Your Brain on Learning

We are social creatures with brains attuned to those around us. This means that we should seriously consider placing the same emphasis on social and emotional learning in the classroom as we do on memorizing facts and problem solving.

—Lou Cozolino, Professor of Psychology at Pepperdine

Brain science is defining a new era in learning. The science, data, discipline, practice and tools have reached a critical mass with compelling conclusions about how kids best learn. That new science also documents the damage inflicted on the brains of our kids by socioeconomic disparities, technological disruptions, outdated schools and teaching methods, social fragmentation, and the unrelenting pace of American life.

We clearly need more emphasis on social and emotional literacy. But that also presents the practical challenge of retraining close to 3.8 million teachers in America, as well as helping to retool an over-driven society.³ This is not a training challenge as much as it is a cultural challenge. Social and Emotional Literacy requires both a new mindset and hands-on experience. Alyssa, the teacher featured in Chapters 9 and 10, told me that she wished she had a basic orientation to some useful methods of intervention, or even a bio on her kids in order to see them as individuals and not simply as students. From other conversations, I believe that is a common concern. During our research for this book, I also heard the following comments from teachers:

1. “No one ever prepared me for this.”
2. “I am not qualified to deal with some of the challenges that erupt in my classroom.”
3. “I had to just figure it out and for the first six months of my class I came home in tears many times. I at least figured some of this out and now have more good days than bad days.”

Science is also reconfirming what common sense once told us:

• Kids need to be active during the day.
• They need safe and nurturing environments in order to learn.
• They learn best in social and engaging classrooms.
• Each student is unique; each one learns differently.
• Pressures and stress outside school affect the classroom.
• Healthy diets and healthy habits improve attention and engagement.

That's why the learning process must be personal, not bureaucratic. Just as medical care should focus on the patient more than on its own system, so education must care for and about each student. Brandon Busteed, Executive Director, Education & Workforce Development at Gallup, sums up what Gallup has researched as the core elements for student success: “. . . having someone who cares about your development and having an opportunity to do what you do best every day.”⁴

Dr. Cozolino reinforces Gallup's research with brain science and says if we view learning as a process for growing the capacity of the brain, it grows best in an environment of supportive relationships, low stress and emotional arousal, balanced between thinking and feeling, and through the creative use of storytelling.

“Go Settle Your Glitter”

The Momentous Institute began in the 1920s as a therapeutic outreach to at-risk communities in South Dallas. Today, the Institute serves about 6,000 kids and families every year.

According to Michelle Kinder, the Executive Director of the Institute, many of these kids will fall under a mental health category called Adverse Childhood Experiences. These are divided into three categories: physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. A child coming out of these conditions will most likely experience disruption in neurodevelopment. That leads to social, emotional, and cognitive impairment, leading to destructive and risky behaviors. Without intervention by those who care, these journeys do not end well. Such interventions must start early, engage the family, and be led by teachers well trained in social and emotional literacy.

The Momentous Institute provides a safe, positive, and connected environment for their kids, from three years old to fifth grade. But they also recognize that unless their environments outside of school are positive, the gains will be short lived. Michelle took me to the parent resource room. There, she explained, “Parents are welcome to come at any time. Once a month there is a box of books and educational toys. The parents can take them home for their child's continued use. The box also has a journal, so they can describe how they used the material and read what other families wrote.”

Parents also receive coaching and training so that they are equipped to work on improving the family and the home environment. Michelle took me to the vision wall, where parents and their kids draft their visions for the student's education. Some were simple, many were hopeful, but some were very specific and quite moving. Some stories just took my breath away.

Throughout the tour I found numerous subtle details that reveal the “momentous” attention to each child and the environment. The hallway walls were painted in textures that invite kids to sweep their hands along the wall as they walk, stimulating their senses. Photographs of the brain, highlighting different areas and brain functions, are posted throughout the school. I met three-year-olds who told me they had a brain and it was in their head and was very, very important. Five-year-olds know where frustration, anger, and sorrow come from in the brain. They also knew the coping skills that calm the brain down.

A glitter ball is a clear rubber ball filled with liquid and glitter. Shaking it up clouds it with a swirl of glitter. Of course, it takes a few minutes for it all to settle back to the bottom. If a student is acting out another student will hand them the ball and say, “Go Settle Your Glitter.”

Michelle said that a lot of these kids come out of traumatized situations. Their emotions are on a hair trigger. When a child acts out they call it an “amygdala hijack.” “You don't logic them out of their trauma. You have to calm them down, settle their glitter; then you can talk about consequences.”

On down the hall, I saw a display of each kid's graduation in the future, including the date and a picture of him or her in a graduation gown. Near that display is another one, featuring pictures of kids who have graduated and the flag of the college they attend or attended.

Even though the institute teaches the kids only through fifth grade, Momentous graduates go on to perform at a much higher level than kids in typical school systems. Ninety-nine percent graduate from high school, 86 percent go on the college, and 87 percent of those students graduate from college. In other words, this kind of learning experience matters!

Throughout their 90 years of service, the Momentous Institute has trained over 5,000 teachers. The Institute is clearly a school with a well-integrated learning framework designed around social and emotional literacy. The one thing that seems to be the cardinal difference between Momentous and more traditional schools is intentionality. They care enough to actually think through the lives of students, and then to intentionally build the learning experience around that life.

The institute is a great model of empathetic design. They view their job through the lens of the students' emotional and social literacy from the time they arrive. They pay attention to how students arrive and are greeted, the effect of the opening breathing and centering exercise, student instruction, discipline, and so forth—the entire day is designed to provide a safe, nurturing, stimulating, empowering, and successful experience—every day. And, to the best of their ability, the Momentous Institute expands that intentionality into the family.

By contrast a traditional school experience seems to focus on specific disconnected class periods, a small part of that student's time and interaction in school. How might we rethink schools if we viewed learning as an integrated cumulative journey throughout the student's day, semester, and year? Could we move away from our batched, boxed, assembly-line school models to a more fluid and integrated learning community mindset? “The implications of this research suggest that whatever differences children come to school with can be impacted by subsequent experiences in the classroom, especially teacher-student attachment relationships. Teachers can have a powerful influence on changing the brains of their students for the better.”⁵

Early Warning Systems for Students

Dr. Lynn Frickey specializes in early warning systems and interventions for at risk kids. Right out of college, she started working at a Colorado treatment facility for boys who were victims of sexual abuse and violent crimes. That program, similar to an Outward Bound experience, took the boys for three weeks of survival training in Yellowstone or into the boundary waters of Minnesota. The boys were typically urban kids with no exposure to the outdoors and certainly no experience in wilderness conditions. Those three-week ventures in the wilderness created something magical: kids who up to that point “didn't give a damn and had no reason to care” were transformed into a connected, cohesive, and confident team.

After that experience, Lynn transitioned into education, where she continued working with at-risk kids. Once again, she saw magic happen when kids got outdoors, were physically challenged, and encouraged to rely on one another. Since her school was near a base for the Colorado National Guard, she invited active and retired military personnel to celebrate an upcoming Veteran's Day. When she saw how the kids responded to those in uniform, she continued to build on the experience.

“I sought them out to partner on leadership activities and mentoring. That led to coteaching the leadership course I created for kids who needed credits to graduate from high school.”

Her father, a retired army colonel, was the emcee for the Veterans Day ceremony. He also spoke on other occasions and cowrote a reader's theater script to actively engage the kids in learning Vietnam history.

Lynn told me, “I told the military base brass how we were engaging the kids, using the reader's theater with my partners from the Colorado Army National Guard. They offered to turn it into a live simulation at the base. One of the sergeants created a rescue/survival mission simulation for a downed Huey helicopter. We scheduled these events on the base on Saturdays. The kids also experienced drills and eating MREs (Meal, Ready-to-Eat). It was voluntary but, even though the events were held on a Saturday, every kid showed up.”

Dr. Frickey knew if at-risk kids could be identified early, there was a good chance for positive interventions. However, up until 2000, accurately identifying kids at risk was subjective at best. But there were well-established metrics for what an engaged student looked like. So Dr. Frickey reverse-engineered that research to test the signs of disengagement that lead to dropping out,⁶ and that led to a breakthrough assessment tool: The Scale of Student Engagement/Disengagement, or SOS ED.⁷ The assessment looks closely at demographic factors, connections and relationships, academic interests, habits, ability, skill levels, and future goals.

Hoosiers

I visited Washington High School in Washington, Indiana, where they had implemented Dr. Frickey's SOS ED early warning system. The school is about two hours southwest of Indianapolis. Washington looks like a typical Midwest semi-abandoned small town with a small town square. Once a factory town, the factories have now been closed a long time. The city has about 2,400 families; most are white and unemployed.

LeAnne Kelley, the principal, and Captain Neil May, Navy Reserve and science instructor at Washington High, are two unusually talented, experienced, and committed leaders in a community that is a faded and wounded image of its past. LeAnne is on a mission to transform the school and was, at the time of my visit, in the second year of the turnaround.

She explained that just getting to school is a struggle for many students. Most parents are unemployed. Meth addiction is a major problem. But LeAnne and Captain May were committed to changing the social landscape. They found that Dr. Frickey's assessment helped them build an early warning system that allowed teachers to see underneath the masks and pinpoint kids needing intervention and support.

Captain May showed me their “war room.” The walls were lined with student information (see Figure 11.1, which pictures an example of a “war room,” showing names and grades for each subject). They even have a large spreadsheet listing different factors they track, in addition to the SOS ED results—truancy, grades, failing, disengagement, and disruptive behavior (see Figure 11.2). Their system ranks these in order of digression. When a student reaches a certain threshold it activates an intervention. The intervention begins with a meeting of that student's teachers and the creation of a shared living Google Doc and tracking device. Each teacher records his or her interactions and conversations with the student. The journal allows the root issues to slowly emerge through the iterative nature of capturing the evolution of progress.

For example, they told me about Melinda (not her real name), a student who started missing school, getting poor grades, acting out, and developing a harsh personality. She measured as “high risk of dropping out” on the SOS ED. When the teachers set up an “Intervention Journal,” they learned that her parents' car had been repossessed. Melinda wanted to be at school but lack of transportation had became a daily and often unsurmountable hurdle. Their attention to the problem got everyone on the same page, and also developed a deeper appreciation of Melinda as a person and the challenges of her situation. Teachers banded together to make sure that she got rides to and from school. Melinda's behavior changed; her anger and passion were channeled to becoming a leader and helping other kids who were starting to disengage or veer toward bad behavior.

Melinda's new outlook, and the development of a community of support at Washington High School began with a tool that provided early warning and direction for taking positive intervention.

A Teacher's Lesson in Emotional Literacy

Glennon Doyle Melton writes a blog called “Momastery.” Through her personal life stories, Glennon opens the door for her readers to explore, unmask, and connect. Her January 30, 2014, blog presented an astounding story of her son's teacher.

Every Friday afternoon Chase's teacher asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with whom they'd like to sit the following week. The children know that these requests may or may not be honored. She also asks the students to nominate one student whom they believe has been an exceptional classroom citizen that week. All ballots are privately submitted to her.

And every single Friday afternoon, after the students go home, Chase's teacher takes out those slips of paper, places them in front of her and studies them. She looks for patterns.

Who is not getting requested by anyone else?

Who doesn't even know who to request?

Who never gets noticed enough to be nominated?

Who had a million friends last week and none this week?

You see, Chase's teacher is not looking for a new seating chart or “exceptional citizens.” Chase's teacher is looking for lonely children. She's looking for children who are struggling to connect with other children. She's identifying the little ones who are falling through the cracks of the class's social life. She is discovering whose gifts are going unnoticed by their peers. And she's pinning down—right away—who's being bullied and who is doing the bullying.

As a teacher, parent, and lover of all children—I think that this is the most brilliant Love Ninja strategy I have ever encountered. It's like taking an X-ray of a classroom to see beneath the surface of things and into the hearts of students. It is like mining for gold—the gold being those little ones who need a little help—who need adults to step in and TEACH them how to make friends, how to ask others to play, how to join a group, or how to share their gifts with others. And it's a bully deterrent because every teacher knows that bullying usually happens outside of her eyeshot—and that often kids being bullied are too intimidated to share. But as she said—the truth comes out on those safe, private, little sheets of paper.

As Chase's teacher explained this simple, ingenious idea—I stared at her with my mouth hanging open. “How long have you been using this system?” I said.

“Ever since Columbine,” she said. Every single Friday afternoon since Columbine. Good Lord.

This brilliant woman watched Columbine knowing that ALL VIOLENCE BEGINS WITH DISCONNECTION. All outward violence begins as inner loneliness. She watched that tragedy KNOWING that children who aren't being noticed will eventually resort to being noticed by any means necessary.

And so she decided to start fighting violence early and often, and with the world within her reach. What Chase's teacher is doing when she sits in her empty classroom studying those lists written with shaky 11 year old hands—is SAVING LIVES.⁸

For millennia, the social and family networks caught and saved those who wandered toward the cliff. But those networks are now seriously weakened and even nonexistent for many. But new systems are now emerging that will help us better see, assess, feel, and respond to those in need.

Tribes

So we have this kind of—I don't know—sort of like an antiquated notion of the professionalization of human relationships that doesn't really work. And it especially doesn't work for kids that are stressed or marginalized or traumatized. Love is the bridge for them to open up their brain to new learning. So I believe love is at the core of everything that all of us do.

—Lou Cozolino, Change the Odds Conference 2015

We all naturally gravitate to tribes. Barn raising, fighting forest fires, military action, Facebook, DaVerse Lounge, and The Momentous Institute are all examples of tribes.

Dr. Frickey's class became one, Melinda's teachers created a tribe for her and so did Chase's teacher. Dr. Cozolino defines a tribe as super-organism. It is a group of individuals who form a collective identity, and that identity makes them stronger than they would be as individuals.

This may be why Cozolino wrote, “We have to figure out ways to embed tribe building into the curriculum, weave it into classroom management, and find time to dedicate to tribe building.”⁹

We believe, and research supports, that re-tribalizing school is one antidote to the Education Machine. Our proposal is not to simply allow more extra-curricular activities but to see and build re-tribalization as a holistic design feature into the culture, curriculum and facility. Our research has revealed that when several schools simply changed class format to small group face-to-face, learning and learning behavior improved, fun returned and teachers felt rejuvenated.

Restoring Common Sense

The Gutenberg worldview created institutions in order to gather individuals for collective outcomes. And that served societies well for more than 400 years. But, as institutions grew increasingly complex, people and cultures lost the tribal experience of community, connection and collective purpose. The Gutenberg mindset for learning has also emphasized rational intellectual learning over creative and craft learning.

The escalation of brain science and social and emotional literacy is rebalancing this bias. In addition, the Social-Mobile media shift is repatterning our perceptions of time and space and quickly reconstituting us into virtual tribes. All of this is helping us to reclaim the power humans have to grant one another worth. Through intimate connections and tribal formations we are all becoming more together than we can be on our own.

Will Richey invites his audience at the beginning of a session to repeat,

I want to see you . . .

I want to hear you . . .

I want to feel you . . .

I want to acknowledge you . . .

For you are worthy . . .

I am worthy . . .

With a short pause AP, his partner, comes out and says, “I love that statement but I think there is something missing. I believe that if we give everyone a melody to go with this, they will remember it.”

Within a few minutes, all those gathered with Will and AP became a tribe; our brains became open and curious. We learned. Together.

Finding the Flow

Social and emotional literacy is the healing art that provides an open and adaptable brain, a brain that is eager and able to learn. The science that restores the over-stressed and traumatized mind is the same science that prepares all minds for deeper learning. This leads us to a discussion about student engagement, which describes the shift from externally motivated learning to the internal joy of learning. Engagement can also lead to a deeper level of absorption called flow. The next chapter describes how the open and curious mind becomes the engaged mind and can lead to flow.