Thinking about how to teach and not push students brains into down-shifting is very complicated as there is a delicate balance between the level of stress that helps and motivates learning (good stress) and the level that pushes learners over the edge (bad stress).  This is especially complex because that “edge” is different for each learner. Teachers and parents need to understand each of their students or child’s threshold for stress and then learn the “dance of teaching” that fits the pace, rhythm and style of each individual child.  Each child’s dance will be different.

Some children may feel more confident when the level of stress is similar to a waltz.  They feel the ¾ rhythm and learn at that speed.  If you try to teach them at the pace - of say a march or a samba, their comfort zone may be violated and they might shift down in order to protect themselves from the speed.

There are other students who would be bored with the waltz level of stress and their brain would down-shift to escape the boredom.   Other students seem to be able to accommodate and thrive equally well with a variety of different dance paces.  The role of teachers and parents is to find the dance(s) a child feels comfortable with and to maintain a balance of stress for each student.

There are some known situations that are predictive or are highly potential for causing students brains to down-shift and stop learning. Some of these are when students: 1) are in a learning environment where they are being taught in a language other than their primary language, 2) are being instructed in a second language and have a language disability in their primary language, 3) intellectual capacity is below average or significantly above average, 4) have a developmental reading, spelling, written communication and/or math disorder, 5) have been exposed to long-term physical and/or emotional abuse or neglect, 6) suffer from a mental or emotional disorder and/or 7) have a physical medical/health condition (ADHD, autism, behaviour, head injury etc.) that affects availability to learn.

This is a significant list isn’t it?  The “old” paradigm of teaching is to focus on a student’s weaknesses and develop individual programs and classrooms for remediation. Many years of focusing on deficits or weaknesses has not shown any improvement in outcomes for these students. In fact, data shows students with these special interventions are less likely to complete their education and more likely not to be unemployed when out of school.

Practicing the principles of positive psychology requires a shift in instructional focus from deficit-based to strengths-based and would support that instructional strategies be targeted toward teaching to strengths and evaluating success in terms of products completed by students working from an  area of strength.

Students beginning the educational process from a strengths-based philosophy, learn what they are good at and how to incorporate their strengths into solving problems and being competent.  Students educated with a deficits-based model learn they: are not good at what teachers want, can not be successful, are not competent, are different than their classmates (and not in a good way) and, do not like school.  These kinds of self-perceptions are very difficult to turn around once entrenched into a student’s psyche and give rise to the self-fulfilling prophesy - if a student thinks she will fail, she will fail.