From a recent article in CNN Money, lauding a new book: The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance, by journalist Steven Kotler, pointing out that peak mental states are triggered by a rich environment. Our take-away: Peak educational performance will be triggered by rich, complex, novel educational spaces. If we are going to take education seriously and make the most of what science has to tell us, then the 21st century school will not be business as usual, neutral lecture rooms.
"There are 15 flow triggers that are covered in The Rise of Superman. For example, you want a very specific challenge-to-skills ratio. The challenge needs to be 4% greater than the skills you bring to the table. We took that number and ran with it, and tried to test it in various scenarios, and we have found it's very effective.
A rich environment is another trigger. A rich environment is a fancy way of saying lots of novelty, lots of complexity, and lots of unpredictability. Google (GOOG) is great at this. They talk about 10x improvement and not 10% improvement. When you're asking for 10x improvement, you're throwing out all the existing assumptions, and you have to start radically new. You're massively increasing the amount of novelty, complexity, and unpredictability in your employees' work life."
From: The Science Behind Peak Human Performance, Anne VanderMey, CNN Money, March 17, 2014
