Teach like a champion 3.0: 63 techniques that put students on the path to college - Lemov Doug 2021

Principle 4: Motivation is social
Five themes: Mental models and purposeful execution

The research that is powerful in understanding learning is not limited to cognitive psychology. Some of the most important insights come from a surprising source: evolutionary biology, or the history of how we came to be as we are. The most important word in that story is “we.” While humans evolved to develop individual characteristics that were necessary to our survival—large brains, opposable thumbs, the ability to stand, and so on—our evolutionary success was primarily a group endeavor—the result of a profound instinct toward coordinated group behavior.

To win out over other groups, members of groups that survived had to prove themselves strong and able as individuals but also at least as capable in their ability to form loyal and cohesive groups. “The outcome of between-group competition is determined largely by the details of social behavior within each group in turn,” writes the biologist Edward O. Wilson in The Social Conquest of Earth. It was important to be strong individually—there was competition within groups too—but a strong individual not embraced by a group was doomed. What primarily determined which humans would thrive and survive were traits such as “the tightness of the group, and the quality of communication and division of labor among its members. Such traits are heritable,” Wilson concludes, and so who we are is a “consequence of individual selection and group selection.”

Thanks to this dual-level selection—what evolutionary biologists call parallel processes of group and individual competition—our characteristics are complex, fascinating, and sometimes contradictory, not least because we are usually not aware of what we seek. After all, the point is that we evolve to do what has helped us survive without being aware of it.

The term “prosocial” describes animals that engage in individual behavior that benefits the larger group. Few animals will do this. The term “eusocial” goes a step further and describes species that coordinate and sacrifice to an even greater extent. And it is far rarer. Wilson suggests that we are among only two eusocial mammals.¹⁷ Lions and wolves will coordinate to hunt, but they will not sacrifice their lives for the good of the group; they will not raise each other's young or take care of the aged. Only humans do that, though for what it’s worth humans also compete with fellow group members for food or mates or status.

Since ancient times, intense awareness of what was happening within the group was required to survive—to ensure one's connections and to watch out for potential betrayal, for instance. “The strategies of the game were written as a complicated mix of closely calibrated altruism, cooperation, competition, domination, reciprocity, defection and deceit,” Wilson writes. “The human brain became simultaneously highly intelligent and intensely social… thus was born the human condition, selfish at one time, selfless at another, the two impulses often conflicted.”

The brain is a “social organ” is how Zaretta Hammond puts it in Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, but the degree to which this is true is striking. One example is the physiology of our eyes. We are the only primate with sclera—what we call the whites of the eyes. All other primates have dark eyes surrounding the pupils. Why? The answer, many evolutionary biologists think, is that tracking what fellow group members are looking at and thinking about is urgently important. We need to know what the group thinks, where we stand in its hierarchies and alliances, and how each action was received. The information critical to our survival is revealed in furtive glances and fleeting expressions of admiration, dismissiveness, and/or respect. Our eyes have evolved to better reveal the crucial details of approval, acceptance and scorn.

And our deep sociality also shows up in the ways we make decisions. “Social norms” are what we call the unwritten social rules of any group. “The highly social nature of human behavior means that the actions of colleagues and the broader culture of the school will have a persistent effect on how things pan out in your classroom. This is why building motivation is best done collectively,” writes Peps Mccrea. “Norms are so powerful they override more formal school policies or rules … However their largely invisible and unconscious nature makes them easy to underestimate if not totally ignore.” That there will be norms is “inevitable”; the key is to recognize this and shape them intentionally and positively.¹⁸

To modify motivation we must change what our students see and what they perceive as normal, acceptable values.

To be clear, some norm or other will emerge in every classroom. “There is no such thing as a neutral design,” Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein tell us in Nudge. The environment will shape the behavior of the individuals within it. We choose the norms or they choose us. And if we want more productive norms, we have to find ways to make them appear universal and more visible.

How does this affect classroom decisions? It reminds us that classrooms are first and foremost cultures that shape the actions and beliefs of the people within them. We have to establish positive prosocial norms that value student work and encourage our pupils to do what will help them succeed and thrive.

Is a culture where students look at the speaker and so reinforce that they care what the speaker is saying “natural”? Of course not. There is no natural case. A good classroom nudges students to scholarly identity through Habits of Attention and Habits of Discussion (not to mention great lessons, rigorous curriculum, and an insistence on honoring students' time). It ensures that students see their peers eagerly reading and writing as this a great way to get any individual student to want to—or at first, be willing to—read or write. It explains why Brightening the Lines is so powerful in causing students to join in activities. And of course why procedures and routines are so powerful—they start by norm setting. “The biggest mistake” teachers make, Tom Bennett writes in Running the Room, is “to wait for behavior to occur and then react to it.” The best teachers prevent counterproductive behavior in the first place.

A final note. The strength of a norm's influence “depends on how much we feel a part of and identify with those exhibiting the norms” writes Mccrea. We are motivated by belonging. The last principle I will discuss in this chapter is relationships, which obviously are profoundly important. But it is worth remembering, too, that a student's sense of belonging to a culture is different from his or her relationship with the teacher. By joining with peers in actions and feeling honored, supported, and respected by them, students will do many of the things that some educators presume they will only do if a teacher inspires them. Again relationships matter—but the peer-to-peer cultures we build through the norms students perceive are at least as important.