Atomic Habits for Student Agency

If there was such a thing as ‘School Improvement Plan Bingo’, the term student agency would be a banker on your bingo card. It is ubiquitous in modern education and has an uncanny knack of finding its way into so many school improvement plans...then cunningly reappearing year upon year.  

Why is that?  

Is it because it feels right to say we’re champions of student voice and choice?  

Is it because there’s a degree of ambiguity about what it actually means?  

Perhaps it’s simply that we don’t really know what it takes to get better at it.  

The likelihood is that it’s a combination of all the above.  

Whatever definition we settle on, we can probably agree that it involves a level of empowerment for young people, and that’s got to be a good thing that’s worthy of our sustained efforts. That’s the first two points covered, but how we do get better at it?  

Recently, a close friend of mine (also a school leader) bought me a copy of Atomic Habits by James Clear. I read it, enjoyed it, and of course finished with the obligatory key takeaways that I would endeavour to apply to my own life / habits. I won’t get into how that’s gone but put it this way, I'm still not going to the gym at 5am!

Yet, I was left with a feeling that something was missing from my reading of a book that has been a major international best seller for 5 years now, with a copy sold every 15 seconds.

So, I read it again, but this time through a different lens. The 2^nd reading was less about what it meant for me and my habits, and more about how it shaped my thinking on certain educational practices, namely (you guessed it), student agency.  

Habits are incredibly powerful building blocks for a successful life. Consider the one-time Australian author and actor, Frederick Matthias Alexander who would experience chronic laryngitis whenever he performed. After a succession of doctors proved unable to help him, Alexander set about finding his own cure. What has since become known as the Alexander Technique is a process to recognise and overcome habitual limitations in movement and thinking. 

The key word here is habitual.  

F.M. Alexander believed that ‘People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.’  

Philosophically speaking, that probably lands somewhere in the middle of the two extremes of free will and determinism which makes it instantly appealing.

Let’s reframe it ever so slightly as, 'Habits are at the core of personal empowerment which, therefore, makes them drivers of student agency.'

I'm convinced there are lessons in this, both for educators and parents, which I’ll delve into in future blogs but suffice to say that James Clear’s Atomic Habits is really shaping my thinking on education and parenting right now.

One little spoiler first though; have you ever encouraged students or your own children to set goals? I’d be amazed if the answer to that is no. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve sat down with a student who’s lost their way a little and encouraged them to refocus with some goal setting.  

In the first chapter of Atomic Habits, James Clear tells me I’d have been far better focusing on systems, and the desired end product will flow organically from that. He quotes 3-time Superbowl winner Bill Walsh who simply says, ‘The score takes care of itself.’ The way to win is to figure out how to get better every day and not worry too much about something that exists far in the future (think exams!). It's about marginal gains. 

I will also dig deeper into how to do this in future blogs.

22 years in education has taught me a good many things about what works and what doesn't, but I've got a lingering niggle that just won't go away: we are obsessed with looking for the next silver bullet that will transform the lives of young people.

The bad news is it doesn't exist. Apologies if you were waiting for the big reveal.

Wouldn't it be great if we stopped lurching from one big (and usually expensive) initiative to another and instead focused on best bets that are pretty much guaranteed to make a difference. Like building better habits - habits that will be the foundation for almost everything good that young people go on to achieve in life.

I’m not saying that some schools aren’t adopting such a sensible, no-nonsense approach, but they are in the minority. Why? Because it isn’t glamorous to market your school as, ‘The place where young people come to build good habits.’ It’s far more marketable to sing about your ‘world-class facilities’ and ‘innovative teaching methods’. Anyone for that game of education bingo?

Back to habits and a very pertinent case in point: with their slavish devotion to their devices, Gen Z are the least focused generation yet with an average attention span of just 8 seconds. Gen Alpha may yet be worse still. But the good news is that trend can be disrupted simply by building better habits around device use.

Let's stick with devices for a moment. During my career, I've taught Millennials, Gen Z, and now Gen Alpha and I've experienced first-hand the exponential rise in mental health issues. Like many, I have long been convinced of the toxic effect of social media which can disempower young people and erode their self-worth like nothing else.

Now flip that round: as previously established, good habits breed a strong sense of agency. Give them control and watch their self-worth blossom.

Both as educators and parents, we have the propensity to micromanage children's lives and wrap them up in cotton wool. That's not a criticism, it's just what happens when we want the best for them.

Imagine if we shifted our focus to building good habits instead...and then simply stepped aside! Brave maybe, but not foolish. We are empowering them with resilience, self-discipline and self-worth. Give them those 3 things and they’ve got the agency to deal with whatever lemons life decides to throw at them.

One of James Clear’s core messages in Atomic Habits is, 'Every action we take is a vote for the person we want to become', as our habits reinforce our identity.

If we can support young people to establish a secure sense of self with clearly defined values, then give them the know-how to hack their habit building, we’ll have agency in abundance. And the good news is it’s easily within our grasp to do it, both as educators and parents. 

So easy in fact that I WILL go to the gym at 5am tomorrow! Just need somebody to cunningly disable the snooze button on my phone now and I've got this.