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Brain Matters

Jeff Dane
Author and
Kagan Trainer

The Windshield or the
Rearview Mirror?

Jeff Dane

When driving a car, we know the importance of spending the majority of our time looking ahead, and not behind. If we were to spend all of our time focusing on the things behind us, then we would surely crash. It is no mistake that the windshield is incredibly larger than the rearview mirror.

But it may be to our detriment to look only in the windshield and never in the rearview mirror. Brain research finds that looking in our rearview mirror can have a dramatic impact on happiness and life satisfaction.

A recent study by Jia Wei Zhang and Ryan T. Howell of San Francisco State University was published in ScienceDaily. The article is titled, Seeking Happiness? Remember the Good Times, Forget the Regrets. The authors examined the importance of how we remember events in the past. As the title implies, the authors find that savoring happy memories or reframing painful past experiences in a positive light could be effective ways for individuals to increase their life satisfaction. They go on to state that it is a person’s view of the past that probably has the greatest effect on life satisfaction. Satisfaction may then lead to greater achievement. Put another way, it may matter more how you remember the past then what actually happened in the past.

As teachers, we have the opportunity each and every day to provide lasting positive memories in our students’ lives. The impact will be life-long. Are there going to be adversities? Absolutely! But we have the opportunity to empower our students to look at these as ladders instead of crutches. How we look behind us determines how far we go ahead.

• Teach Re-framing: Teach students how to re-frame past events. Share with them how to take painful past experiences and to re-cast them in a positive light or to find the silver lining.
• Journal Reflections: Have students recall and write about positive classroom memories and positive personal memories.
• Teambuilding & Classbuilding: Have students share favorite memories and past experiences as they do Classbuilding and Teambuilding. This puts them in a more positive frame of mind for learning. Teambuilders and Classbuilders also create more positive relationships and memories.
• Focus on Multiple Intelligences: Teach students that there are many ways to be smart and that we can all stretch each intelligence. This will enable students to have a stronger acceptance of who they are, and where they are going.
• Overcoming Adversity. Use Character Quotations, character cards, and stories to share how others have overcome adversities and have succeeded. An aphorism that may resonate with some students is, “That which does not kill us, only makes us stronger.”
  

Never forget that each day you have the ability to mold dreams, build bridges, and change lives. You are truly designer originals!

For The Children,

Jeff Dane

	Reference Jia Wei Zhang and Ryan T. Howell. Seeking happiness? Remember the good times, forget the regrets. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 4, 2011, from www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2011/05/110502151431.htm