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“An evolving approach to the science of pleasure suggests that each of us contains multiple selves—all with different desires, and all fighting for control. If this is right,…  should outsiders, such as employers and policy makers, get into the fray?”

Paul Bloom’s article in the Atlantic titled “First Person Plural” struck me as very pertinent to education as well.  Should educators get into the fray?  In actuality, they already are. On a daily basis, they interact with 25-30 students, which if the assumptions outlined in this article are valid, might be a number closer to 75- 90 different personalities a teacher must interact with. 

“Examples abound in our own lives. Late at night, when deciding not to bother setting up the coffee machine for the next morning, I sometimes think of the man who will wake up as a different person, and wonder, What did he ever do for me? When I get up and there’s no coffee ready, I curse the lazy bastard who shirked his duties the night before.”

A common lament of educators is the lack of transfer and application students demonstrate from one year to the next, even one topic to the next.  Perhaps, this multiple selves hypothesis can give educators some insight.  Maybe students just have a hard time shifting between frames of  mind and don’t connect one set topics with another because a different self houses that information.  An educators question shifts from, “how can I help my students to synthesis information, so they can use it?” to “how can I help my students synthesize their selves?”  The old question rests on the assumption that they lose or have never assimilated information.  The new question trusts that it is there somewhere, just needs to become accessible to all selves that rest within an individual.

What might a pedagogy look like that took into account the multiple selves hypothesis?  I could imagine one approach would be to diversify both the topics and the process.  If topics cannot be readily placed into a single category, perhaps multiple frames of mind will be needed to handle it.  Likewise, if the process of learning and the learning environment is diversified to include more group work, maybe multiple frames of mind will need to be marshaled.  Another way to diversify the learning environment would be to place students in multiple roles.  In the course of any project, students would play collaborator, reporter and evaluator.  In all cases, a single individual works in a structure that increases the need to be flexible and reflective.   

Many new questions arise.  Does complexity and diversity actually demand more selves?  Can working in groups that help students deal with other individuals also help students deal with their own selves? Can playing multiple roles to complete one project help students deal with multiple selves?