How to Control Student's Attention
“If we can control the attention of the child, we solve the problems of education.”
Maria Montessori, the Italian educator and originator of the educational system that bears her name, The Montessori System.
“Think of your memory bank as a board, the information to be stored in your memory as nails to be driven into the board, and your attention as the hammer to be used to drive the nails into the board. If your attention is inconsistent, nonexistent, or if you are overloaded or if you are multitasking, many of those nails will not be hammered in correctly, if at all. The nails will fall out; likewise, the information will fall out and not be stored in your memory.” A metaphor used by Ed Hallowell explaining the direct correlation between attention and memory.
To begin, two activities
One, test your attention by watching this video; chick here.
Second, a few questions about a penny which a 40-year old individual old has handled approximately 40,000 times. Don’t take out a penny to answer the answers.
Which way does Lincoln’s profile face? Are there words inscribed on the penny? If so, what are the words? Does the word “God” appear on the penny? What is on the backside of the penny?
We’ll get back to the two examples at the end.
What do we play attention to and why
Timothy Wilson at the University of Virginia, posits that the brain takes in 12 million pieces of information in one second but we are conscious of only 40 pieces.
Similar to Wilson, John Hattie in his book Visible Learning asks his readers to consider the following strange calculations. “Through counting neural connections, it has been estimated that 11,000,000 signals, or units of information, could be sent to the brain from sensory receptors at any one moment in time. To function optimally, we can actively filter out massive amounts of potential input information, to the point where our conscious mind, or our focal attention, might zoom in (just like a camera lens) to allow about 40 units of information per second. So, what happens to the other 10,999,960 informational units potentially available to the mind within such an acutely focused one-second period?”
The inevitable answer is that we do not pay attention to the vast bulk of information that could be available. We are highly selective in what we focus upon. We have to be! The vast bulk of information, as apprehended by our senses, simply has no effect on our conscious mind because of this remarkable capacity for selective attention. With our minds, we can focus on minute details and shut out other inputs.
For instance, how does your right foot feel? Is it hot or cold right now? Is it windy outside? Prior to reading the questions, you were not aware how your right foot felt, the temperature of your surroundings, or the wind outside, but your mind instantaneously attained the answers upon awareness.
The problem is that for information to attain the status of awareness, it must pass through a filter. It must be “selected” to be important to get by the filter, therefore the term “selective attention.”
The RAS
To deal with this selection, the brain has a sensory intake filter, called the reticular activating system (RAS), in the lower part of the posterior brain. The RAS edits incoming information to the brain and determines what the brain attends to and what sensory information gets in.
In other words, if the RAS doesn’t “see” the input, then the RAS doesn’t select it. For instance, how does your right foot feel? Before your right foot was mentioned, you had no idea of how your right foot felt.
“Think of your memory bank as a board, the information to be stored in your memory as nails to be driven into the board, and your attention as the hammer to be used to drive the nails into the board. If your attention is compromised, many of those nails will not be hammered in correctly, if at all. The nails will fall out; likewise, the information will fall out and not be stored in your memory.”
Ed Hallowell explaining the correlation between attention and memory.
“The primary purpose of the brain is keeping the body alive and to preserve the species to reproduce,” according to John Medina, author of the book Brain Rules. Medina asks “For survival, what would the brain select to filter? Novelty and change. The question then becomes is the novel item or change represent a danger? Is it a threat to survival or will it improve survival?”
Similarly, Willis and McTighe argue that the “RAS’s involuntary programming gives priority to information that is most critical for mammals to survive in the unpredictable wild. In their book Upgrade Your Teaching: Understanding by Design Meets Neuroscience, they write that “any changes in the expected pattern can signal a threat of death or, alternately, a source of nutrients that can help ensure survival.
Brain Break
1. What school system did an Italian educator start?
2. According to Tim Wilson and John Hattie, how many bits of information enter the brain per second?
3. What is the name of the filter that information must pass through before we are consciously aware of it?
4. The primary purpose of the brain is?
Answers: 1. The Montessori System; 2. 40; 3. Reticular activating system (RAS); 4. Keeping the body alive and to preserve the species to reproduce
The RAS = Survival
This hard-wired criterion of selection by the RAS for brain awareness means the brain gives priority admission to sensory input about changes in expected patterns-what is new, different, changed, unexpected. This includes novelty, movement, any sensory stimulation, comparative thinking, or any personal interaction.
Reflect back on the writings of Medina, Willis, and McTighe stressing the importance of survival as the primary factor for RAS arousal, imagine our ancestors taking a leisurely walk through the savanna to the river for the group’s daily supply of water. But before reaching the river, he or she notices something novel and unusual in the brush. By paying attention to the novelty, movement, and disruption in a pattern (comparative thinking) of the environment caused by sensory stimulation, the brain insures the survival of the species.
What about the Gorilla video and the Penny?
Why do 50% of the people viewing the video miss the Gorilla at first take? The reason many people initially miss the gorilla is because their “selective attention” is focused on passing the basketball. But afterwards, when asked if they saw the gorilla in the video, it quickly became behaviorally relevant and noted by the selective attention system.
In ending, educators should remember that when students are not paying attention to a lesson, it doesn’t mean students are inattentive. They are paying attention to a sensory input, just not the sensory input of the lesson or the one we want them paying attention to.
Why aren’t they paying attention to your very important instruction? Attention is a selection process and they are not paying attention to your data because at the time their RAS has decided it is not behaviorally relevant to it.