Are We Programming Our Students?

November 28, 2017 / Oskar Cymerman

I talked to a student the other day. He’s a high school senior. The conversation was about making a video I assigned as a classroom project. The students were to research and record a video on the learning strategy and his group chose active note taking.

So they proceeded to create a paper slide video which was cool. What wasn’t cool was the fact they put like a paragraph of text on each slide. And they used zero images.

So I asked him: Would you enjoy watching a video like that?

No, he said.

Then why make something like that?

Because that’s what teachers expect.

And I had to agree with him. This is what we usually want.

Let’s talk PowerPoint. We ask students to make presentations and put this or that information on them, usually a lot, but if you think about it, that is the worst way to make a PowerPoint.

So they proceed to put a crap ton of text and a few images on each slide. Then they read the text they wrote during the actual presentation or use flashcards to aid them while presenting. The images are there but misused.

You see, most of us teachers teach them to do it exactly the way we do it. When we lecture using PowerPoint we either put a crap ton of text on each slide and proceed to read it to students or even worse: We put a crap ton of words on each slide and paraphrase those words or say something in support of them. This causes what I call Brain Pain. Brain pain is cognitive overload we lead to when students don’t know what to focus on. Should they listen or should they read?

What’s worse, we program students to create the exact same ineffective mind-numbing pieces of garbage they see us create. I am guilty of doing this many times.

Think about it. PowerPoint is a visual medium. But we pretend like it’s a book or an essay we have to read to our students. We teach them to be boring and unimaginative. But there's a better way. And we need to model it to our students.

PowerPoint isn’t the only way we program such lack of creativity, but it’s a big one. Check out this post for 3 easy tips to improve your presentations. It contains a free lesson to help you teach students how to use PowerPoint the right way.

And in December, I will lead 2 workshops on creativity at the annual TIES conference in Minneapolis, so if you’re in the area I’d love to meet you.

Whether I see you or not, thanks for reading and remember that you have the power to change lives. Use it often.

Thanks for reading! If you found my article useful you might want to sign up for my newsletter below. I send it out on Wednesday and Sunday mornings. If you are looking for a new book that can help you add to your teaching arsenal and help teens learn check out my books on Amazon. Every paperback is $11.97 or below and every Kindle $2.99 until Sunday 12/3. You can take a look here.

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categories / Life Reflections
tags / teaching teens, deeper learning, learning, teaching, cognitive overload, brain pain, Death By PowerPoint

Why We Need To Stop Telling Kids To Think Outside The Box

November 23, 2017 / Oskar Cymerman

Stop Telling Kids To Think Outside The Box Because There Is No Box

Tripping on 'shrooms in Prague once I stopped by an art gallery window and saw it. It was an orange dog; the tiniest of canines. A stain of fluorescent orange paint in the bottom right corner of a sizable painting of some natural scenery. I remember the grass, the trees, and the people in it but in that moment all I could focus on was the strange orange dog.

I was 23, window shopping, and laughing too hard at a silly little orange dog on an otherwise green painting. Later, I was examining people's faces on the metro ride back to the Airbnb-style room I booked. Being aware I'm influenced I felt I could look into anyone's soul and know who they were. It was like a superpower that allowed me to see them for who they really were; if they were good or bad.

And in case the good people in my school district's HR department are reading this occurred 17 years ago, happened before I became a teacher, and was the last time I used psychedelics. It's just that I still remember that dang dog and wonder if my memory would be so vivid had my consciousness not been altered. For some reason, my mind decided it was significant enough to keep and maybe it uses it somehow to this day without me even realizing.

Using More Of The Brain

Steve Jobs, Richard Feynman, Jimi Hendrix, Jean-Paul Sartre, Bill Gates, John Coltrane, and The Beatles have 2 things in-common; they changed the world by being the GOATs (greatest of all time) of their respective crafts and they operated outside of the realm of conditioned and compliant thinking. Oh, and they all used psychedelics, so that would make it three things I suppose.

Why did they partake and was it responsible for their genius?

Did Steve Jobs get the idea for the iPhone after dropping acid? Did Richard Feynman gain a more intimate understanding of physics which he then used to explain its various phenomena in simple terms after chewing on his peanut butter and 'shrooms sandwich? Did Jimi Hendrix and John Coltrane reinvent their music genres thanks to the psychedelics they enjoyed?

I have no idea, but I don't believe so. My take is... these individuals discovered an entire, often unexplored world of expanded consciousness that exists inside each person's inner mind through their use of psychedelic drugs. In other words: they were given a key to open and access the part of their mind that allows creating work independent of their own ego and the rules and constraints of the world around them.

They did what we call "thinking outside the box." But more accurately, they escaped the box all of us are indoctrinated into. That artificial mind-conjured box that traps those who believe in its existence. That one conditioned response to the given stimulus promoted by school and society. The kind of mindset limited by and to its impoverished set of pre-programmed allowed beliefs.

But How Does Expanded Consciousness Apply To Education?

Sadly, it's the hokey pokey voodoo we fear. We don't teach it. Except that there's hard science behind it.

Typically, we teach subjects in isolation and want things done in a certain acceptable way. Most traditionally-educated students can be likened to androids in need of code upload before they can produce output. We are putting out mostly individuals who wait for someone to tell them what to do.

The creative ones are the weirdos who don't buy into the standardized way of doing everything. They innovate and succeed despite the school system, which undoubtedly gave them some tools. But the tools that really matter; ones that drive success, were procured when these outliers took on passions that had little to do with school. Their consciousness, or ability to look at problems differently and connect seemingly unconnected pieces of brain-stored information expanded.

This is similar to a brain on psychedelics. Scientific studies link psychedelics to increased neuronal activity. Multiple regions of the brain communicate more and more neural linkages form. The individual high on e.g. LSD experiences greater sense of self and the outside world thus understanding how the two worlds are linked more intimately.

So it seems individuals such as Jobs, Feynman, or Hendrix hacked their mind with psychedelics to form connections between neurons that would otherwise not link up. Then, and this is just my conjecture, they were able to tap into the same kind of mental processing when sober.

There Is No Box

I am NOT saying that we need to start giving students 'shrooms, LSD, or mescaline to get them to start thinking outside the box. I'm pretty sure that'd get us all fired.

What I am saying is we need to not just allow but help them discover the consciousness altering path for themselves so they can innovate. Let's help them change how they view reality. Get them to understand that the box didn't exist until we showed it to them, guided them toward it, and insisted they climb in and comply to all the law of men, science, and otherwise. The algorithm needs to be rewritten.

Mainly, let's stop telling kids to think outside the box. There is no box. Let's stop putting them in the box to begin with; limiting them with our beliefs and preconceptions, telling them they need to follow accepted rules without question and despite the fact that some of them are nonsense, and requiring one-size-fits-all products in our classrooms that stifle imagination and murder creativity.

Raise your hand and wait to be called on. Sit down and don't get up. Comply with all the demands of the teacher. Trust the experts. Turn in a 5-page essay, because 3 pages just don't cut it. Your hypothesis must always be in the "if... then..." format or else you'll lose a point. Take trigonometry because it's required. Take that hat off because that's just not acceptable.

Why?!?! Why do we do that?

We want our students to become leaders but we force compliance. We want them to be creative but we use one-size-fits-all approaches. We want them to think critically but we teach them to think exactly the same way we do and want it done. We want them to be passionate about learning but extort them to take subjects they don't like and cram in content they'll never use.

Look... some of these things might take a long time to change because they are outside of the teachers' control. But, you can change how things are done in your classroom.

You can decide and teach your students to question norms, beliefs, rules, and preconceptions. You can foster creative flexibility, because the book report does not always have to be an essay. It could be a website or a blog or a podcast. You can stimulate sharing of information between multiple brain regions by asking students to explain how Hamlet is similar to Tesla Model S because they're into cars or Call of Duty because kill ratio is where it's at.

But whatever you do stop telling your students to think outside the box. Tell them there is no box. Explain that the world outside and inside their inner mind is their playground. Allow yourself to play. Then show them how to play.

You have the power to change lives. Use it often.

Thanks for reading! I hope you found my article useful. If you did consider signing up for my newsletter below. I send it out on Wednesday and Sunday mornings. If you are looking for a new book that can help you add to your teaching arsenal and help teens learn check out my books on Amazon. Every paperback is $11.97 or below and every Kindle $2.99 until Sunday 12/3. You can take a look here.

Hi! I'm Oskar.

I teach, write, speak, rant to make the world better.

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categories / Life Reflections
tags / teaching teens, deeper learning, learning, teaching, creativity, innovation, psychedelics, brain

3 Easy Ways To Hack Sleep To Improve Your Performance

November 20, 2017 / Oskar Cymerman

Hacking Sleep: How To Get The Most Out Of Snooze Time

Neuroscientists suggest that kids need 10-12 hours of sleep and most adults 7.5-9 hours. But let's be real: When was the last time you consistently got 8 or 9 hours of sleep? Then, ask a room full of teens how many got 10 hours of sleep and count the number of hands. If you teach in a high school, you'll be lucky to see one hand raised.

Luckily, not every student you encounter looks like a sleep-deprived saliva-drooling zombie. Somehow, they are able to survive and learn on whatever limited amount of sleep they get. Of course, lack of sleep, or rather rest, is not the way to go long term. You want to get more sleep!

But if you just can't... because life and bad habits keep getting in the way you might as well find alternatives. So if you just can't get enough of the good thing...

Hack Sleep to Make It More Efficient

Here's how:

Exercise Early.
Supplement with Vitamin C and Mg.
Meditate Before Bed.

Hack Sleep with Early Exercise

Exercise helps your brain get more oxygen and operate better. Morning exercise helps regulate cortisol which is a steroid hormone our body needs to function. When its levels are too high you might have trouble sleeping. A few minutes of exercise in the morning increases cortisol at the beginning of your day. Then it progressively decreases throughout the day.

While it may be hard to start, as few as 5 minutes of vigorous exercise each morning will aid your sleep at night. Your sleep cycle will improve when you hit the pillow with a lot less cortisol present in your body.

Hack Sleep with Vitamin C and Mg

Besides being used in a lot of biological processes, magnesium manages the "sleep" hormone melatonin and your brain chemistry. This helps your body and brain relax so you can achieve higher quality sleep.

Vitamin C lowers cortisol, which as described above you want to be low before going to bed.

Hack Sleep with Meditation

Imagine you're working on an important project on your computer and you just can't stop multitasking. The more browser tabs you have open the more distracted, unfocused, and stressed out you become. What if you closed all of them, took a break, and reopened just the one tab you really need?

Meditation is like closing all of those open brain tabs so you can focus on the present. It's great anytime, but can really help you relax before bed so you can get higher quality sleep.

Can you envision 5-10 minutes of closing your eyes and listening to yourself just breathe right before bed?

Hack Sleep To Improve Your Performance

It's no secret quality sleep improves your brain function and performance in school, work, and life. An optimized brain thinks more clearly, learns more effectively, and creates more vividly.

So if you can't get enough sleep hack it with Early Exercise, Vitamin C and Mg, and Bedtime Meditation.

But don't just stop there. Tell your kids. Tell your students. Tell your friends.

You have the power to change lives. Use it often.

I frequently share brain-based teaching and learning strategies, lessons, and visuals. If you don't sign up for my newsletter below you might miss them. Worry not: I don't eat spam. I don't send it either!

Hi! I'm Oskar.

I teach, write, speak, rant to make the world better.

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categories / Learning
tags / focus, teaching teens, deeper learning, learning, teaching, sleep, hacking sleep, rest