Education Bookcast

In this episode, we will look at the article Seeing the Glass Half Full: A Review of the Causes and Consequences of Optimism by Mary Forgeard and Martin Seligman. (The name of the article was so long that I thought it might be better to give the episode a to-the-point, minimalistic title.) Since we just looked at self-esteem and at self-compassion, I thought it might be good to take a look at another concept within the same general psychological area: optimism. Is optimism good for you? What causes it? And how does it affect academic performance? This episode is a very short one, the reason being that the answers to many important questions about optimism remain unanswered. Optimism does appear to be good for you, but there is no clear answer on whether it is good for academic achievement; and the article's answer to "what causes it?" is the academic writing equivalent of saying "y'know, stuff".  Having a look through Google Scholar also didn't bring up many papers that were answering my questions. So, in short: it's good for you in many ways, but nobody knows much else about it. Enjoy the episode.

We've seen in the previous episode how trying to increase one's self-esteem is a dangerous proposition, and how having high self-esteem is not necessarily a good thing. Now it's time to look at another approach to the self which is a lot more promising. Self-compassion is an idea taken originally from traditional buddhist psychology, but now studied fairly extensively with the scientific method. In a word, it's being nice to yourself. It is trying to be your own "best friend" by thinking about how a good friend would relate to you in moments of difficulty, and adopting that behaviour towards yourself. This is in sharp opposition with self-criticism, which is most people's response when something is going wrong in their lives. There are three main components of self-compassion: mindfulness, common humanity, and kindness. Mindfulness is about being aware of what is happening in the present moment, rather than getting lost in thoughts about the past, the future, or hypothetical events. Common humanity is the idea that you aren't the only one who is suffering this way, and that pain and disappointment are a normal part of life for everyone. Kindness is about just being nice to yourself, making your inner talk of the kind that a good friend might use when comforting you. The benefits of self-compassion are numerous and well-documented. They include: - reduced risk of anxiety and depression; - experiencing fewer negative emotions, such as fear, irritability, hostility, or distress; - the ability to persevere in the face of failure; - reduced procrastination; and - greater motivation and a higher likelihood of achieving goals. Self-compassion is distinct from self-pity and self-indulgence. In self-pity, we see our own lives as the worst, and that we alone are having a hard time, whereas in self-compassion we focus on how we are similar to others through our common humanity. Self-compassion does not lead us to eat a barrel of ice-cream a day as self-indulgence would, but asks the question: "What would be the kindest thing I could do for myself right now?" Sometimes this is having a break, and sometimes it could be indulging in some ice-cream. But often it is working or studying. The aim isn't to indulge, but to do what is honestly good for you at the time. This may be a difficult topic for some, as dropping the internal critic and instead adopting a kind, supportive voice seems so counter-intuitive and against our culture. It also might seem a bit of a "flowery" thing to be saying, and might therefore sound "unscientific" by the standards of this podcast. Kristin Neff's work is well backed-up by scientific studies, though, so I hope that you can be open-minded towards this new way of relating to oneself. Enjoy the episode. Music by podcastthemes.com.

Self-esteem is a psychological concept that has penetrated everyday language. In many Western countries, it is generally understood that high self-esteem is essential to health, happiness, and success. Is this really the case? And how did this idea spread? So much was the excitement about self-esteem in the early 90's that the California state legislature set up a Task Force to Promote Self Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility, with an annual budget of over $700,000. All it took was some politicians with unusual metaphysical beliefs and flexible interpretations of the words of scientist ("The news most consistently reported is that the association between self-esteem and its expected consequences are mixed, insignificant or absent" was somehow re-interpreted to mean "self-esteem is the social vaccine" and "a giant step for mankind"). Add a media frenzy and the drowned-out voices of dissenters and you have the beginnings of a highly misleading movement. High self-esteem does not cause what it was expected to, and in fact has some potentially rather nasty side effects, notably narcissism and a fixed mindset. It is not recommended. Enjoy the episode. Music by podcastthemes.com.

I spent a month in summer in Lithuania on a language course. Some events while I was there prompted me to realise something about education that I had heard before, but never quite understood. The music played in this episode is Lietuvos istorijos repas by Šventinis bunkuchenas. Enjoy the episode.

It reduces productivity, prevents learning, reduces effective IQ, disrupts relationships, undermines creative thinking, and saps self-control. It increases the risk of depression, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, and ADHD.  What is it? Lack of sleep. Sleep is essential for learning. We spend around a third of our lives in this state, and yet we take up much less than one third of our time thinking about how to make it better. In Night School, not only can we learn all about how sleep works, but also we can find out how to get better at sleeping. The "sleep problem" around the world is quite serious. Over 30% of British and American adults and around 80% of American teenagers do not get the sleep they need. 1 in 10 British adults takes some form of medication to help them sleep. Lack of sleep is responsible for $150 billion of lost productivity per year, and about 100,000 road deaths per year, not to mention the increased rates of heart disease and other ailments mentioned above. But this book is not only for those who have problems sleeping. Just as it is possible to improve your fitness at any level, so it is possible to improve your sleep even if it is already good. You can become a "super-sleeper" - someone who always has a good night's sleep and wakes up refreshed. Super-sleepers have been shown to have better health, greater happiness, and more wealth, on average, than the rest of the population. Enjoy the episode.

Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk Do Schools Kill Creativity is the most popular TED talk ever given, with just under 45 million views at the time of my writing this. It is so influential that Robinson has a page on his website devoted to feedback forms about how the talk changed people's lives. It is also nonsense. And yet, somehow, I was also convinced by it when I first heard it. The weakness of Robinson's arguments combined with the powerful effect he seems to have on people are testament to his incredible skill as a public speaker. The talk demands closer scrutiny even if only to take notes on how to give persuasive presentations. Almost all of Robinson's claims given in the talk are either given without any supporting evidence or argumentation, or are demonstrably wrong. A large portion of his statements are of the "I strongly believe that..." form, reminiscent a church pastor or of George W. Bush. The remaining time is padded out with well-chosen jokes and anecdotes, which appear to support his case, but, more importantly, build rapport with his audience. In this episode of the podcast, I provide a critique of Do Schools Kill Creativity, highlighting both the speaker's rhetorical devices and the failings of his argument. Enjoy the episode. Music by podcastthemes.com. Audio samples from TED.com.

I thought it was about time to cover something about books on this book-related podcast! Keith Stanovich and Annie Cunningham are two researchers who have spent their careers working together to understand the effects of reading on knowledge. Their research aims to answer a few questions in particular: 1. How much does reading matter in increasing people's knowledge? Is amount of reading irrelevant, since amount of information absorbed depends so much more strongly on innate intelligence than it does on exposure to more information? 2. How does reading compare to other sources of knowledge? Is reading particularly important or special in some way, or do people tend to gain as much and as high-quality information from other sources? The answers to these two sets of questions are very clear from Stanovich and Cunningham's research: 1. Reading is a much more important factor than innate intelligence, as far as knowledge is concerned. Extent of exposure to print even in literate societies varies greatly between individuals, and general knowledge, as well as applied knowledge, correlate strongly with measures of reading volume, but only weakly with measures of intelligence. 2. Reading completely outstrips other sources of information in terms of effect on knowledge. For example, when comparing old people to young people, the greater knowledge of the older people could be completely statistically explained by the amount of reading that they had done in their lives. All that matters is that the older people had read more! Over multiple studies, the two researchers hammer home these points again and again. It reminds us of how high-quality text can be as a medium, and of how exposure and practice tend to go underrated in favour of natural talent in Western cultures. (This last point is a common theme on this podcast which I have talked about extensively, with episodes such as Mindset; my series on high performers including Bounce, Genius Explained, The Talent Code, and Outliers; and most recently in The Geography of Thought.) Enjoy the episode. And get reading! Music by podcastthemes.com.

11% of children and 4% of adults in the US are said to have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Dr Richard Saul has been a specialist in attention and learning problems in children and adults since the 1970's. He says that there is no such thing as ADHD.  What, then, are all these children and adults suffering from? Dr Saul answers this question very thoroughly. It could be any of the following: Vision problems Sleep disturbance Substance abuse Mood disorders (bipolar disorder, depression) Hearing problems Learning disabilities Sensory processing disorder Giftedness Seizure disorders Obsessive-compulsive disorder Tourette's syndrome Asperger's syndrome Neurochemical distractibility/impulsivity Schizophrenia Fetal alcohol syndrome Fragile X syndrome Poor diet Iron deficiency Allergies Hyperthyroidism Pituitary tumour Prematurity Heavy metal poisoning If you or someone you know has been suspected to have ADHD or been diagnosed with it, then you might be interested to find out what is at the root of the problem from this book. Enjoy the episode. Music by podcastthemes.com.

This continues the episode about The Geography of Thought, looking at more ways in which the cultural differences manifest themselves in differing psychologies of people from different parts of the world. Themes include: Visual perception; Descriptions and understandings of the self; Attitudes to choice; "Fitting in" versus uniqueness; Attitudes to the law and contractual agreements; Factors affecting motivation; Preference for different types of reasoning; and Approaches to blame and causality. I also answer some questions posed at the beginning of last episode, namely: Why do modern Asians excel at science and maths, and yet have few Nobel prizewinners? Why were the ancient Chinese good at algebra and arithmetic, but bad at geometry, which the ancient Greeks excelled in? Why did the West outpace the East in science and technology, given how far ahead China was in the fourteenth century? The big idea here, as before, is that our thinking about psychology and education may be less universal than we realised. Many things that we thought were fundamental parts of human nature turn out to vary from culture to culture. It's a sobering thought, and has led me to have to rethink a range of conclusions about education, psychology, and human nature that I was previously quite confident about. Enjoy the episode. Music by podcastthemes.com.

Unlike many books that I cover, this is one that I read recently and felt an urgent need to share its contents even before I got to the appropriate theme in a series of episodes. It hit me right where it hurts - in my fundamental assumptions about human nature. As I research the field of education and produce this podcast, I have been generally assuming that people are more or less the same everywhere in their fundamental modes of thinking and feeling. I presumed that the topic of motivation, for example, or that of cognitive biases, can be covered in a more or less general way. However, this book has had me realise that different people from different places think in very, very different ways... and that I (and the majority of my listeners) are among the people on the extreme end of a spectrum that runs from East to West. People in the East and West think differently from each other in fundamental ways. Consider the following: Which two of these three would you consider to form a natural group: monkey, cow, banana? Westerners almost always group the monkey with the cow, as they are both animals (categorisation focus). Easterners group the monkey with the banana (relationship focus). There are 24 pens. 18 are blue, 5 are green, and 1 is purple. You can have one. Which one would you like? Westerners tend to choose the purple pen (scarcity makes it seem more valuable, plus they like to feel unique). Easterners ask for a blue pen (they want to fit in). Which task would you be more motivated to do: one you choose yourself, or one that your mother chooses for you? Westerners prefer to choose their own (autonomy as a motivational driver); Easterner are more motivated when their mother chose the task (what the hell?!). I hope you can see that this totally changes how I have to think about things. I now have to contextualise not only everything I think about, but *everything I read*, since so many psychologists say things as if they were universal, but then they are overturned once you test these things on people from a different culture! This even includes apparently "universal" traits such as cognitive biases, with Easterners usually avoiding the Fundamental Attribution Error where Westerners almost universally fall for it; and the principle of scarcity, an idea with strong ties to economics that rarer things are considered more valuable, which seems to not always be followed by people from the East. Hopefully, you will find your mind broadened, and your assumptions annoyingly and uncomfortably challenged, just as mine were. Enjoy the episode. Music by podcastthemes.com.