Four FLOWing Waves – Part 2

Introduction

In this four-part writing, I am sharing four memorable examples of learners finding flow, and each has brought much joy to the learner and teacher. They are amongst so many whom I have met, taught or coached in the same span of time who have found flow, but they some of the most memorable ones.

Flow here is referencing the Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of ‘Flow’ (1990). Flow refers to a mental state that is highly focused and energized. It occurs when one is immersed in an activity that is delightful, satisfying and often productive. Neuroscientists’ research found that such enjoyable engagement facilitated the production of the neurotransmitter dopamine. In learning theory, a source of joy in learning comes from identified attained competence, which in itself, is a driver of intrinsic motivation. 

 2^nd Wave of Flow – Yes I got the BROWN! 

A class of new students in the introductory painting module were given the ‘brown challenge’ at the start of a 7-week module as a scaffolding activity. They were to mix a shade of brown that is shown in a printed photo of a fruit or vegetable. Each student is given a different photograph. And they were to derive the brown shade by mixing just the three primary colors. The crux lies in the ratio between the three colors. There is brown paint in the set of paint tubes, but the purpose is to build students’ capability not just in closely observing the color of the fruit/vegetable but also in observing and analyzing the interaction of the base colors. This is to get them to learn the property of acrylic paint, the pigment, their translucency and luminosity and ways to control the changes rather than relying on ready mixed shades.

A student sees colors rather differently from the rest. (Now I hate to use the term ‘color deficiency’ because it is a totally wrong representation of how people with a differentiated way of perceptually process the hues and pigments they see. There is no deficiency, just difference, and nothing medically unsound with such difference). Throughout the activity, the student scrutinized every slightest change to the brown shade with each careful adjustment to the ratio of the primary colors, and constantly compared that to the reference image. Now this is a deliberate scaffolding activity to coach them on dealing with wet pigments, and this boy was making every right move.

The first 5 students amongst the dozen who could accurately get the brown shade according to the reference would get 2 small packs of chocolate candy - a brown prize! One after another were getting close to nailing it and the race heated up! One student got it followed by another… and the boy who sees colors differently got the brown shade just in time to make the top 5! I got the brown winners to the front to collect the candy. This boy eagerly came up, got his two small packs of candy, clutched them firmly in his fists, turned and returned to his workstation while repeatedly punching the air with his candy-clutching fists! It was a beautiful and moving moment for me to behold, I held back tears. To the boy, it was a triumphant moment, a moment of overcoming years of growing up as a child who probably felt he has something missing compared to his peers. It was sweet victory! It was what John Dewey called esthetic moment in his book Art and Experience (Dewey. 1934). Dewey wrote extensively on this esthetic moment, and the best I could in my humble attempt to paraphrase that would be ‘An experience of intrinsic joy’. 

The module is a 7-week module. After the brown challenge in the first lesson, each student would pick a vegetable or fruit they want to depict in paint. For this student, I carefully got him to tell me what he sees in a color wheel, because I needed to understand what he sees, so I could give him a differentiated guidance. He chose a vegetable with a dominant color that he mostly sees a different hue, but he insisted on taking that challenge. I would guess that personal victory in the brown challenged spurred him a little. Anyway, it was GAME ON! 

Throughout the module, he showed much tenacity in trying to mix the color as accurately as he could, and he actually achieved that! I had not seen a student scrutinizing every bit of colors so closely as he had – with his nose often nearly touching the paint palette! His hands were often paint stained and he was oblivious to that – this is clearly flow in action. At the end of the module when all the works were completed, I got each student to share their new learning discoveries in the module and analyze how that compared with the previous module of carbon pencil and charcoal self-portrait. I had guessed that this boy might prefer the charcoal module as it did not involve colors. To everyone’s surprise, he said he preferred the painting module because it was more fun when it was hard! I smiled and thanked him for his grit! Inside my heart, as an educator, I had just experienced another esthetic moment (Dewey. 1934).