The first time I really understood what flow meant I was barefoot in salty sand, building a beach sculpture in Mexico alone in the sunshine. Keep reading to learn more about phone problems.
Two hours seemed to disappear in moments as I gathered water-smoothed scraps of painted tile and bright shells and arranged them into swirls and towers underneath the cliffs.
Take a second here and ask yourself – when do you feel that amazing feeling, where you are completely immersed in the thing you are doing so the rest of the world falls away?
When do you think your students do?
We’ve all noticed the challenges our students are facing right now in focusing their attention especially with phone problems.
They’ve got addictive technology, constant social FOMO, and a streaming feed of big world problems competing for their attention every moment of the day. So how are they supposed to find their flow, or even their focus?
Today’s guest, Angela Watson, has turned her attention carefully to this matter in recent years. She’s here today to talk with us about how we can help our students find their way back to focus, and we all know how important that is right now. So let’s dive in!
Student Distractions Go Deeper than Phone Problems
Everyone is noticing the same thing these days – attention spans seem to be getting shorter as the distractions get bigger and more addictive.
And it’s only getting worse.
It’s easy to think this problem is just about kids, or just about phone problems, or just about kids and their phones in school.
But it’s a much bigger, broader issue than that.
Why is that kids AND adults would often rather scroll on the couch than dig into things that matter more to us?
Why is it that kids are set up to feel FOMO if they don’t take the time to like, comment, and share everything, everywhere, all the time?
Why is it that adults as well as kids struggle to focus on deep, fulfilling work for long?
Angela approaches focus in school as a life skill that we all need, and that we’re all developing.
Kids shouldn’t feel ashamed that they find advanced technology and social networks designed to be addictive, well… addictive.
She suggests we approach this issue with our students not by telling them they just need willpower to defeat their personal issue. Instead, by recognizing that it’s a societal issue, then inviting them to learn how to develop their own personal focus with the goal of being able to work meaningfully on the things they care about.
Factors of Focus with Phone Problems
Ask yourself this: If you didn’t have a phone, would you magically be able to concentrate on whatever you wanted, for as long as you wanted?
Probably not, right?
Even without phones, students can still turn to a neighbor to talk, go deep with a doodle unrelated to class, or find another form of distraction.
So helping kids focus isn’t just about banning phones, or even teaching them how and why to limit their own screen use.
Kids are dealing with a bombardment of information and news, and phone problems contribute to this, much of it being bleak.
They’ve got social pressures coming in hot from all sides.
And then there’s the fact that concentration isn’t something you can just snap your fingers and have anyway. Interest and choice help a lot, and so does learning how to intentionally filter what’s coming in and choose where to spend energy.
We often talk on this podcast about incorporating interest and choice into lessons, but how do we help kids understand how to focus their energy in the places they really want to?
Turns out, there’s quite a bit of research on this (surprise, surprise!).
Finding Flow with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi (check out his Ted Talk here) was a researcher who studied world class performers of all kinds.
He discovered that when they were challenged and working hard, using their skills, they were able to perform with a sense of being carried along without effort. They achieved an optimal state in which they felt completely immersed in their task. He named this state “flow.”
For students, a state of flow would be one in which they could feel present and focused without counting down the time until the task was done. They’d be engaged in something challenging, using their skills, and not feeling those distractions that sometimes seems to be ubiquitous to this era.
Sounds pretty good!
How Can We Help Students Get Started with Flow?
No one can expect to be in a flow state all the time. Angela suggests that 20% of work time is an ideal amount of work time to spend in flow. There are always going to be some tasks that don’t take students into that state of high skill/high challenge deep work – like review activities, testing, etc. But if they can spend some time in flow each day, their work will feel more meaningful and productive to them, and of course, distractions will not loom so large in their lives as they learn that they can tune them out by choosing something bigger.
Start by introducing the concept to students and talking about how all people struggle with distractions.
Next, ask them when they’ve felt flow: What did the experience feel like? Brainstorm characteristics of flow together.
Finally, ask them if they’ve experienced flow at school, and whether they can think of ways to experience it more.
By shifting the focus toward achieving flow rather than defeating distraction, you do two important things.
You take some pressure off yourself as teacher (it won’t be you trying to be so wildly fun and engaging that you can defeat the huge amount of distractions inherent in our present culture).
You empower students to work positively toward focus (rather than fighting a stacked battle against technology through “willpower.”)
Remember to be clear with kids that adults struggle with all of these same issues. Your students have likely not seen a lot of positive adult role models in their lives when it comes to phone use, and have perhaps been disappointed in trying to get others’ attention away from their phones throughout their lives. The journey toward flow and away from distraction is a lifelong one, given the sea we’re all swimming in right now.
Experimenting with and Unpacking Flow Experiences
Invite students to work on getting into a flow state when you give them uninterrupted time to work on a deeper-level task. Instead of starting it off with “OK, let’s buckle down and get this done” or “We need to get through this” try introducing a work session with “let’s really try to get into our flow here.”
Then after giving students time to work, reflect with them on whether they felt like they were able to achieve flow. Ask them what might help them the next time – working in a group? Not working in a group? Sitting in another location?
As you try to help kids achieve flow, consider giving them choice over the type of task they work on during class time.
Maybe they need to review some grammar concepts, look up several vocabulary words, write a one-page response to something, and watch a short video lesson. Each of these tasks takes a different type of focus.
If students have a chance to choose work times when they feel prepared for a deeper-level creative task to try to get into flow with it, they’re more likely to succeed.
A Monday block after lunch might be better for quick grammar and vocab work, while Tuesday first period they might feel ready to dive into a full page of writing.
It will be different for everyone. Learning to understand when they work best on different types of tasks is a skill that will serve them well throughout their lives.
Go Further with Angela Watson
Angela Watson is a National Board Certified Teacher with a master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction. She has 11 years of classroom experience and over a decade of experience as an instructional coach.
Angela’s mission is to help teachers live a more purposeful and conscious life. Through her mentorship, countless teachers have learned to take charge of their time and energy so they can prevent burnout and stay in the profession they love for years to come.
Check out her new curriculum for middle or high school at Finding Flow Solutions.
Explore her website, Truth for Teachers.
