Читать книгу The Noble School Leader - Matthew Taylor - Страница 28

We cannot teach below‐the‐surface competencies, but they can be learned. More aptly put, people can change deeply engrained habits of mind and behavior that often seem like permanent aspects of who they are.

Neuroscientists have discovered that our habits of mind and behavior become encoded in our brains as neural pathways. The deeper the habit, the stronger the neural pathway. Our oldest and deepest habits are neural superhighways that are very easy for us to travel. We follow them almost automatically when they are triggered by our environment, our emotions, and our thoughts. The exciting news about neural pathways is that we can deconstruct and replace them with new neural pathways through intentional focus and practice. We can intentionally rewire our brains! (Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee 2001).¹⁶

Not surprisingly, rewiring our brains takes significant effort and time. New pathways start out as footpaths that we carve with a machete in the wilderness, even as we long for the comfortable old neural superhighway of habits in the distance. We have to carve the new path over and over again for it to evolve—and stick. We must face the triggers of old habits and force ourselves to choose a new behavior over and over again. Over time, the paths become wider and easier to travel, and our old pathways begin to shrink. When we are successful, the new habit becomes the superhighway and the old one becomes the small dirt path in the forest.