Coming together

So this post has nothing to do with that delicious looking food - well to use the metaphor, the bringing together of two culinary elements sometimes creates a synergy that gives us something better than the sum of the parts. Ice cream + cookies!

Today was one of those moments when disparate events came together to compliment and crystalise ideas. First we had a mindfulness expert visit our school. I learned a lot.

• Mindfulness is more than meditation

• We can’t multitask really (sorry women) we just attention switch quickly but the so called multitasking leads to a loss of productivity

• Technology can make us super unproductive if we are always checking alerts and email etc

• Addiction to tech is real – we get a hit of dopamine when we get an alert or a like etc

• Being mindful works the frontal cortex which strengthens logic, reasoning

• VW in Germany turned off their mail servers after 6pm so employees could not send emails – productivity went up.

His name is Richard Chambers http://www.drrichardchambers.com/

This all connected to a video I watched tonight on schooling in Finland:

Michael Moore is in Finland to discover why they have been top of the education pool consistently. He discovers that they do very little homework – because the teachers want the kids to go home and be with friends and family. No external exams plus very short hours of school (only 20 hours a week for junior students). So can you imagine the state they are in when they are in school – relaxed and SO less stressed about exams and homework. It brought the theme of the day all together for me – the gains we can make by being deliberate about “sharpening the saw”. It would seem so paradoxical for a Western teacher to think that less homework would lead to better understanding and performance at school - but there is the evidence. Similarly, Richard talked about the gains for students if they are more mindful and taught how to manage their mental and emotional health.

This all sounds way too logical for me!

I believe that the idea of looking after the wellness of students will be a huge growth area in years to come as we come to accept that there is a strong causal relationship between this and performance.