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Courage is a core positive psychology strength - and for some - it is their signature strength. Children and youth who learn to feel brave are not afraid to fail. They act with courage and that courage enables them to be honest with themselves and others, value fairness, and emerge as confident learners. Courage gives children and youth the confidence to take risks - whether to answer that hard math question or stand up to a bully - because they know how to manage their anxiety at optimum levels
Courage is an adaptive strength that children and youth can learn and practice.
In so doing, they express Jung’s spiritual virtues, Erikson’s adaptive potencies, Bandura’s self-efficacy, Rogers’s potentiality, Gardner’s appreciation, and Maslow’s self-actualization. Courage is the platform the motivates and supports the peak experience.
The Society for Neuroscience identifies 8 essential principles of neuroscience that are innate brain functions. NSF Principle #7: The human brain is endowed with a natural curiosity to understand how the world works. Children and youth are hard-wired to be curious and curiosity supplants fear. In all we do, if we are curious enough we will forget that we are afraid.
In the new issue of Psychology Today - July/August 2013 - there is a really interesting article, What Happy People Do Differently. Educators should put this article at the top of their summer reading list! The authors, Drs. Tartt and Biswas-Diener, explain that happy people are able to balance “risk and reward”.
Neuroscience tells us that curiosity trumps fear.
Fearless children and youth are more focused on positive outcome than on possible failure. They are more focused on exciting prospects than adverse results. Research suggests that the flip side of the courage coin is - surprisingly - curiosity. The same curiosity that explores space, climbs mountains, and enters the math competition. The kind of proverbial curiosity that may ‘kill the cat'.
When curiosity is activated, curiosity counters fear. In fearless children and youth, the courage that boosts learning flows. They take more learning risks, they forget to be embarrassed, are not afraid to ask a question, and are unafraid of making a mistake. They are wholly absorbed in global discovery and absolved of egocentric worries.
The research on optimum anxiety reinforces Vygotsky’s theory of ‘proximal development’. That is, teachers design provocative lessons outside the student’s ‘comfort zone’ with built-in instructional supports that scaffold success. Thus, the lessons most likely to make students happy to learn are the lessons that simultaneously arouse some careful measure of anxiety and activate sufficient curiosity to modulate that anxiety. Happy children are a little nervous but in an expectant, excited, and optimistic way. Happy learning feels like getting on a roller coaster the first time!
Risk means not knowing exactly what we are doing or what might happen. Reward means we are so curious to fine out that we conquer our inhibitions. @copyright 2013
Notes
Articles
Brody, J.E. (December 17, 2012). When anxiety interrupts a child’s life. New York: New York Times.
Kashdan, T. B., Rose, P., & Fincham, F.D. (2004). Curiosity and exploration: Facilitating positive subjective experiences and personal growth opportunities. Journal of Personality Assessment 82(3), 291-305.
Perry, B. D. (2001). Curiosity: The fuel of development. New York: Scholastic Magazine.
Books
Holt, J. (1995). How children fail. New York: Perseus.
Video
Discovery Channel: How can we manage ‘creative fear’?
TED Talk: Before Avatar…a curious Boy.
Web Resources
The Discovery Channel: Curiosity.com What is Fear?
Institute for Humane Education: Replacing Fear of the Unknown with Curiosity
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AVAILABLE NOW: Positive Psychology in the Elementary School Classroom - my first book in a series intended to help teachers build positive psychology classrooms. (W.W. Norton & Company, 2013).
