Part 2
HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything...in Business (and in Life)
By: Dov Seidman
Do you know your purpose? Do you have a purpose?
Most in education would say their purpose is to make a difference for kids or to reach a child. Whatever your purpose is, we all feel called to do or be apart of something greater than ourselves. We want to connect with others. We want to help! What does it mean to connect with others and help?
Dov Seidman says, “We help strangers as well as those we know. This behavior- called altruistic helping—is one of the things that separates us from most other animals.”
Seidman cites a study conducted by Felix Warneken and Michael Tomasello at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. The study found that children as young as 18 months helped an unknown adult complete a series of tasks. According to Seidman, “Children with barely developed verbal skills were able to tell the difference between an individual needing help and one who made a decision that made help unnecessary. From their study, Warneken and Tomasello concluded that, ‘even very young children have a natural tendency to help other persons solve their problems, even when the other person is a stranger and they receive no benefit at all.’”
In education, depending on the situation we would call this cheating or small group. What is clear is that students need time to collaborate and share ideas with each other, maybe more than we would assume.
As I posted previously, this idea is especially true in the digital age.
From: David Weinberger- Everything Is Miscellaneous
“Nor
could the disconnect get much wider between the official state view of
education and how our children are learning. In most American
households, the computer on which the students do their homework is
likely connected to the Net. Even if their teachers let them use only
approved sources on the Web, chances are good that any particular
student, including your son or daughter, has four or five instant
messaging sessions open as he or she does homework. They have friends
with them as they learn. In between chitchat about the latest alliances
and factions among their social set, they comparing answers, asking for
help on tough questions, and complaining. Our children are doing
homework socially, even though they’re being graded and tested as if
they’re doing their work in isolation booths. But in the digital order,
their approach is appropriate: Memorizing facts is often now a skill
more relevant to quiz shows than to life.”
Just like you, our students want to reach out and connect with others. Why do we spend so much time trying to prevent it?
All people, students, teachers, and administrators want to connect, and we want to trust. When is comes to the famous saying, “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.” Seidman says, “First impressions, it seems, do count. Humans are biologically hardwired to make snap decisions to trust or distrust others.”
Think of the implications of this. According to Seidman, students are hardwired to make a snap decision about trusting the teacher. Teachers are hardwired to make snap decision to trust their administrator, or vice versa. The question becomes, how does one gain instant trust? What must one do or not do?
Seidman says, “It would seem that humans, at a very early stage of mental development are hardwired with the ability and desire to connect with and help others, despite the fact that doing so engenders great risk and returns no obvious reward.”
In other words, it is all about relationships. We want to connect with others and help even if we get nothing from the relationship. It is simply part of who we are. To do this we must put our trust on the line. We give the other person the opportunity to misuse this trust. But imagine if we all operated the other way. Only help those who have proven trustworthy and when you get some reward from helping. Not a world any of us would want to live in I am sure.
So to connect with our students or with our staff, we must seek to connect with them and trust them FIRST, knowing that they can abuse this trust. We must be the first to put it on the line to make that connection, give that help, and seek their trust.
The good news, Seidman cites medical research conducted by Paul Zak, chair, department of economics at Claremont Graduate University, adjunct professor of neurology at Loma Linda University, and founding director of the Center for Neuroeconomic Studies that shows, “when you trust someone, their brain responds by making more oxycotin, which allows them to trust you in return. Reciprocity—doing unto others as they do unto you—seems therefore to be a biological function; trust begets trust.”
But you have to trust first. You have to risk it. If you want your students and staff to trust you, you have to take the risk and trust them first. It is the “HOW” of our relationships.
“We feel in our guts that keeping promises and connecting with others are what gives our lives meaning, and most of us seek meaning in our lives. These connections give our live significance. That is why, both biologically and culturally, mastering ways of building better interpersonal synapses with the people around us by getting our HOWS right is so germane to our success today. If we live now in a world more connected that ever before, shouldn’t we all find ways to connect better?”
How can we as educators connect better with our students and with each other? The answer to this question may be one of the keys to changing education for the better. So how do we do it?
Reach out and trust somebody!
Rob Jacobs
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