Month: December 2011

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Stress: what is it?

Our bodies have evolved to react when in danger, whether that is physical danger (e.g. the threat of being eaten or attacked) or social (losing social status, uncertain situations, lack of control, meeting strangers or unfairness).

Of course these days things tend to be a little more complicated than being chased by a wild animal or trying to fight off a new dominant male in the pack, but sure enough the stress mechanism still comes in to play. It is entirely possible to get some control over these processes, but the first stage is to recognise and understand what is happening.

The body’s response to stress

The initial reaction to stress (‘Alarm’) is all about preparing the body to start running or fighting, and is triggered by the release of hormones such as adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol as directed by the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that links the nervous systems and endocrine/hormone systems. The effects you notice are:

  • Acceleration of the heartbeat and breathing faster, to get more oxygen to the muscles,
  • Liberation of fat and glucose to provide energy for the muscles,
  • Pupil dilation and inhibition of peripheral vision so you concentrate on moving in one direction only,
  • Relaxation of bladder and various sphincters, to prevent the effort of holding in body waste and possibly to ‘offload’ weight,
  • Dilation of blood vessels in muscles, constriction of blood vessels everywhere else,
  • Magnification of spinal reflexes, ability to focus and immune system, and inhibition of various other energy-consuming processes and responses such as sexual arousal, digestion, attention to pain and higher-order thinking (e.g. creativity and metacognition).

If the cause of stress remains for some time then the body moves in to the ‘resistance’ phase where it attempts to adapt the response to suit the situation. However, if this goes on too long then the body moves in to the final ‘exhaustion’ phase where the imbalance of normal blood flow and excess production of certain hormones can exhaust the body’s resources, leading to long-term damage. This could manifest as ulcers, diabetes, digestive disorders, cardiovascular problems, depression, or other mental disorders.

So what’s the problem?

Stress is a fairly primitive response to problems, and in most situations that we encounter in life we would do better to regain control of ourselves. When we’re in the full grip of ‘fight-or-flight’ we aren’t using our full mental faculties, and can appear irritable, overly emotional, agitated and unhappy. We’re poor at remembering, poor at concentrating and we tend toward pessimism. The trouble is that, for many people, stress becomes a way of life. People become isolated socially, pick up bad-habits and addictions, become more prone to illness, lose sex-drive and develop poor sleeping habits.

This is all rather rather sad and ironic as our most effective routes out of stress are often other people’s empathy and listening, sleep, and our own high-order thinking skills such as metacognition. However in the absence of a decent understanding of stress we often smoke, drink, take drugs and develop emotional problems and thinking disorders.

So what’s the solution?

Fortunately we can learn and develop the skills that help overcome the majority of stressful situations.

  1. Name the emotion in order to tame it.
    Practise becoming aware of your different emotional states. Notice your physical stress responses and make a mental note that you are feeling stressed and anxious. Separate the feeling from yourself, e.g. “I feel sad right now” and not “I am sad”. This engages your left-brain to bring a bit of order and logic to the rather more right-brain oriented emotional responses, and activates the metacognitive powers of your higher-order brain areas to bring understanding instead of fear.
  2. Put it in to perspective.
    Remember all emotions are temporary and will pass. Spot what just caused the emotion and notice that your brain went into autopilot as a result. Pause whatever you are doing. Take a deep breath, exhale slowly and consciously relax your muscles. If you are able, move away from the situation and do something physical (brisk walking, jumping, stretches). Take a moment to notice as the physical symptoms gradually diminish: muscles relax, breathing and heart-rate slows, your thinking becomes calmer. By doing this your brain starts releasing chemicals that moderate the hormonal action of the stress response.
  3. Acknowledge and accept it.
    Don’t give yourself a hard time, your instincts just kicked in as a result of the combination of what just happened with your memories of previous events. Don’t worry that you’ve just been in conflict or an anxious-making situation. Both are very useful, and can be triggers for personal growth. You’ve just been in a situation where you can learn something useful about yourself, the world, and other people. Take a moment (you can do this a little later) to think through the clear logic of what happened, how you felt and why you felt it. If it was someone else who caused the stress, imagine what combination of their personal perception and memories triggered their action. All of these actions help you move the event from unconscious low-level memory to explicit higher-level memory, and fully integrate the event through all parts of the brain, emotional and logical. Failure to do this can lead to anxious memories and future stress.

When should you do this?

Use this all the time. Practise noticing your emotional and mental state, whether happy, sad, alert, tired, loving, angry or anxious. You can even practise this in retrospect by simply imagining a recent stressful situation and remembering your physical state. You’ll probably find that in doing so you re-live some of the stress and can practise taming it.

How can you help someone else?

This is easier with children, but can also work with adults. Be explicit in naming what they are feeling, e.g.”Oh dear, poor you, I can see you’re feeling really angry at the moment, your brain must be in full stress mode which can’t be very nice”. Use your whole body to show empathy and sympathy for their situation. Speak more slowly, take a breath and exhale noticeably. Encourage them to pause and take a breath. If you can do, take them away from the stress situation and encourage them to walk around. You could sit down and throw a ball backward and forward as you start to discuss the situation, give them a stress toy or a cushion to squeeze. Remind them gently (if appropriate) that it was just an emotion when their brain went into autopilot.

As you see them start to relax, say it out loud – reassure them that they are relaxing and that the situation is over. Now you can start  asking questions and listen openly to responses. You might start with “How are you feeling now?” to ground them back in their more relaxed state.

Summary

  1. Stress is activated in physically and socially threatening situations
  2. Your muscles tense, your breathing quickens and your logical ability and emotional control diminish.
  3. Begin to conquer stress by noticing the stress response in your brain, and mentally name it: “I am feeling stressed/anxious at this moment”
  4. Put it in perspective by remembering that it is just a temporary emotion. “I can relax myself and this emotion will pass soon”. Pause, take a slow breath, relax your muscles,
  5. Acknowledge the stressful situation. Don’t give yourself a hard time, take a moment to think through the situation from all angles and perspectives.
  6. Practise noticing emotions in all parts of your life. Help other people through stress by verbalising what they are thinking, mirroring their emotions and guiding them to relax.

I will be writing some more blogs about how school leaders, teachers, students and parents can apply these principles, and about how some simple habits can increase your general positivity and reduce overall stress.

I’d welcome your thoughts on this blog, as always!

Bibliography

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The tyranny of targets and approved teaching methods

I was watching a video of systems thinker John Seddon lambasting an obsession with targets recently. He points out that if you want to improve any system it’s worth thinking about three elements:

  • Purpose. What effect should the system have, what are its intended outcomes?
  • Measurement. How do we know if the system is fulfilling its purpose?
  • Method. What happens in the system to keep it on track?

Any thinking needs to start with the purpose or else you get a whole raft of unintended consequences. Education is no exception, and I’ve been picking out examples that I have personally encountered.

When the primary focus is on measurement (exams/league tables) you simply create a de facto purpose of “make the measurements look better”. Some of the methods to do this may suit the original purpose (attempts to improve quality of teaching and learning), but some of them will work directly against it (endless revision classes, insufficiently taxing exams, over-coaching, or even cheating).

Just as damaging is a focus on method. For example “all must write lesson objectives, all lessons will be three part, and all students must know their levels”. This creates a de facto measurement “is the teacher using an approved method?” and “can the student recite their levels”, which in turn creates a purpose of “create teachers who use a fixed teaching method, and students who can recite levels”.

Of course leaders/managers/headteachers may have in the back of their mind that as well as delivering approved methods and improved accountability measures they would also rather like to ensure kids receive a ‘good education’, but if this is the lower priority then the system will reflect it.

In the 50s and 60s in Japan they went through a revolution in quality that enabled them to  overtake the industrial domination of the USA in few decades. Many managers there were trained by W E Deming, who famously advised

“Eliminate numerical quotas, including Management by Objectives.”

So how do we change our lessons and our schools to reflect this? After a short brainstorm I’ve thought of a few ideas, but I suspect you could suggest many more.

  • Remember that improving accountability targets is not an objective in itself: it will be one tell-tale sign of whether your students and teachers are buying in to the core purpose of learning.
  • Plan every lesson primarily to achieve learning. Think about the learning that needs to take place before you think about the structure and content of the lesson.
  • Assess deep learning. Use the SOLO taxonomy. Use the full range of tools from rote memorisation through to open-ended problem solving.
  • Reject imposed lesson structures, let teachers grow their strengths, challenge students in different ways.
  • Never judge a student, a teacher, a lesson or a school by their outcomes alone. You need a rich mix of observations, discussions, and self-evaluations  as well as outcomes.
  • Focus less on recording and processing symptoms of poor learning (e.g. behaviour problems and absences) and put more energy in to creating better learning. You can pick up the relevant information from these measures without having to obsessively record them 10 times a day.

Let me be clear. I absolutely do not suggest that we don’t need to measure things, take exams or train teachers in specific methods. However, we do need to avoid these methods becoming compulsory and these measures and exams becomes ends in themselves. There needs to be a relentless focus on student learning and development – everything else is, and should remain, subsidiary. When that is improved, we will know it by seeing the measures improve.

To conclude, a few more pieces of classic W E Deming advice, as taken from the Cambridge University Press summary of his 14 points.

  • Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.
  • Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the workforce asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
  • Eliminate work standards on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.
  • Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership.
  • Remove barriers that rob the hourly paid worker of his right to pride in workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.
  • Remove barriers that rob people in management and engineering of their right to pride in workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and management by objective.

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

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That’s not fair! The psychology of our natural sense of justice.

Social experience is as important to our wellbeing as physical environment. Research suggests that our innate neurological threat-reward systems are activated not only in response to basic physical stimuli such as food/hunger, pain/pleasure, etc. but in response to five basic social qualities:

5. Fairness

In 2007 Tabibna and Lieberman did an interesting experiment where people were told that there was a certain quantity of money available and that it would be split between them and one other person. They measured the reward-mechanism response in their brains as they told them this, and found that if offered $0.50 out of $1.00 total then the subjects experienced a greater reward response than if they were offered $10.00 out of $50.00. The perceived unfairness of the latter situation was greater, even though, objectively, they were getting a better deal.

Fairness, it seems, is an inbuilt mechanism in the brain, and can affect our sense of relatedness and status.

“People who perceive others as unfair don’t feel empathy for their pain, and in some instances, will feel rewarded when unfair others are punished (Singer et al, 2006).”
(SCARF white paper)

Similar parts of the brain are activated when people perceive unfairness as when they are physically disgusted by something, driving people to a state of either anger or fear – the classic fight or flight response.

So what lessons can we draw from this for teaching and learning, school leadership and education policy?

Teaching and Learning

Having a consistent approach to rules, both rewards and punishment, can work in a teacher’s favour. It ensures students sense they too will be treated fairly, thus reducing anxiousness. It increases certainty and helps students recover relatedness even after they have been disciplined. Stressed and inexperienced teachers often attempt to mix ‘tactically ignoring’ problems with sudden harsh punishments when their patience breaks. This immediately aggravates the sense of fairness in every member of the class, turning them against the teacher. Attempting to do any real teaching when the class is in this state is futile – their fight-or-flight response is activated and completely dampens the relevant mechanisms relevant for learning.

School Leadership

In the general stress of a teacher’s job, the very last thing that they need is to feel that they are being treated unfairly themselves. A lack of transparency in pay, rewards, and promotions are common causes of perceived unfairness, and even more so when new management are parachuted in and suddenly decide that one or two members of staff need to be removed. Even if it is for the best intentions, a decision to treat some people by different rules will destroy the collegiate atmosphere for the rest. If in doubt, senior leadership should ensure that they come off no better, and ideally ever so slightly worse than their colleagues when a change in rules is announced.

Education Policy

Politics is rife with accusations of unfairness. In times of change when anxiety is generally higher then people will be acutely aware of any lack of justice. Common problems are when politicians push their ‘pet’ projects or make announcements without any genuine transparency. Of course politicians, like many other, suffer unfairness at the hands of the media, but it is vital that they avoid making the same mistake.

In times of hardship it is worth demonstrating how politicians and policy-makers are being affected, and again it is worth ensuring that the perception is that “we’re all in this together, but we value you so much that we’ll take a slightly bigger hit ourselves”. A notable place for this would have been where the UK government was negotiating pension decreases. I suspect that the whole thing would have been accepted much more readily by unions if MPs had made a show of how they were cutting their own pensions by ever so slightly more than their proposals for the rest of the country.

Summary

  • We make make assessments of fairness based on how we are treated compared to everyone else – it plays to our natural sense of empathy.
  • Unfairness causes stress and anxiety and induces anger, fear and hopelessness.
  • Lack of consistency is unfairness, and lack of transparency can lead to perceived unfairness.
  • If you have to inflict suffering on people you lead then you should be seen to be suffering at least as much yourself, in order to maintain the sense of justice.

Bibliography

  • Managing with the brain in mind, Strategy Business magazine issue 59, Autumn 2009.
  • SCARF360 white paper, David Rock, NeuroLeadership journal, issue one, 2008
  • Singer, T., Seymour, B., O’Doherty, J.P., Stephan, K.E., Dolan, R.J., Frith, C.D., 2006. Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others. Nature, 439, 466-469.
  • Tabibnia, G., & Lieberman M. D. (2007). Fairness and Cooperation Are Rewarding: Evidence from Social Cognitive Neuroscience. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1118, 90-101.
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My Christmas Wish

In September 2005, as my family was reeling from the rapid deterioration of my mother’s health from lung cancer, I started feeling very ill myself. I turned yellow with severe jaundice. At an emergency GP appointment I was told me to take a cab to hospital immediately and the doctor rang ahead to get them ready to admit me. Something was horribly wrong with my liver.

I made an appointment to see one of the specialists at the amazing Kings College Hospital Liver Unit who soon diagnosed me with a rare disease called Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis, a randomly occurring condition without any known cause. My health continued to deteriorate, and I was in and out of hospital with infections. On one particularly awful evening as I lay alone in a hospital bed I was called by my brother to tell me that my mum had passed away with the rest of the family around her. That was one of my all-time lows.

I was put on the waiting list for a liver transplant, and in the meantime scheduled for a operation to put in a temporary measure to try and help my ailing liver. Fortunately this helped me make a temporary recovery, be removed from the transplant list, and I even managed to get back to work in early 2006.

I remained gaunt, tired, slightly jaundiced and had difficulty retaining concentration. I maintained this for two years before being rushed in to A&E in August 2008 for chronic pain, and started to deteriorate again. I went back on the liver transplant waiting list, and had to go on sick leave. Those months were a nightmare of hospital visits and sleepless nights, jumping every time the phone went in case it was ‘the call’ to come in and have the operation. The chance of me getting further complications and infections increased every day.

After a false alarm in early 2009, I finally got the call on the 4th of February. Somewhere in Midlands a family in the middle of despair and grief at the loss of their sister/mother made the breathtakingly generous decision to allow her organs to be used for donation, and I was lucky enough to receive her liver.

My life was saved. After just over two weeks in hospital I was allowed home. After only a few more weeks I was popping in to my school to help out. By April I was back in teaching, by May I managed to get back in to my big hobby of latin-american dance, and I even managed to meet my partner who I had a civil partnership with in 2010.

At the wedding we asked all of our guests to give generously to the Kings College Hospital charity in lieu of gifts, and, most importantly, sign up to the organ donation register and tell their loved ones to do the same.

Every one person who dies (and whose family agree to donate their organs) can save as many as ten other lives, and bring joy and relief to families. All it takes is for you and your friends and relations to sign up to the register, and tell everyone you know that if the worst should happen, they must give their consent.

My wish this Christmas is that you agree to give this most precious of gifts. Sign up today, and save lives.

Merry Christmas!

 

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Friend or Foe? The science of empathy and relationships explained.

Social experience is as important to our wellbeing as physical environment. Research suggests that our innate neurological threat-reward systems are activated not only in response to basic physical stimuli such as food/hunger, pain/pleasure, etc. but in response to five basic social qualities:

4. Relatedness

We all know the feeling of meeting someone completely new. There’s a slight tension and greater alertness: the classic fight-of-flight response. In fact, our brain is programmed make a judgement about each new person we meet in order to assess the risk of the situation.

“The decision that someone is friend or foe happens quickly and impacts brain functioning (Carter & Pelphrey, 2008). For example, information from people perceived as ‘like us’ is processed using similar circuits for thinking one’s own thoughts. When someone is perceived as a foe, different circuits are used (Mitchell, 2006). Also, when treating someone as a competitor, the capacity to empathise drops significantly (Singer et al, 2006).”
(SCARF white paper)

If the initial interaction and conversation goes well then you get a sense that you are ‘warming’ to the other person. This feeling appears to relate to the release of oxytocin in the brain, a natural brain hormone associated with affiliative behaviour (Domes et al, 2007). It has been suggested that oxytocin not only allows us to bond with another person, but also helps us overcome existing preconceptions or stereotypes by easing the process of ‘unlearning’, an important point for conflict resolution. Oxytocin is known to be release in particularly large quantities at the start of new romantic relationships and when people become parents.

“Studies have shown far greater collaboration when people are given a shot of oxytocin, through a nasal spray. (Kosfield, 2005).”
(SCARF white paper)

Relatedness and its importance in in organisations and schools is not a new idea. ‘Team Building’ exercises are very common, although if these are implemented by simply throwing a group of people together at random then you’re not likely to get a great response. The key is to explore ways that people can see team members, colleagues and classmates as ‘like me’ in some way. This is important to counteract feelings of loneliness.

“the human threat response is aroused when people feel cut off from social interaction. Loneliness and isolation are profoundly stressful. John T. Cacioppo and William Patrick showed in 2008 that loneliness itself is  a threat response to lack of social contact, activating the same neurochemicals that flood the system when one is subjected to physical pain.”
(Managing with the brain in mind)

So what lessons can we draw from this for teaching and learning, school leadership and education policy?

Teaching and Learning

First and foremost this article should hopefully help to further dismiss the adage of ‘don’t smile before Christmas’. It is immensely important that students create a warm relationship with their teacher. When this happens then the empathy created will foster greater trust and better behaviour. The best teachers always take time to know and understand their students and try and relate to them.

It is also important that students relate to each other. In secondary schools in particular there are many different classes with different groupings, and teachers shouldn’t ignore the importance of relationships between students. Peer collaboration is a powerful learning tool, but won’t be possible until relationships have been properly established.

School Leadership

Professional development happens much more effectively when teachers collaborate, not only with performance managers, line managers and mentors, but with other members of their departments. The best school leaders encourage social activity within and outside the classroom, and give staff an opportunity to learn together. Teacher sports teams, yoga classes, choirs, etc. are all excellent to create useful relationships, but you may also like to experiment with a display of teacher photos with accompanying brief ‘biographies’ including interests. School leaders need to participate in this as well: a cold, aloof management team reduces trust, and means they are less likely to hear about problems until too late.

Education Policy

Politicians have left a trail of PR disasters as they attempt to wear baseball caps and proclaim ‘pop’ music tastes in an attempt to make voters think they are ‘like me’. When you’re in charge of such an enormously diverse group of people then the values and consistency demonstrated by your actions will be more important.

When management teams or ‘superheads’ are placed in schools then there needs to be serious time and effort put in to building relationships with existing staff, students and parents. New federations or chains cannot hope to pull together successfully unless they give time for staff to get out and visit colleagues in other establishments.

Summary

  • We are tense when we meet new people. Our fight-or-flight response kicks in.
  • ‘Warmth’ between people occurs when they find similarities, and this can help break down stereotypes and preconceptions.
  • Loneliness can be a severe problem, with mental repercussions similar to physical pain.
  • Effective organisations work on trust and empathy between staff, and it is worth spending time on relationships, although crass attempts at ‘team-building’ can be counterproductive.

Biography

  • Managing with the brain in mind, Strategy Business magazine issue 59, Autumn 2009.
  • SCARF360 white paper, David Rock, NeuroLeadership journal, issue one, 2008
  • Carter, E. J. & Pelphrey, K. A., (2008). Friend or foe?
    Brain systems involved in the perception of dynamic signals of menacing and friendly social approaches. Journal
    Social Neuroscience, Volume 3, Issue 2 June 2008 , pages 151-163.
  • Mitchell, J. P., Macrae, C. N., & Banaji, M. R. (2006). Dissociable Medial Prefrontal Contributions to Judgments of Similar and Dissimilar Others. Neuron, 50, 655-663.
  • Singer, T., Seymour, B., O’Doherty, J.P., Stephan, K.E., Dolan, R.J., Frith, C.D., 2006. Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others. Nature, 439, 466-469.
  • Domes , G., Heinrichs, M., Gläscher J., Büchel, C., Braus, D., Herpertz, S. (2007). Oxytocin Attenuates Amygdala Responses to Emotional Faces Regardless of Valence. Biological Psychiatry, 62(10), 1187-1190.
  • Kosfeld, M. Heinrichs, M., Zak, P. J., Fischbacher, U., & Fehr, E. (2005). Oxytocin increases trust in humans. Nature, 435, 673-676.
  • Cacioppo, J. T., & Patrick, B. (2008). Loneliness: human nature and the need for social connection. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
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Taking Control: Why Autonomy Reduces Stress

Social experience is as important to our wellbeing as physical environment. Research suggests that our innate neurological threat-reward systems are activated not only in response to basic physical stimuli such as food/hunger, pain/pleasure, etc. but in response to five basic social qualities:

3. Autonomy

“Autonomy is the perception of exerting control over one’s environment; a sensation of having choices. Mieka (1985) showed that the degree of control organisms can exert over a stress factor determines whether or not the stressor alters the organism’s functioning. Inescapable or uncontrollable stress can be highly destructive, whereas the same stress interpreted as escapable is significantly less destructive. (Donny et al, 2006).”
(SCARF white paper)

Human beings have evolved to carefully evaluate each social situation for danger. I previously wrote about status, but there is a broader evaluation of whether the situation supports or threatens one’s capacity for choice, presumably to ensure options for fleeing are available at all times.

A greater feeling of control leads to reduced stress. In a study of nursing homes, Rodin and Langer found that residents who had all their choices made for them were less healthy and had shorter life-spans than those who were given more control over decisions that affected them. Other studies in the workplace have shown that the number one cause for people leaving a profession is perceived lack of control over work-life balance.

So what lessons can we draw from this for teaching and learning, school leadership and education policy?

Teaching and Learning

If teachers dictate the content, delivery and pace of every lesson then not only are they giving themselves a hard time but they may be unwittingly inflicting greater stress on students. If a child is faced with obligatory tasks that they feel they cannot do then they will become anxious, and their learning will be impaired. However if we allow them choices at these moments of stress then it can help them relax and enjoy themselves. Of course, this doesn’t mean kids should be allowed to opt for the easy low-challenge material, and we have to be careful that each challenge has that optimum level of uncertainty that promotes the greatest learning.

Teachers commonly proffer control to students in other situations, using choice to help defuse anger and bad behaviour, although we can see that transparently fake choices (‘it’s my way or you leave’) will only increase the tension further.

School Leadership

Micromanagement is well-known bad practice, and we can now see why from the brain’s perspective. School leaders should avoid dictating classroom practice as this piles on pressure when teachers need to be calm. Instead, offer structures with clear room for choice. At moments of high stress (e.g. inspections) offer staff choices and some control. “You have to do it this way” will lead to much more stress and resentment than “Something needs to change, which of these two options would you prefer?”

Try to give flexibility in working patterns – a good school will be clear that they will support part-time working if at all possible. If your timetable can introduce elements of choice for students then they will also feel more empowered and engaged.

Education Policy

Autonomy is the current buzz-word in education, although politicians are irresistibly drawn toward micromanagement and centralisation as it satisfies their own feelings of control and therefore safety. Devolving power may be intellectually satisfying but it increases the stress of policy makers when they don’t feel they have hands on the levers. Political leaders and commentators should recognise that stressed, insecure politicians centralise, and that attacking them incessantly can only exacerbate this.

School inspectorates have a tough but necessary job to assure quality. However even a small amount of autonomy could help. For example, allowing teachers to opt to choose broadly to be seen during one day or another would be massively beneficial. Teachers would be less stressed, and this would ensure observations were more realistic.

Summary

  • Lack of control or choice increases stress levels. This suppresses learning, demotivates, and can lead to poor health.
  • Leaders’ desire to reduce their own stress drives them toward taking control over everything, but this instinct will increase stress in everyone else. A balance needs to be maintained.
  • At moments of high stress, simply giving a choice can help defuse some of the tension.

Bibliography

  • Managing with the brain in mind, Strategy Business magazine issue 59, Autumn 2009.
  • SCARF360 white paper, David Rock, NeuroLeadership journal, issue one, 2008
  • Donny, E. C., Bigelow, G. E., & Walsh S. L. (2006). Comparing the physiological and subjective effects of self-administered vs yoked cocaine in humans. Psychopharmacology, 186(4), 544-52.
  • Dworkin, S I., Mirkis, S., Smith J. E. (1995). Response-dependent versus response-independent presentation of cocaine: differences in the lethal effects of the drug. Psychopharmacology, 117(3), 262-266.
  • Rodin, J. (1986). Aging and health: effects of the sense of control. Science, 233, 1271-1276.
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Future Fear: Why Uncertainty Leads To Anxiety

Social experience is as important to our wellbeing as physical environment. Research suggests that our innate neurological threat-reward systems are activated not only in response to basic physical stimuli such as food/hunger, pain/pleasure, etc. but in response to five basic social qualities:

2. Certainty

Our brains are constantly trying to predict the future, based on known patterns of behaviour. When you activate muscles to take a step forward your brain predicts the sensory information that should be forthcoming, and assuming all is well and that this pattern is matched by reality then the whole experience further reinforces the expected pattern and you continue with your next action or thought.

This prediction system allows the brain to operate much more efficiently – instead of carefully and consciously evaluating every single nerve sensation received on each step our brain compares the signals to the expected pattern. If it matches then very little energy is expended. However, if it detects a mismatch then we suddenly go in to ‘error’ mode, and our attention is rapidly switched to the situation to decide what to do next, along with the production of stress hormones, i.e. the threat response. For example, if our foot lands on a banana skin and starts sliding we become rapidly and consciously aware of what is happening in order to decide what to do about it. (Hawkins, 2004).

Because this prediction is so much more efficient, we have evolved to crave certainty. Even slightly uncertain situations (perhaps an unknown surface to walk on, a slightly different type of maths problem, or meeting a new person) redirects the brain’s attention away from one’s goals in an effort to concentrate on finding new patterns, and greater certainty. (Hedden, Garbrielli, 2006)

Of course uncertainty is also necessary for learning because the brain’s ‘error’ response is responsible for forming new patterns.

“Mild uncertainty attracts interest and attention: new and challenging situations create a mild threat response, increase levels of adrenalin and dopamine just enough to spark curiosity and energize people to solve problems”
(‘Managing with the brain in mind’, Strategy Business magazine issue 59, Autumn 2009)

However, if there are multiple sources of uncertainty then attention cannot be focused on learning so effectively.

So what lessons can we draw from this for teaching and learning, school leadership and education policy?

Teaching and Learning

Every new problem we pose in the classroom poses some sort of uncertainty. As teachers we are aware that we can begin a lesson in an unexpected way in order to focus attention, but we also know that we should have consistent expectations and routines in order to decrease stress. It is a difficult balancing act and the mark of the talented professional is one who can create the optimum level of uncertainty at all times for each student. However, it is worth realising that if a student comes in to the room who is experiencing uncertainty in other parts of their life then they won’t be able to fully engage in the lesson or learn effectively. We can reduce uncertainty stress by ensuring that students have a clear map of the future learning, and are aware of any future changes well in advance.

School Leadership

Teachers face uncertainty every time they step in to a classroom. With a difficult class the teacher’s stress levels are raised from the very start as they cannot be sure what will happen. IT-failure, fire bells and late-comers all increase anxiety no matter how experienced we are. A looming threat of inspection, uncertain job prospects, or lack of clarity about routines can decrease teacher’s creativity and enjoyment. Leaders can help reduce these problems with clear timetables and expectations, road maps for the future, and clarity about when and where inspections will take place.

Education Policy

Schools will have more opportunity to be creative and effective in a certain political climate. Endless changes of policy create anxiety and reviews that fail to deliver on time exacerbate the problem. Policy leaders should create clear roadmaps and timetables and stick to them clearly. Policies should not be changed too often or else people will be anxious when engaging with any current set of rules as they will fear their work will go out of date.

Summary

  • Our brains crave certainty. Every unexpected outcome creates stress. A small amount is useful for learning, a large amount is debilitating.
  • Creativity and learning will be blocked with too much uncertainty or too many sources of it. Reduce stress with transparency, share rationales, publicise changes in advance, and break complex processes down in to smaller steps.

Bibliography

  • Managing with the brain in mind, Strategy Business magazine issue 59, Autumn 2009.
  • SCARF360 white paper, David Rock, NeuroLeadership journal, issue one, 2008
  • Hawkins, J. & Blakeslee, S. (2004). On Intelligence. Times Books.
  • Hedden, T., & Gabrieli, J. D. E. (2006). The ebb and flow of attention in the human brain. Nature Neuroscience, 9, 863-865.
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I Win, You Lose: Why Losing Status Hurts.

Social experience is as important to our wellbeing as physical environment. Research suggests that our innate neurological threat-reward systems are activated not only in response to basic physical stimuli such as food/hunger, pain/pleasure, etc. but in response to five basic social qualities:

1. Status

“As humans we are constantly assessing how social encounters either enhance or diminish our status. Research published by Hidehiko Takahashi et. al in 2009 shows that when people realise that they might compare unfavourably to someone else, the threat response kicks in, releasing cortisol and other stress-related hormones” (‘Managing with the brain in mind’, Strategy Business magazine issue 59, Autumn 2009).

Social status is something that we are all implicitly aware of at all times. Studies have shown that we use the same areas of the brain for evaluating social pecking-order or seniority as for mathematical calculation (Chaio, 2003) and that this area is activated whenever we are interacting with other people, constantly reassessing our position  (Zink, 2008). This isn’t merely a superficial self-aggrandising reaction, it really matters to our health and wellbeing. Our perceptions of relative social standing have been shown to correlate with our life-expectancy and health, even when controlling for factors such as education and income (Marmott, 2004). It has even been shown that experiencing social rejection causes the same brain activity as physical pain (Eisenberger et al., 2003)

This mental reaction is our evolutionary reward for developing behaviours that promote our superiority in our ‘pack’ and thereby achieve a level of safety and security in our lives. Increase in status can be incredibly rewarding. In fact one study showed that an improvement in social standing prompted the same reactions as a financial windfall (Izuma et. al, 2008).

So what lessons can we draw from this for teaching and learning, school leadership and education policy?

Teaching and Learning

Children are acutely aware of status as they establish their identity and position in the world, and teachers are masters of using status in the classroom. We have traditionally used status-based rewards when we use competitive behaviour in our lessons, and the mere thought of status-raising associated with sport and games make them particularly appealing. The downside of this is that we have sometimes reinforced feelings of failure and anxiety in students – a problem that has led to over-compensation in the form of ‘all must have prizes’.

However, the lessons from this research is that while we can’t (and shouldn’t) shield students from ‘real-world’ status-related issues, we can encourage a culture where we value improvement, effort and resilience. This will mean that, wherever possible, status in our classroom is gained through effort and not ingrained ‘talent’. We need to encourage classrooms where success is celebrated in a number of different forms. An obsession with publicising levels, for example, might reinforce status anxiety.

School Leadership

Given that most classroom teachers are on a relatively level status playing field, school leaders should realise that status anxiety can easily become heightened among staff. The mere thought of inspection judgements, classroom outcome data analysis, or student surveys about teachers can send staff in to a fearful state that results in anger, defensiveness, and closed-mindedness. The simple act of a colleague saying ‘may I give you some feedback about that?’ will probably be at least partly interpreted as ‘I know more than you, I am superior’. The much vaunted 360-degree review will have little beneficial effect when the recipient is sat anxiously expecting a wave of status-lowering criticism from their colleagues.

Of course, it would be ludicrous to conclude that you have to avoid all comparisons or any of the aforementioned quality-assurance methods. However a wise leader will ensure that all staff feel fully valued for their strengths and improvements, and that they begin appraisals, where possible, with self-evaluation.

Education Policy

League tables, inspections and exam systems vigorously reinforce the notion of status in education. Generally speaking successful political leaders, journalists and business-people will have been the recipient of the upside of these systems – if you succeeded in staying at the top of the success ladder at school then you will view competition as being very beneficial as it provided you with a huge amount of positive reinforcement.

On the flip-side, a system with a very narrow view of educational success/status will simply create anxiety and, eventually, disengagement, as only a small proportion of schools and students can ever be top of any specific pile. Of course, policy makers need to strive for success and would be in danger of a lack of focus if they attempted to consider too many metrics at once, but they should avoid denigrating the teaching profession or groups of schools as failures. This will simply make it more likely that staff in those schools spend more time in ‘fight-or-flight’ brain mode – exactly the wrong state to be in when attempting to improve teaching skill or find creative solutions to help difficult students.

Summary

  • Value a range of skills and talents. A narrow definition will encourage anxiety and ‘gaming’ in order to achieve status-based rewards.
  • Feedback should be handled carefully. When presented in a threatening way it could be worse than no feedback at all.
  • Status doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. It is possible to raise status through praise and positive feedback, or by providing an alternative field in which to excel.

This is the first post in a series of five on lessons for education from SCARF.

Bibliography

  • Managing with the brain in mind, Strategy Business magazine issue 59, Autumn 2009.
  • SCARF360 white paper, David Rock, NeuroLeadership journal, issue one, 2008
  • Michael Marmot, The Status Syndrome: How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity, Times Books 2004
  • Eisenberger, N. i., Lieberman, M. D., & Williams, K. D. (2003). Does rejection hurt? An fMRi study of social exclusion. science, 302, 290-292
  • Chiao, J. Y., Bordeaux, A. R., Ambady, N. (2003). Mental representations of social status. Cognition, 93, 49-57.
  • Izuma, K., saito, D., sadato, N. (2008). Processing of social and Monetary Rewards in the Human striatum. Neuron, 58(2), 284-294
  • Zink, C. F., Tong, Y., Chen, Q., Bassett, D. s., stein, J. L., & MeyerLindenberg A. (2008). Know Your Place: Neural Processing of social Hierarchy in Humans. Neuron, 58, 273-283.