in a given sport speeding away from one another
toward their respective highly specialized and lonely corners of the athletic
physique universe.
Tall and thin? Try basketball. Short and thick?
Weightlifting. Mom and dad are successful engineers? Give math a whirl.
Taking advantage of
genetic gifts is a matter of finding what your body and mind might have been
designed to excel at and aligning your efforts appropriately.
(More on genetic advantages — and how I had my own DNA
analyzed – here.)
Be Part Of A Great
Team
Working 10K hours and having naturally steady hands can
be a great advantage to a doctor but surgeons
only get better at their home hospital.
Why? That’s where they
know the team best and develop strong working relationships.
Overall, the surgeons
didn’t get better with practice. They only got better at the specific
hospital where they practiced. For every procedure they handled at a given
hospital, the risk of patient mortality dropped by 1 percent. But the risk of
mortality stayed the same at other hospitals. The surgeons couldn’t take
their performance with them. They
weren’t getting better at performing coronary artery bypass grafts. They were
becoming more familiar with particular nurses and anesthesiologists, learning
about their strengths and weaknesses, habits and styles.
Even though they were supposed to be individual stars,
their performance wasn’t portable. When
star analysts moved to a different firm, their performance dropped, and it
stayed lower for at least five years.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s
drought lasted until he gave up on independence and began to work
interdependently again with talented collaborators. It wasn’t his own idea: his wife Olgivanna
convinced him to start a fellowship for apprentices to help him with his
work. When
apprentices joined him in 1932, his productivity soared, and he was soon
working on the Fallingwater house, which would be seen by many as the greatest
work of architecture in modern history.
(More on how your friends can make you a better person here.)
Be A Giver
Researchers who hog
the credit on scientific papers are less likely to win a Nobel prize.
Those who give younger
academics a bit of the spotlight are more likely to have a trip to Stockholm in
their future.
One striking finding was the beneficence of Nobel
laureates, or as Zuckerman termed it, noblesse oblige. In general, when a scientific paper
is published, the author who did the most is listed first.There
are exceptions to this, and this can vary from field to field, but Zuckerman
took it as a useful rule of thumb. What
she found was that Nobel laureates are first authors of numerous publications
early in their careers, but quickly begin to give their junior colleagues first
authorship. And this happens far before they receive the Nobel Prize… By
their forties, Nobel laureates are first authors on only 26 percent of their
papers, as compared to their less accomplished contemporaries, who are first
authors 56 percent of the time. Nicer people are indeed more creative, more
successful, and even more likely to win Nobel prizes.
We think of givers as getting exploited or walked on. And
that definitely happens.
What I find across various industries, and various
studies is the Givers are most likely to end up at the bottom. That’s
primarily because they end up putting other people first in ways that either
burn them out, or will allow them to get taken advantage of and exploited by
Takers.
Then I looked at the other end of the spectrum and said
if Givers are at the bottom, who’s
at the top? Actually, I was really surprised to discover, it’s the Givers
again. The people who consistently are looking for ways to help others are
over-represented not only at the bottom, but also at the top of most success
metrics.
This second is a list of articles from Anne Murphy Paul that
you might want to browse through….they are very readable, interesting and ask
good questions about education.
