Reflections on Joy and Flow

What makes life worth living?

It’s a question that’s probably been asked by many philosophers, researchers and regular folks like you and me.  It’s the question that led one researcher in psychology, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, to develop the idea that the feeling of ‘flow’ is a major contributor to the joy and happiness that sometimes is felt in our lives.  He describes this feeling as central to joy and creativity and is sometimes known as being in ‘the zone’.  Specific characteristics of the experience of flow include a state of focus, concentration, clarity, balance between skill and challenge, serenity, timelessness, and a sense that the activity is worth doing for its own sake.

While this ‘flow’ is frequently associated with athletes, musicians, or other artists, it can be experienced during any kind of activity, so long as the conditions are right.  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi created a an image showing the relationship between challenge and skill and pinpointing exactly when flow is most likely to be experienced.  It is an interesting image and reminds us that ‘flow’ is not the only state we may experience.

When we consider this concept as teachers (and students), it is highly useful!  Personally, as a student, I have experienced flow numerous times.  One time in particular I remember was when I was studying statistics in college.  I was not particularly skilled in statistics, never really enjoyed working with numbers of any kind, and I didn’t have much motivation to approach the subject.  However, while I was taking this particular course, I consistently found myself not only enjoying the class time, but also highly motivated to attend the next class and work on the next project our instructor would present.  Because statistics was such a daunting topic for me, I was surprised at my feelings and reflected upon them often. What could explain why I felt excited and inspired by this course?  I believe the extent to which I was feeling ‘flow’ in the course, the way I felt time was flying and I was entirely engaged, was directly dependent upon specific actions and capabilities of the instructor.  The instructor concentrated on knowing each of us independently and learning the main reason we were taking the course.  She was able to accurately evaluate the skills and knowledge we already possessed and what we needed to work on.  She would take this information and create challenges that built off of our already-present knowledge and skills, but challenged us to apply our new knowledge.  These challenges were directly related to reasons we were taking the course - fields of study that we were particularly interested in.  So, through her knowledge of us and her knowledge of statistics, she was able to create the right balance of challenge and skill to motivate us and get us in ‘the zone’.  

I imagine the concept of flow could also help with the learning of language and specifically with that of grammar.  My statistics teacher always presented material in a clearly defined step-by-step process that helped us gain new skills gradually and in a safe environment.  Then, she would give us a challenge, a task, or a problem through which we were required to apply both our previous and newly acquired knowledge in a new way.  Because grammar works with structures and forms, I can see that such an approach will also be beneficial.  

I believe that Larissa and Kerri highlight valuable points when they discuss the importance of flexibility, student choice, and teachable moments.  When I remember my classroom experiences in that statistics course, I remember that we often had choices of 3 or 4 projects on which to work and that we sometimes would move in new directions because we stumbled upon an insight or application as a result of our work on a project.  Most definitely a teacher’s ability to know when to add, subtract, skip around, or move in an entirely new direction - and then do so - on the spot is a sign of their greatness as a teacher.

In the video provided as part of the more information for this assignment, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says something to the effect that you can’t be creating anything with less than 10 years of technical knowledge in a particular field.  In fact, I am sure that those who experience flow most of the time are both highly skilled and highly challenged, as is suggested by the chart.  Maybe that explains why we sometimes rarely experience this condition.  Our challenge as teachers is to create the right amount of challenge to suit our learners’ skill so that they can experience flow as much as possible.  Not to mention, of course, that we want to avoid the other areas of the chart labeled anxiety, worry, apathy, boredom and relaxation.  As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi suggests, our experiences best happen in flow, but learning can also happen when in the states of arousal and control.  Here are a couple questions for us, though.  

Just because our students experience flow, does that mean we, as teachers, are?  
And the opposite:  Just because we are experiencing flow, does that mean our students are?  
And I suppose, according to this theory and considering that every learner is different, we should ask how can we get a majority (or -dare I say- all) our students to experience flow together?