Many years ago, there was a teenager named Erin who, while shopping for Christmas presents, came across a black dress that she just had to have. Having spent all her money on presents for others though, she no longer had enough to buy it. So she asked the store if they might put the dress aside until she could return the following Monday with her mother. The store said that would not be possible.

Disappointed, Erin went home and told her mother about the dress anyway. Much to her surprise and delight, Erin’s mother said that if she liked the dress that much, she would loan her the money until Erin could pay it back. After school the next Monday, Erin returned to the store only to find that she was too late. Someone else had bought the dress.

What Erin did not know until Christmas morning however, was that while she was in school, her mom had gone to the store and bought the dress as a gift. Despite the passage of time, Erin still remembers that Christmas as one of her fondest, and the dress is still a valued treasure—all because she had received what she once believed to be lost.

On a similar note, I still remember the intense wave of relief I experienced upon finding the wallet I thought I’d lost during a family vacation years ago.

What is it about losing something that makes having it again such a joy? To answer that question, Daniel Kahneman author of, “Thinking Fast and Slow” discusses an economic and psychological phenomenon called, “loss aversion.” Turns out, we humans are naturally loath to lose value that we already own—or think we own.

Consider, for example, the following gamble on the toss of a coin: Tails, you lose $100; heads you win $150. Would you accept the bet? Despite the possibility of gaining more than you could lose, if you’re like most people, you would not. As Kahneman states, “For most people, the fear of losing $100 is more intense than the hope of gaining $150.” Clearly, losses loom larger than gains.

But the really interesting question becomes: at what point do you take the bet? How much does the possible gain have to be in order for you to take the risk? Once you find this number for yourself, you’ve identified your personal “loss aversion ratio.” According to Kahneman, few people will take the gamble until the possible gain reaches at least $200, twice as much as the potential loss. This works out to a loss aversion ratio of 2.

So why do we avoid losses so much more than we seek gains? The answer might be found by looking at the problem from an evolutionary standpoint. If you have enough resources to survive, while an increase may be helpful, losing basic needs like food, water or shelter might kill you.

So what does any of this have to do with teaching and learning? A wise person once said, “If you really want to get something done, you’ve got three options: do it yourself, pay top dollar, or forbid your teenagers to do it.”

Let’s examine this for a moment through the lens of personal freedom. We humans hate to lose freedoms that we already have. For evidence of this, you need only look at recent sales since the possibility of gun regulation. Therefor, as parents and teachers, we should be very aware of the freedoms our children have—because it’s a heck of a lot easier to withhold something we’ve never given, than to take away something they already have.

Consider the impulsive sixteen-year-old. Is it easier to delay getting his driver’s license, or take the keys away later? Or what about that cell phone? Is it easier to wait until you’re sure your child can use it responsibly, or take it away after it’s been abused?

On the other hand, studies have also shown that the threat of a loss may also be a greater motivator than the possibility of a reward. It might sound cruel, but consider what might happen if instead of rewards for good grades, your child had to pay for bad ones. Or what might happen if you agreed to give a certain amount of money away if you did not accomplish a desired goal.

It’s a hardball psychological tactic. But sometimes, a little fear of loss might be just what we need to achieve the gains we desire.

Founder of WeTeachWeLearn.org, Chris Wondra is just another Wisconsin public school teacher. Email Chris at: mrwondra@weteachwelearn.org.

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It’s the end of January. Do you know where your new year’s resolutions are?

Maybe all’s well and you’re still eating healthy, exercising regularly, you haven’t had a soda or a cigarette, and you’re still on track to read two books a month. That’s great. But what if things haven’t gone so smoothly? You could just forget about it and move on. Life happens after all. Nobody’s going to blame you. You’re busy. You’re stressed. Maybe it’s best to just try again next year.

Or perhaps you’re not yet ready to hoist the white flag and admit defeat. Or perhaps you’re still hanging in there, but you’re also beginning to realize that sustaining your new year’s resolution is going to be a lot tougher than you’d thought. What do you do?

First, realize you’re not alone. Motivation, persistence, and good old fashioned stick-to-it-ness, is a universal issue. Here’s a great example. Never in our history has learning been made so available. Certainly the Internet has made accessing information easier than ever. Add to that, massive open online courses, or MOOCs as they’ve come to be known, are real, often free, courses offered by elite universities such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Duke, and Ohio State. They’ve become so popular that online education companies are beginning to pop up that make searching and signing up for these kinds of courses super easy. Coursera.org, launched last August, has already drawn over two million users—a faster and more popular launch than either Facebook or Twitter.

So what does all this have to do with your struggle to follow through on your new years resolutions? Well, as it turns out, according to a recent article in the New York Times, less than 10 percent of all MOOC students finish the courses they sign up for.

As a teacher, I find that statistic fascinating. What it tells me is that most people, left to their own devices, lack the ability to stick with their goals and follow them through to the end. Motivation is important. Persistence is important. We know this. Yet, as it turns out, most people are unable to harness the psychological skills of intrinsic motivation that will allow them to direct their own lives.

So what to do? Here are a few tips:

• Write it down. I know it sounds silly, but studies have actually shown that goals that have been written down are significantly more likely to be accomplished.
• Share your goal with a friend. Or better yet. Make a public announcement. There’s nothing like a public commitment to hold you accountable.
• Just start. In their book, “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness,” authors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein introduce an interesting concept they call, “choice architecture.” Take a look at the choices you must make to keep your goal going. Often it’s not the big obstacles that are stopping us. As Thaler and Sunstein point out, “small and apparently insignificant details can have major impacts on people’s behavior.” Sometimes just getting over that initial hump is all you need. So fill out that application, call for that appointment, or put that step class on your calendar.
• Harness the power of inertia. Thaler and Sunstein also say, “Never underestimate the power of inertia.” Try building a new habit by committing to it for only thirty days. Often, by the end of that time inertia has kicked in, making sustaining the habit much easier.
• Use data as a motivational tool. Often we get discouraged because we can’t see the progress we are making. Keeping a record helps make achievement visible. Put numbers to your efforts—hours practiced, words written, pages read, minutes exercised. It’s also helpful to turn those numbers into visually motivating graphs or charts.

As an added bonus, that trick of turning your data into a visual graphic is also particularly useful whenever some smart alec says to you, “It’s the middle of January. Do you know where your new year’s resolutions are?” Now, not only will you be able to tell him. You can show him. A picture, as it turns out, may be worth more than a thousand words in this case. It may also represent the successful achievement of your goals.

Founder of WeTeachWeLearn.org, Chris Wondra is just another Wisconsin public school teacher. Email Chris at: mrwondra@weteachwelearn.org

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Good teachers are great communicators, and great communicators understand that the responsibility of communication lies with the communicator—the person sharing the information.

Good teachers, and I’m using the word “teachers” here in the broadest sense, have a real stake in their audience’s ability to understand. They want us to understand so badly that they take full responsibility for whether or not we are getting it. So, they don’t just tell us, they show us. They don’t just show us one way, they show us several ways. They take everything into account: our mood, the temperature and lighting of the room, our posture and facial expressions, our blood sugar levels. Everything.

This is what great communicators do. Good teachers are great communicators. Great teachers take one more critical step. They show us how to take responsibility for our learning—by probing, observing, and adjusting the inner workings of our own attention, perceptions, and understanding. Great teachers teach us to recognize and control what’s going on in our own heads.

It is in this spirit that I share what many of my colleagues and I believe is a disturbing trend. We believe that the modern student is less able to hold his focus, less able to pay attention for extended periods of time, and more easily distractible than ever before.

Apparently, we aren’t alone. A recent article in the New York Times entitled, “Technology Changing How Students Learn, Teachers Say,” shares the results from two independent surveys, concluding, “There is a widespread belief among teachers that students’ constant use of digital technology is hampering their attention spans and ability to persevere in the face of challenging tasks.”

The surveys were conducted by the Pew Research Center and Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that advises parents on media use by children. The Common Sense Survey was conducted by Vicky Rideout, a researcher who had previously shown that children ages 8 to 18 now spend on average twice as much time in front of screens each year as they spend in school.

Nearly 90 percent of the 3,147 teachers surveyed said that digital technologies were creating “an easily distracted generation with short attention spans.”

The New York Times reported that of the 685 teachers surveyed in the Common Sense project, 71 percent said they thought technology was hurting attention span “somewhat” or “a lot.” About 60 percent said it hindered students’ ability to write and communicate face to face, and almost half said it hurt critical thinking and their ability to do homework. Also interesting was the fact that both younger and older teachers felt the same way about the impact of technology on their students’ ability to direct and control attention.

There has always been an aspect of teaching that is entertainment. It is true that good teachers know how to be good entertainers. Good teachers know how to get students’ attention, hold it, and make learning fun along the way. They might be great storytellers, or they may use technology to make learning dynamic and flexible, or they might use creative and interesting assignments. The caveat here is that while they understand how to make learning entertaining, great teachers also understand that they should not always make learning easy. We know that the most successful among us are not the ones for whom everything came easily. The most successful among us are those that have learned to overcome adversity. Successful people know what to do with a challenge. They also know what to do with failure.

The argument that the New York Times makes is that students have grown so accustomed to using technology to get quick and easy answers that they are more likely to give up when solutions elude them.

There’s no question that video games, the Internet, and smartphones can be fun and entertaining. The question parents and teachers need to ask is: can we create a balanced media diet that stimulates growth without sacrificing a willingness to persevere?

Founder of WeTeachWeLearn.org, Chris Wondra is just another Wisconsin public school teacher. Email Chris at: mrwondra@weteachwelearn.org.

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