Flow in the Adolescent Brain

1/26/2017

By Head of Middle School Colleen O’Boyle

The flow experience is a state of complete involvement in an activity that requires complete concentration (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999). Flow is characterized by the matching of high environmental challenges with equally high levels of personal skills, the merging of action and awareness, the loss of reflexive self-consciousness, a sense of control and a distortion of temporal experiences (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2005).

The single most underutilized attribute used in schools, classrooms and households is the adolescent voice. As educators and parents, we tend to find ourselves unconsciously constructing meaning for our children, rather than allowing them to express and identify interests and preferential goals. Focus on mundane nuisances such as tidiness, organization of binders/notebooks or physical appearance can, at times, take center stage muting the intimate intricacies that a student is feeling, thinking or imagining at any given moment.

As reported in their 1996 book, Talented Teenagers: The Roots of Success and Failure, Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde and Whalen gave high school students beepers to carry throughout their school day and were asked to write down their thoughts when the beeper sounded. The data collected when the beepers sounded was that many students were not thinking about the topic being discussed by their professor in that given moment, but that their minds wandered to something tangentially related. What does this mean? It means that when listening to a lecture their minds wandered, but when constructing their own meaning and working in small groups where they were ‘active’ in their learning they were focused on the topic.

One can’t argue that when an individual is fully engaged or immersed in their work, it can be surmised that the task or work at hand isn’t considered work but rather enjoyment and complete absorption of self. Take a moment to connect back to your childhood and recall a time when you were completely immersed in a task. Was it when you were building a fort out of sofa cushions with your siblings; when you were down at the creek collecting water samples for your make-believe science lab; when you were the lead role in your literature class’ play; when you were painting without taking a break for food or water; when you were the acting defense attorney in history class; when you were in a small group setting solving a mathematical riddle that would unlock the next puzzle; or when you were around the fireplace discussing cosmic issues? When are students truly engaged?

Flow research has produced evidence that when students (or humans in general) are fully involved and active or intrinsically motivated, purposeful work is taking place. In its early stages, flow focused on autotelic (auto=self, telos=goal), where the student is engaged in work that has an end and purpose. In the case of how we have traditionally done school, one would think that this purpose or result is only experienced through tests or exams. For some, yes this is the case. For most, this is not the case. Imagine a world in which students use the end goal as an excuse for the process itself? A world where the perceived challenges in any given class matches their abilities but pushes them while using an existing skill set, and where they receive continual or immediate feedback so they can adjust and reassess their approach. When students are engaged in activities, where they feel empowered and are called upon to hypothesize their own meaning, they employ an authentic sense of focus and concentration. Their efforts now have meaning, purpose for action, and an awareness for process and completion. The student is operating in flow sans of any reflexive self-consciousness, engaged in a sense of confidence that if and when they stumble, they have the faculties to handle the situation, and they feel fully immersed in the process whereby achieving a goal in the end.

Our goal is to develop the flow of each child’s experience in the Middle School. This includes diversifying the skills needed to perform well at the next level by setting challenges that engage the student as an individual, in a group setting, whether the stakes are low or high so long as we are empowering their voice and fostering their growth. Keep an eye out for part three of this series in the spring.

Resources:

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2008). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper Perennial.

Csikszentmihalyi, M., Rathunde, K. & Whalen S. (1996). Talented Teenagers: The roots of success and failure. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

In cased you missed it, here is Part I of Colleen O’Boyle’s piece: The Adolescent Brain

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Flow in the Adolescent Brain

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