The Power of Our Minds

Wisdom and experience are one of the benefits of growing older. Quite simply, the older you become, the more confident you are in understanding what really makes a difference in completing a task or reaching a goal that is out in front of you. You think some of the same thoughts as when you were younger. You say some of the same prayers that you used to, but there’s just more truth to the entire process when you have the life experiences and knowledge on which to reflect. I don’t know how to phrase it any better than “you just kind of know that it’s going to happen”.

One of my foundational beliefs for probably 30 years involves trusting the power of the mind. It’s not just a cliché - to me - that if you think about something enough, desire it, work hard enough for it, etc., you can achieve it. I’m talking about all in, continuous thought, continuous work, and proper focus when your heart and head both have belief at a high level.

For non educators reading, know that John Hattie is an important name in our profession. My favorite and consequential work done by Hattie involves sequential meta analysis studies on student achievement. This study does not include dinner conversation where a dad thinks he knows why “schools are failing”. This isn’t a conversation about a school district where in a local tavern, the plight of teachers, the school process, the length of the school day, etc. is contemplated. This is raw, hard data accumulated over 80,000 studies involving 300 million students on WHAT WORKS BEST IN EDUCATION.

Want to know some things that the research shows doesn’t make a difference? Summer vacation. Lack of sleep. Television. Moving between schools. Boredom. All of these, in fact, fall below the level of having any impact on student learning. That being said, there obviously are those that make the biggest impact upon student learning, and that takes me back to the power of the mind.

Teacher efficacy tops the list of factors related to student achievement. Teacher efficacy can be defined as a teacher’s judgment of his or her capabilities to bring about desired outcomes of student engagement and learning, even among those students who may be difficult or unmotivated. It’s simple: Does a teacher believe he or she is capable of bringing about the desired outcome of student engagement and learning? This involves the power of the mind! What’s second? It’s a factor called self-reported grades, which means once a student has performed at a level that is beyond their own expectations, he or she gains confidence in his or her learning ability. In addition, Hattie has proven that children are the most accurate when predicting how they will perform. How can we get our children to genuine and realistically get to the point where these predictions are positive? The top two factors that influence student achievement involve belief. In fact, another Top Ten includes teacher estimates of achievement! Sitting at number eleven is self-efficacy - do I believe that I make a difference? It’s apparent that belief and the mind play a crucial role in student achievement.

What do the top two tell us? A lot. Schools need to work on supporting teachers and their belief/understanding that they CAN and DO make the largest difference in student engagement and learning. We can also work on pushing our kids to the cliff of their educational journey - never letting them fall over the edge. In addition, we can work really hard on getting our kids to see and realize they can accomplish what they want.

How many of you are absolutely terrible at shooting a basketball into a hoop? Raise your hand. If I told you that two basketballs fit through the hoop at the exact same time, would that increase your belief?

One moment tops my personal list of the power of belief. During the first week of July, 1998, Laura and I discovered that our unborn twins were impacted by a condition called Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome. At 19 weeks, we discovered the girls were sharing a placenta AND a network of blood vessels that supply oxygen and nutrients during development. One of the issues that occurs is that one twin gets too much nutrition and the another - the “stuck” twin - doesn’t get enough. One can eat so much that the heart rate increases to an unsafe rate. The other can die of starvation. We were told at the appointment that they had a 25% chance of survival, and we were also given the option of aborting one of them to save the other’s life. We found this out on a Tuesday, but not for one second - I don’t know why - did I think we were going to lose these ladies. I just believed we were going to see them. That same night I went to Copley High School and the early internet and found one surgeon in the USA who performed surgery on patients who had TTTS, and I called him and left a message. His name is Dr. Julian DeLia. HE CALLED BACK!! Five days later, against our doctor’s advice, we drove to Chicago. Laura had in utero surgery to correct the problem, and those little ladies - and their mom - hung in there until October 29. They just celebrated their 22nd birthday. I often tell this story, and we can’t always explain why, but we

were led to a point of belief that ultimately came to fruition. It is the best story of our lives when it comes to believing something can come true.

I wanted to dunk a basketball and couldn’t. I wanted to play Major League Baseball and didn’t. I wanted to be the next Joe Tait and wasn’t. It’s not automatic that you think of something and it happens, but there is evidence all around us that supports the old quote “If you believe, you can achieve”. I really write this as an educator, so I hope the discovery of the Hattie information is what is most remembered here. Support teachers and their power to engage and teach kids. Support kids and their power to succeed in their own learning and own life. Know the difference between what really does make a difference (belief) and those things that don’t.