The Brain is a Muscle, too: Lifting too Little Isn’t Effective or Interesting

A recent report says that while cardiovascular strength adds up, lifting weights that are too light doesn’t do much to build muscle. It is important to tax the muscles to get them to respond. The same is true in learning. If you don’t have to try, you won’t get much result. Setting and measuring progress toward goals and targets–in life, education, and fitness training–are the way to build strength and ability.

We all know that to achieve learning you must have engagement. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced chick-sent-me-high), the architect of the concept of flow and one of the fathers of Positive Psychology, studies engagement as an element of flow. People (of all ages) enter a flow state when they are fully absorbed in an activity which challenges their abilities so that they are using their skills to the utmost (i.e. building brain muscles). The result is complete involvement, optimal performance and achievement, and great satisfaction. The next time you see your kid fully absorbed in a video game, ask yourself what is creating the engagement before you pull the plug.

One of our goals at the Media Psychology Research Center in our collaboration with Fablevision is to bridge the gap between positive psychology, new technologies, and education in the trenches. There are extraordinary opportunities to engage kids using technology but we need to start with educating the teachers. If teachers are not trained to integrate and appreciate what technology has to offer, it doesn’t matter how wonderful the technological opportunities are, they won’t get used. According to Plato Learning and Education World, only one-third of teachers report that they feel prepared to use computers for classroom instruction, and 77% report spending 32 or fewer hours on technology-related professional development activities. Anecdotally, my daughter Katie, who graduated from Columbia’s Teachers College was surprised at how few of her peers were interested or able to integrate technology in the classroom. I had assumed that the new generation of teachers would be both technologically savvy and chomping at the bit. Thus, if you can extrapolate individual experience, there is still a lot of work to be done. The good news is that there is huge potential on the upside once new learning models involving technology get in the system.