DILIGENCE

by Bill Croskey, NCSP
LIS/LMS School Psychologist

"Diligence is the mother of good luck." -Benjamin Franklin

"Patience and Diligence, like faith, remove
mountains." -William Penn

Multi-tasking. I have heard it is a woman thing.  It appears to be a young thing as well. According to a recent Los Angeles Times/ Bloomburg poll, 50% of males aged 12 to 14 prefer to multi-task, while the rest want to focus on one thing at a time. For the girls, it was 63% preferring to multi-task. As ages increased, preference for multi-tasking also went up.

One respondent, Nathaniel, rarely does his homework in a quiet environment. For him, homework and hard rock are inseparable. "Most people think it's horribly distracting," he said, "but I did get a 4.0 GPA." Young people who multi-task report that they are too busy to do only one thing at a time, they need something to do during commercials or, for most (including 64% of girls 12 to 14), it's boring to do just one thing at a time.

Gloria Mark, a University of California at Irvine professor who studies interactions between people and computers, has studied multi-tasking by 25- to 35-year-old high-tech workers. She believes that this group is not much different from 12- to 24-year-olds, since the two groups grew up with similar technology. She frets that "a pattern of constant interruption" is creating a generation that will not know how to lose itself in thought.

Dr. Mark suggests that FLOW, an idea popularized by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced "Chicks send me high" he says), might be worth considering. According to Wikipedia, Flow is "a mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. "

Csikszentmihalyi says that  (1) how challenging a task is and (2) how skilled one has to be to perform it will effect Flow. If a task is not challenging and the performer lacks skill in that area, apathy is the likely reaction. If the person is highly skilled  but the task is not challenging, boredom results. If the task is highly challenging, but the performer lacks the skill to do it, anxiety is produced. But, if the task is challenging and the skill level  of the performer is high, Flow, an ecstatic state,  can be created. Gloria Mark says,  "You have to focus and concentrate, and this state of flow only comes when you do that. Maybe it's an old-fogy notion, but it's an eternal one: Anyone with great ideas is going to have to spend some time deep in thought."

The September Character Quality of the Month is Diligence. I know I sound like a Latin teacher; but, here goes: it comes from the Latin which means to choose one task or object apart from all others and give great value and attention to that task or object.

To practice Diligence, follow the  "I will" statements for children andadults alike. -- I will.

• Do a job right
• Follow instructions
• Concentrate on my work
• Focus my energy
• Finish my projects

Diligence seems to me to be the opposite of multi- tasking. Choosing a worthwhile task to complete is step one to being diligent. Step 2 involves disciplining  (why does that word always sneak in there?) myself to set aside other distractions and to keep focused. Finally, I need some “Endurance” (left over from June, which was a short month) to finish the job if I want to be Diligent about it.

Educators are diligent almost by definition. We certainly preach the "I will" statements to our students: "Finish your work. Do the job right. Follow instructions. Concentrate on your work. Don't be lazy." I do not ask you to be more diligent. Instead, you might remind your students of the sequence: Choose. Focus. Endure. Then play. If they do, they'll get with the flow!