“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”  Victor Frankl

I am writing this on Sunday afternoon as I prepare for the start of Yom Kippur. It is the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, when we fast for more than 24 hours – often spending more than half of that time in the synagogue. We take time to reflect on the past year, and consider how we want to live in the year ahead. It means taking stock, apologizing for the hurt we may have caused others, and committing to live into our full humanity. And we do it together as a congregation, a community of human beings.  

This year, it occurred to me that Yom Kippur is designed as a day of deep learning.

In his book, Deep Learning in a Disorienting World (2020), scholar and educator Jon Wergin describes deep learning as “the result of cognitive and emotional disorientation that makes us want to examine other ways of viewing the world.”  This kind of learning requires the ability to reflect on one’s own behavior, he says, and is rarely taught in school or in the workplace. 

Why might that be the case? Critical reflection within ourselves and with others is key to sustainable behavioral change, and requires time and space. Deep learning is difficult in a world designed for maximum speed and efficiency. We see a problem, we want a quick solution. Humans are inherently allergic to ambiguity; instead of stopping to examine our beliefs, we keep busy with the endless stream of crises in front of us. It’s more satisfying. It’s where the action is. We check items off the list and move on. 

One of Wergin’s favorite books is Thinking, Fast and Slow by Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman, which synthesizes decades of research on human cognition.  It turns out that humans do not behave in ways that are consistent with their economic interests, but default to what he calls “System 1 Thinking:” fast and easy ways of thinking. Such mental shortcuts allow us to respond automatically in the face of threat or danger. We need to hit the brakes quickly when a car is coming at us at full speed. We could not survive without System 1 Thinking. 

To learn deeply, however, we need System 2 Thinking: a process that is “effortful,” slow, and difficult.  It requires us to pause and consciously step back from the action to examine what is happening. It often means recognizing our own confirmation bias, our natural tendency to seek information that reinforces our existing beliefs. It means moving out of our comfort zones and making new conscious choices. 

In schools today, there is woefully insufficient time to pause, and even less time to do so in a community of peers. The truth is that what we think is learning, namely the accumulation of knowledge, needs serious re-examination. Without the time for internal sense-making and external meaning-making, we remain on a hamster wheel that may result in superficial achievement, without the benefit of deep learning for ourselves and our students.

We need a new set of tools for a complex world in which there often is no one right answer. Power of Place aspires to bring these tools into a “third space” that welcomes complexity, is free of judgment, and creates a spacious environment for our best System 2 thinking. 

In connection,

Jane