⛾ Turning Schools Into Incubators of Deep Thinking
Musings on increasing focus and transforming culture beyond cell phone bans.
I don’t find myself out and about too much these days, but I couldn’t help but go see Project Hail Mary a few weeks ago, after having read the book last year. For someone that loves movies, the sheer enthusiasm around this film was electric and felt like a callback to a bygone era of moviegoing.
That said, right near the middle of the film, as things were reaching an emotional crescendo, someone’s phone goes off. No problem I think to myself It happens, and reckoned that would be the end of it. Boy how foolish I was. The phone was not silenced, but in fact the disruptive patron took the call at his seat. And half across the theater I hear the gruff voice “grumble grumble... Wisconsin... grumbled grumble... about two hours ... grumble grumble.”
The teacher in me wanted to redirect the off-task behavior, or perform a restorative conversation with the patron out in the hall. And I was just on the verge of releasing one curt shhh (the ultimate trump card), but knew it wouldn’t be wise to get into a power struggle in front of his peers. In hindsight, I suppose I should have first built a strong relationship with everyone in the multiplex to get ahead of these management issues while the trailers rolled, but I digress.
The packed crowd was a good mix of kids and adults. Teens in particular get a (perhaps well deserved) bad rep for ruining the movie going experience, and boisterous professors have proclaimed this generation’s inability to sit through movies in the first place. But out of everyone in that theater, the only person who picked up their phone to have a full-blown conversation appeared to be a middle-aged man.
In the education scene, there is a hyperfocus on children and adolescents being addicted to their phones, doomscrolling on TikTok, getting spoon fed slop, chatting with their AI companions, but adults are just as guilty of the same.
Heck, I’ve had to educate more of my adult family of certain AI hoaxes than I have my own students (bunnies on a trampoline notwithstanding). This behavior stems from an inundation of all things online: personalized algorithms, clickbait content, 24/7 news cycles, never-ending feeds — For the perpetually online, these are their bread and butter. All of this noise distracts us all, not just our students. The buzzes we get on our wrists, the incessant checking of email, the inability to sit down and read. All of these are symptoms of our inability to focus.
So, that experience in the theater really struck me. How are we supposed to foster the deep thinking needed within our schools if we are just as distracted as our students? Well, the answer is simple, though its execution is complex: We need to model it. As teachers and administrators, we need to craft a school that is an incubator where deep thinking is inevitable, not a choice. This means that we need to take hold of what we can control within the school walls in order to support a balanced relationship with technology, normalize reading for fun, build intentional areas for solitude and collaboration, develop student executive functioning, and fundamentally rethink our approaches to social media. We have the power to create a microcosm of what the most ideal version of our respective communities inside of our schools, and act it out in real time. Like language learning, we need to take an immersion-approach to deep thinking, and it relies on transforming our schools in subtle, but potent ways.
Minimize the digital, go touch some grass
Beyond the obvious of removing cell phones from the education equation, students are still achieving record high screen time through their 1:1 devices provided by districts. In order to construct our Incubator of Deep Thinking (IDT) therefore, we need to be hyperintentional with how technology is utilized within our classrooms. Simply substituting pen and paper for an iPad cannot cut it. The boasted conveniences of totally digital classroom materials in the post-pandemic era has had severe implications on students handwriting ability, their ability to comprehend and retain material, all the while paying little mind to the lack of computer literacy skills of these so-called “digital natives.” So students lack the high-level computer skills to navigate the unintuitive digital world, and their ability to interact with the analog has atrophied — What are we to do?
There is an imperative here to get students to touch grass, or to get them in touch with analog tools and experiences. The analog provides perhaps the most intuitive tools for thinking, learning, and creating. This may mean a lot more printing for teachers, but it gives students the most intuitive non-linear space to play with ideas, interact with text, and retain information at a deeper level.
Take simple brainstorming for example, which is absolutely supercharged when using an online application. Canva, for instance, provides collaborative infinite canvas boards stocked with countless graphics, images, and decorations. But the overhead here is substantial. Students need to have their device and charger (because you know as well as I that it is dead), share the document out for collaboration (using the timeless ceremonial invocation ”What’s your email” to each group member), and learning the app itself, idiosyncrasies and all in order to even begin getting their ideas down. Though it can provide more depth, technology can often become a barrier to thought rather than an aid, especially for a group that can only type 30 words per minute. As we are building students capacities for deep thinking, we need to be earnest in giving them tools that provide the least friction possible to transfer these thoughts to a solid medium.
Typically, I would be the first to champion the promise of utilizing technology to aid classroom instruction. Large swaths of my career involve project-based learning where students use devices to communicate and create digital media. But, I firmly believe that skills cannot effectively transfer to a digital medium without knowing first how to do the base skill in the analog realm. You simply cannot effectively teach the skill and the medium in tandem. If a student does not know how to take effective notes, giving them an iPad with Notability is only going to make that process more confusing and difficult. They now need to learn the skill and the program all at once — How is that worth anyone’s time?
We need to be diligent in selecting technology that can transform the learning task, not to merely act as a substitute. This intentionality will surely lead to the omission of 1:1 from a variety, if not the majority, of classroom activities, but in turn will model an atmosphere that respects the balanced relationship between the digital and analog. Being digitally minimal in the classroom removes distraction, emphasizes deep thinking, and reserves the power that computers bring for when it is truly revolutionary.
I am begging you to read some fiction
Any educational leader worth their salt already has a keen understanding that enacting change necessitates teacher trust and buy-in. If the goal is to create our IDT, we need teachers to model it, both in and out of their classroom.
The smallest change a building can do to push their culture toward IDT is to normalize reading. Teacher reading habits do appear to have some positive influence on reading habits among students and teachers who do read regularly tend to choose more effective pedagogical practices. Reading begets focus which begets deep thinking. Just the simple habit of carrying a book and reading it in the school environment, effectively models for students what good readers look like, which in turn provides a schema for how and why this reading occurs in the first place.
This shouldn’t be confined to the classroom bells either. Rather, it should be spread and publicly displayed all across the building. As we pursue systems for students to build healthy relationships with their technology, we must follow suit. This means that when idle time arises, we put down our phone, shut our computer, take out our headphones, and pull out a book. Though perhaps performative in nature, I would argue that the only way to shift a culture is to perform towards our given ideal. The more students see reading happen, and the more instruction they are provided to build their literacy skills, the more normalized reading becomes. This is not to say that students will magically start reading if we do. No, this is in pursuit of modeling what good readers look like, and how to meaningfully create distance from technology.
This is why fiction is perfect — It’s not work. It’s not tedious. It’s not a chore. It’s fun. The more we engage in this activity, the more focused we become, the healthier we are, and the more prepared we will be to guide students through the perilous act of reading, no matter the subject.
Building fortresses of solitude
There is also a great deal to be said for schools to construct bespoke areas where deep thinking can take place. Much of this in the past has been performative. We have a library, but secretly it is a second lunch room. We have study areas that turn out to be more hang-out areas. We have a tutoring center that is, you guessed it, a third lunchroom. These are real problems my school currently is trying to sort through.
The tutoring center as a lunchroom mentioned before is no joke. We just rebooted our tutoring center last year for the first time since COVID, and it devolved rather quickly. We were not respecting the space for what we labeled it. As midterm quickly approached, something had to be done. So our teachers and administrators got together to get on the same page about policy and expectations about this deep thinking space. Since that moment, it hasn’t been an issue, and our Freshmen-on-track rates have been getting progressively better.
The power that clear communication, routine follow-through, and collective efficacy holds on our IDT is crucial to recognize. Without it, our school does not have the tools to adequately define and respect the spaces we construct. The moment we started to treat our tutoring center as a place for deep thinking and learning — a fortress of solitude — it quickly found its people. This area today is no less full than before, but now it is filled with students seeking refuge from the chaos in order to think.
Fortresses of solitude can come in all shapes and sizes: from a booth by a window, to a desk in the library. The essential elements, though, are constant: quiet, unstimulating, and comfortable. These ingredients come together to create an environment where focus is unavoidable. As a teacher in pursuit of my own fortresses, I quickly found how difficult they are to come by. Near every corner of my building is stuffed with distraction. Given the goal of an IDT is to carve a path toward in deep thinking, we need to be conscientious in providing environments for this to occur, and following through with our expectations in these areas.
This is not to say that chaos is bad. In fact, you can’t have deep thinking without chaos in the equation somewhere. Large common areas bring about vast opportunities socialization, community building, negotiation of meaning-making, and a healthy dose of serendipitous encounters. But it is the intentionality that is required when constructing an IDT to determine which spaces are which, and to respect the space for what it is.
There is profound resolve needed to create these common areas, all the while possessing the restraint to provide our fortresses. Each are worthy in their own right. The more flexible we make our spaces and the higher expectations we have for students that utilize them, creates an environment that shouts “We care about you, your focus, and your thinking, and we’re here to help.”
Please bring back the planner
The awe-inspiring capabilities that modern technology shepherds today to organize our knowledge is indispensable. Though Socrates may have opposed the act of writing things down, thinking that it would lead to a weaker mind, today we recognize the meaningful connection writing has with deep thinking and learning in the pursuit of accomplishing our goals. I have noticed though, that not only do students struggle with these executive functioning skills, but schools rarely provide them with the tools to begin learning them.
Out of sheer necessity, we as educators have enormous experience juggling an increasing cognitive load, constant context-switching, and time/task management needed to do this seemingly impossible job to the highest of standards. It is not easy. In my time mentoring new teachers, there comes a point in the middle of their first semester where they make a mad dash to keep all of their plates spinning, only to be devastated when some start to come crashing down. Something I always relay in these crucial moments is this: Teaching is one of the most demanding knowledge work jobs that exists. You need to allow yourself the time and patience to focus on keeping your fine china spinning, and tending to your IKEA plates when you can. In time, not only will you grow stronger, quicker, but you’ll figure out how to keep them spinning without you even tending to them.
So, it comes as no surprise we need to teach these skills to our students as well. For too long have we settled on letting students figure out their workflows on their own, only to watch them sink into a disorganized trough, handing you a mangled paper that you would have thought came out of a bad car wreck rather than a Paw Patrol backpack.
In our IDT then, we need to instill a system to support executive functioning, providing students with the tools and structure to learn how to keep their plates spinning. The most basic way to do this is with a simple planner. But handing them a spiral notebook in August and expecting it to change their lives is nonsense. We need to go deeper to intertwine their organizational tools into each of our classrooms. This is why collective teacher efficacy is an imperative. If we all hold the line on these routines, it transforms a simple, isolated action into a habit that is relentlessly reinforced. Our ideal here is that the pen and planner serve as the means in which one clears their mind, priming it for deep thinking. It stations their thoughts on stationary stationery, reducing their cognitive load, unburdening them from the turbulent swimming of tasks, due dates, and goals.
Back to basic communication
Social media is perhaps the foremost plight for students today, going hand-in-hand with smartphone addiction. If we truly want to build our incubator for deep thinking, how can a school possibly square this vision while in tandem using social media for all forms of communication? These platforms are closed-off, harvest your data, are a pit of algorithm-ized slop, and more often than not I hear students complain about their images being online rather than appreciate it. This is perhaps the most controversial of my proposal.
Nevertheless, community engagement is essential to a thriving school culture, and social media is the most powerful driver of communication ever before seen. To cut it out would lead a complete lapse in the relationship between school and stakeholders, and scream that our school is regressive and technophobic. But there is a great tension here between social media and our need for an incubator for deep thinking. How can we utilize the power of the web while still following through with our new systemic beliefs?
Well, the answer has been with us since birth of the web. We need to go back to the beautiful, aspirational, idyllic world that Web 1.0 originally offered, which I think can be distilled into two simple parts: Newsletters and Sites. Newsletters would offer direct home communication and updates, while sites would be individualized to showcase important resources, details and photos for clubs/sports, or even communication from students themselves by resurrecting the school newspaper.
Social media has provided this purpose in a disparate manner, but these two systems can provide the exact same information in a cleaner, more controlled, more respectful, less time-consuming manner. Here we are using the school system as a whole to model for our students. And the best part? We already have this technology functioning today. It’s stable, open, and eliminates the need for traditional “followers” because we can directly communicate with our audience of stakeholders through email, which we already use daily. No need for an additional account, no regressive algorithms distracting you, no advertisements that enrich Big Tech coffers. Simply what you want delivered, going right to you.
It may seem silly or overly headstrong, but if we are to truly bind ourselves to the values of an IDT, we need to demonstrate it through action, else it comes across hollow and hypocritical. We are at a pivotal time in education, and the only way we can begin to shift our school culture is by embodying our beliefs to our core.
There is so much more that can be said and done to make schools more effective, and there are many educators in the blogosphere that can give you a wider view of our copious problems. But as we are approaching an historic reckoning in this intersection between technology and education, we are now better positioned than ever to begin addressing these issues through even the subtlest of changes.
Sure, some of these measures may be performative, some may be more challenging to implement than others, and issues will undoubtedly remain in our schools in the aftermath. However, we have so much control over the school environment that we can seize for the betterment of our students, staff, and communities. The routines and habits we want to build within our students are entirely supported by the environment that we choose to create, which is defined by our systems actions. Compound this with the effects of collective teacher efficacy,1 and deep learning can become inevitable with this recipe for positive change.
And maybe, just maybe, if movie theaters somehow still exist in 20 years time, and people still turn out in droves to watch a wacky original Sci-Fi flick, I hope to see a generation that can recline in their plush chairs, munch on a Bavarian pretzel, and fully give themselves to the whims of a filmmaker and their art, without distraction. Or at the very least, I hope they have the courtesy to take their calls into the hallway.