One of the Cambridge learner attributes is ‘engaged.’ Robert Pirsig’s ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ has a lot to say about high quality engagement and the importance of student engagement in learning. Indeed the main idea he presents is that this is the secret to a fulfilled life. What lessons does this hold for schools?
Engagement in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: Summary
- Pirsig describes being engaged, or being absorbed in what we’re doing, as a crucial condition for high-quality experiences.
- Poor engagement, or gumption traps, are the external and internal factors that halt our progress.
- Enjoying high-quality experiences means striving for engagement and realising our full potential in the process. Excellent schools and teachers help students to do this.
A brilliant and original book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a modern epic and was an instant bestseller that would go on to inspire millions after its publication in 1974. The legacy of Pirsig, who died in 2017, was one of the most influential books written in the past half century.
According to Pirsig being engaged is a necessary condition for excellence. The feeling of being a subject separate from an object disappears when we are profoundly absorbed in what we are doing.
Pirsig uses the term ‘quality’ to describe an experience that he likens to the original meaning of the ancient Greek concept of arête. Roughly translated, arête is the act of living up to one’s full potential through engagement, virtue, and wisdom.
Individuals can most easily find quality in areas of their passions and talents. Examples might include solving a mathematical problem, overcoming technical or business challenges, making a team work well together or diagnosing and treating illness.
For others creating art or music, experiencing the improved well-being of others through service or climbing a new technical route on a mountain might be the stimulus. Sportspeople sometimes refer to the experience of engaged effortless perfection as ‘flow’ or ‘being in the zone.’
Those who live a life of quality strive for arête in all they do and realize their full potential in the process. Helping individuals to do this, in my opinion, is what distinguishes the truly excellent schools and teachers. While it is difficult to maintain arête in all of life’s challenges, I believe it is possible to nurture habits and approaches to learning that support it.
The opposite of this high-quality experience– poor engagement is what Pirsig describes as a gumption trap. Pirsig gives the example of a friend who loves riding his motorbike and has high-quality experiences doing so, but he gets very upset and impatient when it breaks down.
He does not have the mindset and values needed to engage with motorcycle maintenance and he will never solve the problem until he accepts this and deals with his values.
What are gumption traps?
- Pirsig uses these as a powerful examination of the moments, mindsets and obstacles that can derail progress. These can affect anything from tackling one of life’s challenging philosophical questions, to planning an unforgettable summer motorcycle trip through America’s Northwest.
- He describes gumption traps as both external and internal. When the truth knocks in our world and gumption traps appear, they can lead to frustration, disengagement and even abandonment of our goals.
- External gumption traps might include a powerful rainstorm on a motorcycle journey, a stubborn bolt during maintenance, or a lack of the right tools for repairs.
- Internal gumption traps are often more subtle: anxiety about making mistakes, boredom with repetitive tasks, or the ego’s resistance to learning something new on modern life’s road trip.
- They are not just obstacles to fixing a machine or completing a simple task, they are metaphors for the most perplexing contemporary dilemmas we face on our Chautauqua (spiritual journey).
- Pirsig’s writing and narrative tact in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance remind us that recognising these traps is the first step toward overcoming them. If we pause to reflect, seek help from others, or simply re-evaluate our approach, we can regain our momentum and rediscover the joy and meaning in our work.
Being in a gumption trap becomes a big problem when a lack of engagement becomes our default state of living. We go through the motions of living and experience tolerable boredom at best.
We work on automatic. For many people, this becomes the default state of their working lives.
Psychologists sometimes call this learned helplessness and it is becoming endemic in the modern world. We need to help young people understand when they are in a gumption trap and how to get out.
Implications for schools
What are the implications for schools? Here are some ideas:
In the words of Chris Watkins, have a learning rather than a performance orientation where the focus is on learning well rather than looking good. This is inherently more engaging and will also improve academic results.
Focus on understanding values as these are the basis for character. While almost every school and educational organisation identifies character traits that it wants to develop, many struggle with making these real in the day-to-day lives of learners, teachers and parents.
At Cambridge International, we talk about the learner attributes of being confident, responsible, reflective, innovative and engaged. In order to mean anything these must be modelled by teachers, form the basis for all approaches to teaching and learning and be embedded in school practice.
Parents need to learn to understand and support them. See the Guide to Developing the Cambridge Learner Attributes for ideas
Students need to develop metacognitive self-awareness and self-regulation so they are able to see when they are getting into a gumption trap and know how to get out of it.
Excellence requires persistence and purposeful practice but it also requires inspiration, challenge and ambition. Too often expectations for students are too low. In the words of Kurt Hahn: “There is more in us than we know. If we can be made to see it, perhaps for the rest of our lives we will be unwilling to settle for less.”
This blog is part of a series looking at the Cambridge learner attributes. See also: Nurturing confident and compassionate learners – what schools can do.
