David Meyer, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan believes we are distracting ourselves to death. A column in the Times of London describes Meyer and his work:
In 1995 his son was killed by a distracted driver who ran a red light. Meyer’s speciality was attention: how we focus on one thing rather than another. Attention is the golden key to the mystery of human consciousness; it might one day tell us how we make the world in our heads. Attention comes naturally to us; attending to what matters is how we survive and define ourselves. The opposite of attention is distraction, an unnatural condition and one that, as Meyer discovered in 1995, kills. Now he is convinced that chronic, long-term distraction is as dangerous as cigarette smoking. In particular, there is the great myth of multitasking. No human being, he says, can effectively write an e-mail and speak on the telephone. Both activities use language and the language channel in the brain can’t cope. Multitaskers fool themselves by rapidly switching attention and, as a result, their output deteriorates.
Meyer says there is evidence that people in chronically distracted jobs are, in early middle age, appearing with the same symptoms of burn-out as air traffic controllers. They might have stress-related diseases, even irreversible brain damage. But the damage is not caused by overwork, it’s caused by multiple distracted work.
Reading this I started to wonder: Could the demand to deliver differentiated instuction be part of why teachers burn out so quickly? Are teachers who rely more heavily on whole class instruction more productive?
This is what we should be talking about in terms of instruction.
If we could put the distraction of NCLB behind us, we could have a conversation about our two greatest challenges: how to we replace,compensate for, or even bring back the family dinner table, and how do we address multi-tasking?
My theory is that guilt keeps us from addressing either, but since we all are to blame, why not break out of the shame game distraction?
If we want to maximize the glories of 21st century technology, we need to be honest about its trade-offs. We can’t deny that the printing press damaged some valuable human qualities, but I wouldn’t try to turn back the clock. The clock, for that matter, damaged some great human traditions and cultures. Multitasking causes damage, and we can’t stop that reality. Our job, if we have the guts for honesty, is to minimize the damage and help kids maximize the benefits, and bite our tongues when the kids create good and bad new worlds.
Robert, you bring up a question that has been on my mind for a while. Differentiated instruction, fast-paced, changing activities, noisy groupwork–all of this caters to a distracted environment. And, yes, it can wear a teacher out. Some of this depends on temperament–some thrive on “multitasking”–but a great many of us in education love and need to focus, and rarely get a chance to do so during the school day.
I have a related question. Why do schools place so little emphasis on the contemplative side of learning–the slow, quiet pondering of a problem or text? That seems to be a forgotten practice. The emphasis is almost exclusively on the “active.” Demiashkevich was on to something when he wrote, in The Activity School,
“This is one of the several instances where the proponents of the activity method are guilty of the sin with which they reproach the so-called conventional school, only more so. Namely, they treat the child not merely as a miniature adult, but as an exceptional type of adult, extraordinarily vigorous individual, since even adults can’t afford throbbing thus much. Even inveterate theater-goers cannot.”
I’ve long been fascinated by school tone and environment, and both of your comments, Diana and John, speak to that issue. While there are no doubt exceptions, it seems that the common denominator of every good school I’ve been to is a calm and focused environment. I don’t mean that kids are sitting in rows, their backs straight, eyes on the teacher. Things seem to proceed in a structured, productive way, and focus is possible. In underperforming schools, there’s often an atmosphere that while not necessarily chaotic, is unquiet. The signature mark of the latter kind of school is the sound of the teacher constantly redirecting the students. Distraction is the rule; disruption commonplace. Focus, even for the earnest and well-intentioned is a Herculean task.
I’ve long suspected we do this to ourselves. We assume our students have short-attention spans and disengage unless the lesson is entertaining, multisensory, differentiated for various “learning styles,” etc. So we create the lack of contemplation you suggest, Diana by tacitly assuming it’s not possible.
I wonder if part of the equation is that sustained attention requires sustained interest — but sustained interest almost requires a certain amount of attention as a pre-requisite. So there’s a cycle that may be hard to get started, and unless teachers get the knack for it, it may be easier to keep bouncing kids from one activity to another.
Personally, I HATE multi-tasking, and the need to do it was one of the big adjustments of motherhood…
Differentiation, the new buzz word of this decade was the cornerstone of the one room school house in the days of the Horn Book. Good teachers have always been able to “tune in” to the specific needs of individual students and facilitate specificity in learning. IEPs were informally created for students as teachers provided direct instruction and alternate assignments for their students, as needed. Teachers today are burning out quickly having to perform an inordinate amount of wasteful paper work, plan and post goals, objectives, aims and other trivial headings for EACH part of EVERY lesson BEFORE the students are even engaged. There is a tremendous loss of learning in NYC Schools due to inane teacher requirements by administrators. These classroom requirements waste valuable opportunities for spontaneity in learning, but “make them the place look good”. This Window Dressing, to make an outward impression, for the benefit of supervisors as well as the incessant testing practice, are what distracts both students and teachers from the real task at hand and the true goals that we must seek to accomplish. AS David Meyer suggests, today’s kids AND their parents are multitasking as a way of life – that is a reality that may require us to re-examine time management and priorities in general.
Sustained interest… well said, Rachel. If only I could turn my phone off at work and not be distracted. If only everyone understood what I mean the first time in a meeting without having to provide differentiated instruction. Sigh.
The focus of the teacher in the classroom is to provide instruction. Ensuring all students have a strong foundation is key to moving along quickly. If you find yourself giving differentiated instruction to specific students and not the class, you are not being effective. These are learning foundations that can benefit all. If you have a few in your classroom that need specifics alone, then you need a para to provide this differentiated instruction.