Pronoia

I somehow managed to stumble upon two gems this weekend. One was a TED Talk and the other was an article written by a high school student.

The video was entitled “Are you a give or a taker?” I’m a naturally curious person, and anything that promises to offer some sort of insight into who I am always manages to pique my interest, so — naturally — I watched it. If you don’t have about fifteen minutes to devote to that yourself, I’ll summarize it for you.

Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist, explains that people fall into three broad categories — giver, taker or matcher. “Takers” are always looking for what they can get from people; “givers” are always looking to see how they can make a situation better by bringing something helpful to the table; “matchers” fall somewhere in the middle. If you scratch their backs, they’ll scratch yours.

In any scenario, the givers are the most valuable asset, but they also tend to be in the most precarious position. Their willingness to dedicate much of their time and effort to helping others achieve their objectives often leaves them with little time to manage their own. Although this can relegate givers to the least personally successful ranks, it’s reassuring to note that these individuals can be found at the top of the social order too. The key is to ensure that they don’t burn out. In order to avoid that pitfall, Grant endorses the idea of a “five minute favor.”

 You just have to find small ways to add large value to other people’s lives.

Adam Rifkin,

Another powerful takeaway from this video was the pressing need to encourage people to ask questions and to seek help. Isn’t that what we want in our classrooms? It can be a vulnerable thing to ask a question or to reach out to someone for help, but if we encourage both, then they’ll become the norm. We can change the cultural expectations of our classrooms and schools by promoting and modeling the behaviors we want to stick. The good news is that you, as the teacher, shouldn’t be the only one asking or answering the questions. We want our students to get in on the action so that they, too, can become givers.

In a school setting we can’t exactly “weed out the takers.” We can, however, convert the takers into givers, or — at the very least — into matchers. Changing this balance is critical because it deemphasizes competition and redirects that energy to collaboration and contribution, at which point we’ve arrived at the creation of “pronoia.” The TED Talk ends with this explanation from Grant:

“Pronoia is the delusional belief that other people are plotting your well-being. That they’re going around behind your back and saying exceptionally glowing things about you. The great thing about a culture of givers is that’s not a delusion — it’s reality. I want to live in a world where givers succeed, and I hope you will help me create that world.”

He had me at “plotting your well-being.” That’s precisely the world I want to create.

On the other hand, what I want to avoid at all costs is the present reality that the young high school student writes about in an article entitled, “I’m a loser because of school.” She sums up her argument in the excerpt below.

I love those “aha!” moments that make my brain feel big and adrenaline course through my body, but they usually don’t happen in school for me.

Karen

GAH! This rocks me to my core. I don’t want my students to feel that way. I don’t want them to feel like they are “doing school” — going through the motions and not truly learning anything. For her part in helping me realize my greatest professional fears, she goes on to describe her experience as a high achieving student and cites some compelling evidence to advance the argument that conforming to social standards isn’t beneficial to her learning. She got my attention, and I certainly intend to look into her reading list. (The irony that she cites Adam Grant, and that I discovered both of them in the same weekend is not lost on me…)

The good news is that the student author — discouraged as she may seem — doesn’t simply live in the problem; rather, she offers a few simple solutions that might serve to change the nature of school as we’ve come to define it. She contends that school should foster constructive and open communication between teachers and students. She argues that imperfection should be celebrated as a learning experience, perhaps drawing on inspiration from the #failforward movement. Finally, she promotes reflection and argues that the emphasis on outcomes rather than processes is disproportionate. The bright side is that all of this is entirely doable.

This is yet another reason I am so grateful that I’ve been able to try out Genius Hour in my classroom this year. It encourages students to ask questions and engage with each other by both seeking advice and offering counsel to one another. It doesn’t entail any rote practices and it conforms to almost none of the prevailing wisdom of the traditional classroom environment. It affords students the opportunity to have those “AHA!” moments. To be sure, it isn’t perfect, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. It allows conversations to take place that otherwise wouldn’t, and that’s as good a start as I could hope for.

I want to create the world that Adam speaks of and not perpetuate the one that Karen describes. To that end, I want to model the behavior of the “giver,” I want to give my students the confidence they need to help one another, and I want to make “five minute favors” a routine and not a novelty. I know it all seems a bit idealistic, but — hey — it can’t hurt to try.