Providing a Human-Centered, Self-Actualizing Education to Every Student

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Hey Diane, I missed you a lot last episode. It's good to have you back and I appreciate that you continue to carry and balance a lot. So it's good to be here with you.

Yeah, it's good to be back in conversation with you. I, I was really sad to miss the last conversation for multiple reasons, but this conversation was one I was really excited to be in and so I did not want to miss it. And it's also good to be back in a routine because routines are important and. But this conversation in particular I think is going to be really stimulating.

Yeah, yeah, routines are so important. One of the many things I learned from my undergraduate degree in psychology, which is in many ways the fact that foundation for how I think about learning and teaching and education. And so today I am equally excited for the conversation we're going to have with one of my favorite psychologists in the world, Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman. You know, in addition to authoring nearly a dozen books and writing a really insightful and useful newsletter that I would recommend to everyone, he hosts the most popular psychology podcast called the Psychology Podcast and know he's the founder of the center for Human Potential, which says a lot about who he is and what he believes in. And they offer courses and opportunities to learn self actualization coaching, which is something I'm sure we'll get into in a few minutes, what that means and why it's important. I could go on and on about Scott's resume, but I want to actually get in and talk with him. So let me just say what's important for me beyond all of that is just his care and focus on doing work that actually impacts people's lives and is meaningful and relevant and in particular in schools and with young people. And so that is where we connected over a decade ago, I think, or somewhere around there. And his work has deeply influenced me and my work. So super grateful to have him here. And I know, Michael, you feel equally strong.

Yeah. Well, Scott, I, I won't keep singing your praises too long, but I want to do a little bit more adulation because among all the things that Diane just mentioned, I also appreciate how on social media you were able to strike a nuanced balance in a medium that does not appreciate nuance. And yet you're able to be popular still. And that's something we care about deeply in this conversation. Like Diane and I are always trying to find the nuance. We're always trying to find third ways between polarized viewpoints. And I know we're going to tackle some Big topics today in not nearly the time that they deserve. From self actualization to growth, mindset to intelligence. But I, I just always appreciate how you tackle these topics and you move beyond the average, into the nuance so seamlessly. So, Scott, I will stop being a total fanboy, but just really excited to see you here. Thank you.

You guys. You guys, it is such an honor to be here. I, I love you guys and y feel like I need to invite you to on my podcast someday.

Well, we're, we're happy, we're happy to do that. And so let, let's, let's open the conversation with something that I love, which is you. You wrote a manifesto. I think a lot of people think about writing a manifesto, but you actually wrote one. And this isn't just any manifesto. It's a manifesto on human centered education.

Yeah.

And so let's just start there. Tell us about your beliefs and which I really go to the core of. What, what, what is the purpose of education? Which is something Michael and I talk about all the time.

Yeah, thank you so much for, for bringing that up. I think I'm like unwaveringly humanistic in my approach. Like I really am unflappable about this. You know, like all around me I'll see non humanistic approaches. And I just try not to get caught up in the vortex of those tsunamis. I stay in my own path. I really believe firmly that all students should be treated as human first. And it's a very simple principle that has very deep implications. Yet it is mind bogglingly not the central principle of education. There's such a focus on results first, you know, or whatever it be. Whatever. Yeah, I mean it's now, it's, it's not SAT now because SAT has been banned everywhere. But, but, but they're still thinking about, well, what other results should we look. It's always still results focused, you know, in a sort of standardized way. It just, they just move the goalpost from one standardized goalpost to another to come up with a metaphor that doesn't make any sense. But anyway, you know what I meant. You knew what I meant. So I just think that that frustrates me because I think there's so much greater potential that students have they can display to us if we treat them as a whole person and we view as sort of a needs based approach where we recognize that to be human comes with certain basic needs as well as growth as well as growth needs. I don't think either security needs or growth needs are being met. In schools and then it isn't. It is a legitimate question, what should education, what should be in the purview of education? And I think that's an interesting question too. But I would argue the human part belongs somewhat, at least.

Yeah, I think Michael's going to take us more in that direction in a moment. But before we go there, is it useful to just sort of define self actualization? Like what does that mean to you? And how should, how should we. And I know you have a beautiful metaphor that you use, but I think that would be helpful to folks.

Oh sure, absolutely. So there, there are other buzzwords that are, that are popular these days, like happiness and achievement are the two biggest ones I see over and over again in the education world. But I think self actualization is, is. It has a different flavor, it sort of vibrates on a different frequency than either happiness or achievement. It's something else. It's not a word that's used much these days. It was used a lot in the pot smoking 60s. Right. And I'm trying to put it on a scientific foundation for anyone who will listen to me. I'm trying to put the science of self actualization and show that we can measure certain characteristics that bring us closer to, to realizing the best within us, sort of our highest potential, our unique creative potential. And that's really all I think of it as, is your, what is your unique creative contribution or unique creative potential? It's not as flowery and spiritual sounding as it sounds. That's all. I mean, you know, and that is something different though than happiness and achievement. You can actually be realizing your unique creative potential and have a lot of meaning in your life, but not particularly feel happy a lot, you know, and like we need to teach people that's like, that's okay. You know, we have a lot of young people who are obsessed with feeling good all the time and are colossal assholes to everyone, you know.

No, but it's so interesting to hear you say that, Scott. And, and you're writing on this has been so foundational to my thinking about it. And I'd love you to just translate that because I think you gave a good overview of sort of what not to optimize for in education and maybe started to hint at, you know, if, if we're thinking about the unique contributions of each individual as a human being. So what, what, what in your mind might that look like from the experiences? And we could stay broad strokes, but just thinking about young kids in elementary school through middle and high school, I, I imagine it changes over time. What, what are the sorts of experiences that you think school ought to have for students?

Yeah, great question. So I comment a lot of this through the path pathway of trying to reconceptualize gifted education and, and special education. So let me just say, like, my roots, my roots in this. Like, my first book, like over a decade ago was called Ungifted Intelligence Redefined, where I argued for reconceptualization of human intelligence. I called it the theory of personal Intelligence. Now I'm calling it the theory of self actualizing intelligence because that's more in line with, you know, everything I'm doing. That's really what I was arguing for was, you know, saying like, look, you know, we treat these gifted kids as though they're the only ones capable or not the capable, the only ones who would benefit from enrichment. It's like, what A lot of them aren't even benefiting from that, from whatever the quote, enrichment they're giving in gifted education classes, which are. There's nothing very valuable to even the gifted kids. But I really think that there's also this false dichotomy we have that you're either learning disabled on one hand or gifted on the other hand, or you're in this third category, mainstream education, where you're just supposed to fly by the seat of your pants. You're like, that's it. You got nothing special. You got no excuses. And, and so I think that's just like, wow, what a weird system we have, you know, in K through 12, where that's, that's the way the world looks. And, and I really believe in terms of experiences. I think we can democratize a lot of the spirit of what we. How we treat gifted kids, but democratize that towards everyone. But we view it through the lens not of achievement. Like, we view gifted kids as though their goal is to then go out and like, create Facebook, you know, like, that's like, that's their only purpose, you know, or to get, you know, get in Harvard and then, you know, pay back the endowment someday. But I feel like people are worth more than that as humans and, you know, democratizing gifted education in a way where we. The lens of self actualization for everyone, I think just completely changes the goalpost because, you know, every student viewed through the lens of self actualization, would you treat them the same way in terms of experiences? Maybe the experience would be different, but in terms of the, you know, the sort of flavor of the experiences that we try to emphasize, you know, project based learning, I Mean, this is. Diane's no stranger to a lot of the experiences I'm going to mention right now being a legend when it comes to creating, creating just these kinds of experiences. I remember when Diane gave me a tutorial in the Facebook headquarters. I don't know, I don't know if I'm allowed to say that. I don't know. I don't know if that was like a top secret meeting, but you can edit that out. You can edit that out. If I wasn't honest, that. But, but you know, just individualizing things in a way where the, this sacred. This may sound a little woo woo, but the honoring the sacredness of each child's unique self actualization journey is something really special. And why do we only honor that if you're quote, gifted? And then we don't even really honor that. We, what we do is we put so much pressure on you to perform and be gifted. Oh, you're gifted now. Be gifted. And then a lot of these. Then there's a whole field of gifted education on underachieving gifted students, which I think is a ridiculous term in itself. I've argued that we need to get rid of the word underachieving. Um, because then that implies that they're, they're ungifted kids who are overachieving. And I'm like, what the hell does that mean by law? Biological opposites. There's just so much, I don't know, I feel like I'm a little quirky, I'm a little odd, like I just see things differently. But this is just the way I see it is, it's just, it's ridiculous. The kind of system we set up and I do think we can create experiences that, that, that give a vitality or an aliveness not just to school, but to, you know, to life.

Yeah. So so much of what you're saying, Scott, I think, I'm sure people who know like what we talk about and, and are connecting that to, to like the work that, that I do, they'll see it in what you're saying. You know, we use some different words, we use personalization and things like that, but this idea that each individual human has their own, They're a unique human that will develop into this world. And if we help them develop, they're going to make a contribution and none of us know what that is. And it will be very, if we do it well, it will be widely varied and that's the beauty of the world and the human experience. Another thing that I incorporate a lot into my work or have over the years is this idea of growth mindset and this. And you've done some really fascinating interviews recently with Carol Dweck and you're doing some writing about this. And, and as Michael said, like, one of the things that often happens to practitioners is we hear these competing ideas from the science and then we don't know what to make of it. And I don't think that's where you're going here with growth mindset. You have some really interesting comments, but I don't think you're saying throw the baby out with the bathroom. So tell. Help us, help us get the nuance of growth mindset that we should be understanding.

I think I can get to the right to, to the core of the nuance there with a quote from Maslow. What's not worth doing is not worth doing well. And that, that just explains my whole critique of growth mindset theory. But still, of course, not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. What happened, what tends to happen with, is that, you know, wonderful researchers, I consider them my friends like Angela Duckworth and Carol Dweck, they will do a lot of hard earned research and will present a construct, but then educators will treat it like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and will apply it indiscriminately to everything without any appreciation of context. You know, like, I saw it happen not just with growth mindset, but I saw it happen with grit. It's just like, oh my God, like you have entire schools that are now around grit. Grit is the only thing that matters in the school. And it's like, why is grit the only thing that matters? Like, I don't think Angela would ever say that. Angela's a wonderfully nuanced human, you know, and she would never argue that. You know, it's just, it's just ridiculous how much we can focus so much on. And so I think blind grit, as I've called it, or blind growth growth, growth mindset. You know, you can have growth mind mindset at the kazoo for things that aren't right for you. And then why should we be rewarding that you applied your growth mindset to that? You know, I make the distinction between growth mindset and growth motivation. In my self actualization program. I. We really focus, we really focus on growth motivation. We, we really don't talk about growth mindset at all because I think that can come from a growth motivation when you are intrinsically motivated to grow toward in a certain direction based on what is really right for you. Or right for your soul. Again, sorry, pardon me if I sound woo woo here, but I do think there, there is something. There's a cell, capital, self, soul, whatever. The, the, the meditation people, far before psychology ever existed as a field, pointed out when you're really, really in touch with that, you can't help but have a growth mindset. You know, that's like an outcome of a growth motivation. But when you lead with growth mindset without the soul involved, I don't think that's anything to be applauded.

Super interesting, Scott, because hearing you say that reminds me also of sort of the research around motivation more generally that, you know, it's not just your belief in can I accomplish the goal, it's is it a goal worth accomplishing? And right to me and not, not to some other person, but to me. And so it sounds like it comes from there. The other thing I've taken from some of your conversations, and I want to try this out on you and see if it makes sense, is in one of the conversations you had with Carol, you sort of, you know, or she did and you did, talked about how, you know, she could have like a low dosage intervention, a 45 minute, you know, or you know, a couple times sort of tutorial, if you will, on growth mindset. And it could produce a, I'm going to mess it up, But I think 0.15 standard deviation of, of impact. And she's like, this is a huge thing. But then I think your observation was it could be undermined by other characteristics, like if the teacher didn't really believe in growth. Right. And I'll try to use growth motivation for this conversation or you know, something I think a lot about is that the system, right, often undermines these views of growth. So in a time based education system or a zero sum education system, right, I can tell you all about growth mindset or growth motivation all, all I want. But at the end of the day, if at the end of a three week unit, we all move on to the next one, regardless of the effort you've put in, regardless of like learning and I label you a C student or something like I've just shot in the foot everything I was preaching in my 45 minute intervention. And so in some ways the environment I think deeply undermines any of these things, you know, intentionally or unintentionally. But, but maybe I'm misunderstanding you. I just want, I, I sort of wanted to paint that scenario and get you to react.

Context matters. And, and in, in the, the more recent Updated papers that Carol has written. To be fair to Carol, she makes that very clear. I wrote, I have a substack newsletter and I did a really, really deep, deep reference list with deep dive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really nerdy. It's really. With full. I wanted to lay it all out there. So I don't have an agenda. I think that's something that's a little bit quirky about me is that with any of this, any of this, I don't have an agenda. I have, you know, I have beliefs based in evidence that I can always be changed, you know, and my beliefs can change, you know, and although I did it earlier, say I firmly believe. I do firmly believes things, but even those can be changed. But I, you know, when you look at the full research literature in the past five years on growth mindset, everyone agrees. Context matters. Everyone agrees. When we're not talking about. You're trying to sell a best selling book and the publicity machine isn't behind it. You know, you don't have the. The publicity machine doesn't care at all about the truth. It cares about selling. It cares about what it cares. It has its own goals. The publicity ecosystem has its own goals. But if your goal is truth, everyone agrees. Carol agree. You know, you, if you read Carol's response to the critics, I posted a paper that, that her and her. David Yeager, I think that's his name. Yeah, David. David Yeager, who's also star superstar in this world. Really heartfelt. He has a really heartfelt love of this work. He does. And he really wants to help others. And I've talked to him and I can say that to be the case

influencer of my work as well.

Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. I have nothing but, but massive respect for all these people. But I am a nerd. You know, at the end of the day, I really want to know that. I don't want, I don't like bs, you know, I don't like a lot of fat around things. I want to be like, no, what is, what is the data? And everyone agrees. And when they wrote their response paper to the critics, they agreed. In the response paper they said, you know, underserved populations tend to benefit more from growth mindset interventions than upper class rich people. You know, and you look at the little nuances. Teacher, teacher effectiveness matters. Like you can have a terrible teacher teaching growth mindset. And that's not as an effective intervention than a good teacher. So you start adding in these really important nuances and you. And it adds up to a Much more nuanced picture.

Let's go to the other topic that you've spent a lot of time on researching is intelligence. You know, you've done a lot of work on the construct of intelligence and general IQ and such. And at least in my experience, educators are often uncomfortable with the notion that a general IQ or something like that might exist. And of course, there's lots of other works around intelligence. There's Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences. There's stuff on emotional intelligence, Peter Salovey, others, you know, and some people will then throw arrows at those folks as well. Right. So I, I'm just, I, I think for our audience, it would be useful for you to give a bit of a landscape around the research around intelligence. And what are the implications for educators here?

I mean, how much time do you have?

This is like, we'll take, we'll, we'll take, we'll let you stretch out a little bit.

Yeah, I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit on the Asperger spectrum. So I, you get, if you get me started on a top, a passion topic. You can't let, I can't stop talking. So this is, this is particularly, you know, I mean, I, I, while everyone else was dating in grad school, I was in the library literally going through every book in the intelligence book section. You know, like, that's, Yeah, I mean, so I'm obsessed with that, that question you asked me. So Robert Sternberg, for instance, he was my advisor in grad school.

Oh, wow.

And I, I, I was accepted to work with Howard G. Well, at Harvard. So I had to make that choice. Do I work with Robert Sternberg or Howard Garner? No offense to Howard Gardner. I chose to be in a psychology department as opposed to a school of education. But they both influenced me greatly when I was in, when I was an undergraduate and I was reading their works because I really felt like it rang true that there is something, there is more to intelligence than what's measured on IQ tests. And that, to me, was a very important insight. They both differ in what that more is, you know, but they both, you know, argue that the IQ tests are missing out on a lot of what it is to, to be intelligent. I would argue that misses out a lot of what it means to be human. And that's a little bit of a different argument. That's sort of the direction I've gone. And that's different than both of them just giving you a, just giving you a sort of context. And like, where do I sit in this whole thing. Yeah. So they really focus on extending the abilities. Right? Both of them. It's abilities they're extending. But I'm trying to extend beyond ability to passion and motivate to motivation, to the domain of motivation. So that was, that was my. You know, I hope people view that as a contribution to the. To the field of intelligence and the field of gifted education. I mean, it. I reported on a statistic over a decade ago that boggled my mind. Almost every gifted education program in the country, only one considers motivation important part of the identification process for giftedness. And so that blew. That, you know, blew my mind because talent and motivation to me are in a trick, inextricably intertwined. Ability, ability, and whatever you want to call it. Talent, ability, intelligence, whatever the heck you want to call it, they are so inextricably intertwined. A lot of pop books like to say talent is overrated. You know, you could sell a lot of copies of books if you say talent is overrated. I think talent is underrated. And what I mean by that, maybe I'll write the book someday. Talent is underrated. I actually am thinking about that, and it come with, you know, it sounds cheeky. It sounds cheeky. And how. And someone might say, well, how, Scott, how. Wait, where did you. How could you say that? Aren't you making the argument there's more? What my argument is is that no, talent is really, really important, but in a different way than people think. I don't believe that it's. It should be threatening to others if someone has an innate talent. I think that we should have a school system where everyone's unique talents and its linkages to their own motivations and goals are appreciated. And we're not anywhere near that. We're. We're cutting SAT programs. We're terrified of talent, and we're terrified everything in the name of this can. Equity. In the name of equity. We've like, said excellence just doesn't matter at all. You know, I believe you can have equity and excellence. Don't get me wrong. I'm not. I'm not a monster, but. I know. I. I know, but I'm just saying it's like everyone's one way or the other in their thinking these days, and we need more both end way of thinking. Right. I think that excellence has fallen by the wayside in this. We're terrified, you know, to admit that intelligence matters or that there's talents. I would rather broaden the notion of talent to include motivation, but not get rid of, get rid of or ignore talent as a concept that's important, or intelligence as a concept that's important. There are obvious individual differences in various dimensions, and you can sweep them under the rug as much as you want in the name of equity, you know, and say, like, oh, everyone is exactly the same. We're communism. But. But no matter how hard you try to do that, that's good luck. People's soul is still going to yearn for expression no matter what what you do.

Something that's coming up for me right now is. I know we're. We're getting to a place where we probably need to close, but, Scott, you've touched on it a bunch, and so

it got me started.

It feels like it's. It's okay to share. Like, one of the things that I think the two of us have connected on over the years is a sort of common experience as children in education. For me personally, you know, I may have touched on this before, but, you know, I was. I was tested for special education and I was denied access to gifted programs. And that then put me in that middle mainstream that you're talking about. Tons of context was missing. You know, I was in a home that was, you know, physically and emotionally abusive. And there was all this stuff going on. And to your point, like, inside of me as a little girl, I knew that I was highly motivated. There's things of me that needed to be expressed and come out and always felt like they were sort of hampered or blocked by the system. And I got lucky along the way that a few people believed in me in ways. And I know you have a very similar story that we have really resonated that influences how we see education in the system and the purpose of it. And so I just feel like that's coming out. We're just scratching the surface of how it comes out in your work and your willingness to be nuanced and to not sort of just accept these big concepts and, you know, have a polarized conversation, but actually dig in on what they. What the implications and what they mean at deeper levels. So.

Absolutely. I just published. I just tweeted something just a couple minutes ago before. Not minutes before our interview. That'd be awkward. Said. While extremists certainly think they are the most knowledgeable in the room, there's a new massive worldwide study across 44 different nations that found that moderates are actually the most knowledgeable about politics. But I think that this applies to anything educators as well. You know, I think that the loudest voice in the room doesn't isn't necessarily the most knowledgeable, so many things for

us to take away. But I think the one that I really want to focus in on is, as we wrap, is your willingness to have your mind changed. So to hold strong, you know, perceptions and opinions about what you're doing today, but then being open to what the evidence is going to say and what more you can learn.

I'll give you an example of that real quick. You know, I went into the field thinking I was taking down iq, you know, Gardener Sternberg. That was my starting place in carving my own unique space has been a journey because I started to do like traditional IQ research with Nicholas McIntosh at University of Cambridge. Published articles on IQ with IQ test constructors, like sort of went to the dark side of what I had originally viewed as the dark side and realized that there is a lot of nuance to this stuff. The field of human intelligence, actually a really rich, interesting, exciting field. The genetics, the neuroscience, the interactions between genetics and the environment and even lead and how much that can affect our, you know, environmental factors, genetic epigenetic expressions. It's such a rich, rich field. And to then to just make some blanket statements like IQ bad. You know, I don't know what they say is good. IQ bad. What, what's good? I don't know what would be the opposite? What's the opposite of IQ Being dumb. Let's promote dumbness in society now it's like, yeah, so I think that there just is a lot of. But, but that's one example anyway of how my mind changed over the years because I did start off thinking IQ back in a simplistic way and my own approach now I literally said talent is underrated. Like I said that. Scott Barry Kaufman said that. I would never have said that when I started off in my career. I would. I, you know, there was, there was a book by a book, I think it was called Talent is Overrated. Yeah, that's actually the title of the book. And that was one of my bibles along with Howard Garden's book and Sternberg's book. And so that would have been my, you know, sort of proselytizing to everyone as a talent's overrated, we need to ignore talent. And, and my nuance is that I'm saying no, actually I think we can hold in our mind multiple things at once that talent really exists. I watched this five year old prodigy, you know, playing Rachmaninoff on YouTube the other day. Well, you want to like, you say, like, you know, let's cancel Any program to help nurture that kid. Because we're all. With enough grit, with enough growth, mindset,

we could all do that.

We can all do that. It's like, no. No, we can't. Yeah. I'm sorry.

Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. Do you know what I'm saying?

I totally know what you're saying. And what. The only thing I would add on to it and then I'll turn it over to Michael to bring us home is, you know, there's. I believe there's something in every single human. There is talent in every single human, and that's what we should be searching for and enabling to come out because we just have such a limited view on what is valued and what talent is. And so the companion to that is the expansion of appreciation and definition of talent.

Well, that's it. You nailed it. I think we're all on the same page.

I think that's right. And I love taking that from this conversation of. It's more helping the individual express what's meaningful to them and how they can make a contribution to the broader society. So, Scott, as we wrap up, Diane and I have little tradition where we give folks a little bit of a window into things we're watching for pleasure, for reading, for pleasure, whatever. It might be. Often not related to work. Sometimes it is related to work because Diane and I are nerds.

And I love that about you.

It's hard. It's hard. It's hard for us to strip that away. So, yeah, if we could put you on the spot. What's something you're writing or. Excuse me. Listening to, watching, reading.

Sure. So I'm absolutely obsessed right now with the field of mentalism, which is a subset of magic. And I practice now about eight hours a day. And I'm. And I. I created an Instagram. I'm the amazing Dr. Scott. So, okay, we'll follow a year. For a year or two from now, we'll look out. I want. I want to actually maybe move into. Into maybe doing some gigs and things. So, yeah, I'm gonna set up a table on the beach path here in Santa Monica. I can. I can read your mind. I think it's a nice. It' fusion of my psychology background with. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so that's what I'm into. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Diane, what about you?

Well, I'm gonna. I'm gonna change up today because this conversation has brought back to me a short story that I've read many times that is just so related to what we're talking about. It's a Kurt Vonnegut short story called Harrison Bergeron and if you haven't read, just epitomizes what we're talking about in this conversation. So highly recommend. Very provocative and interesting. How about you, Michael?

Very cool. Well, I confess I've been in such a state of mind with my family. Scott, my father in law passed away and so it's been. It's been. But he, so he was mildly on the Asperger's spectrum as well and had all these handwriting patents and recognition. He would read people's personalities through their handwriting.

Oh my.

Really, really fun stuff. Amazing individual. Built the help build the initial ThinkPad by IBM. But as a result though I've been unable to read or watch much the last few weeks and so I've been going deep on just Australian Open tennis because that's my, that's my happy place. And as a result the two minute tennis channel on YouTube because I've been reconstructing my backhand and even though I haven't been able to play as much as I've wanted to, little two minute tips here just to sort of allow me to get better at that. So it's not magic or mentalism, but this has been my little, this has been my little escape. So for folks who are also avid tennis players, subscribe to the 2 Minute Tennis Channel but also subscribe to Scott's podcast, this the psychology podcast. And Scott, thanks for joining us and all of you listening, thanks for joining us as always on class disrupted.