So, choice is good; but, what about too many choices? Recently, when I wanted to learn more about blogging, I used Google to search the Web, and I was presented with over 127 million results. Which ones were worth my attention? Later, when I needed to buy sunscreen, I made the mistake of going into a Walmart "superstore" and was stymied by the number of brands and varieties they sold. How is a person supposed to choose from so many seemingly identical choices?
It was after these two experiences that I came across Sheena Iyangar's TED Talks on "The Art of Choosing" (2010) and "How to Make Choosing Easier" (2011). She describes what happens when we are faced with "choice overload," and how some of our assumptions about having an abundance of choices can actually make us miserable. While we Americans like to believe that "the more choices you have, the more likely you are to make the best choice," in practice, people tend to second-guess their choices and thus suffer from guilt, frustration, and even depression as they dwell on the choices they didn't make.
Looking back on my experiences as a home educator, I can see how having an abundance of choices has hampered me at times. When I first began homeschooling, I had to decide what sort of method and materials I wanted to use. The New Hampshire Home Education law (RSA 193-A) allowed me to choose any approach or curriculum as long as it consisted of "instruction in science, mathematics, language, government, history, health, reading, writing, spelling, the history of the constitutions of New Hampshire and the United States, and an exposure to and appreciation of art and music." I could also choose which of those subjects to teach each year as long as the annual evaluations demonstrated that my children were "making educational progress at a level commensurate with their ages and abilities."This freedom was both liberating and daunting. How was I ever going to choose the best educational materials from the wide selection available? (Consider: a single homechool curriculum vendor, the Rainbow Resource Center, offers over 40,000 educational products, and there are many other curriculum vendors.) Once I had chosen, would I be plagued with doubt, wondering whether I should have chosen differently?
In "The Art of Choosing," Iyengar describes situations where people prefer to say "no" to making their own choices. I recognize the truth in what she says. Even so, I am grateful for the freedom my children and I have had to choose our own homeschooling lifestyle, every detail of it, and I wouldn't have wanted things any other way. But choosing, and living with my choices, has not always been easy.
The search for exceptional resources was a process of trial and error. I looked for advice in Home Education Magazine and Growing Without Schooling, a now-defunct magazine established by John Holt. These publications encouraged me to allow my children to pursue their interests, to choose topics and experiences that fascinated them. So, I dutifully gathered up armloads of books, science kits, art projects, and other materials, and (mostly) allowed my kids to choose from a wide selection. This worked very well with my oldest child, who read books voraciously and seemed interested in nearly everything. She had clear ideas about what she wanted to know and was happy to chart her own course with only minimal guidance. Having more choices and more freedom helped her to feel more empowered.
My two younger children, however, disliked being asked "What would you like to learn about?" They seemed overwhelmed and frustrated by all the choices inherent in such an open-ended question. "What would you recommend?" they would ask me in return. Naturally, there were also many situations in which they preferred to choose for themselves (ranging from what time of day was best for studying to whether or not they would take classes at the local high school), but they were often content to have someone they trusted and respected do some of the choosing for them.
After observing how differently my three children—and many of their friends—responded to an excess of choices, I had to question my cherished assumptions about the relationship between making your own choices and feeling empowered. We all want to be able to make some choices for ourselves, but what should we do when the number or type of choices exceed our ability to cope with them?
As the options and opportunities for educating ourselves have increased, so have the challenges of trying to choose well. In "How to Make Choosing Easier," Iyangar recommends four techniques to improve our ability to make good choices.
Although Iyengar is primarily advising businesses and marketers, telling them how they can make things easier for their customers, I believe these same techniques can be useful to educators and students. The techniques are as follows:
- CONDITION FOR COMPLEXITY. When we have to make a series of choices, it's easier if we start with the choice that offers only a few alternatives and then work our way up to choosing from a larger variety.
- CATEGORIZE. Organize choices into meaningful categories. Iyangar points out that we can handle more categories than choices. Categories help us to make distinctions, which makes it easier for us to narrow down the options.
- BE SPECIFIC. When we are trying to make a choice, it helps if we can vividly imagine the consequences of our choices. When we can see ourselves being happy with a decision, the decision becomes easier to make.
- CUT. When it comes to choices, less is more. If it's hard to tell the different choices apart, there are probably too many of them. Whenever possible, we should try to filter our choices and eliminate redundant, extraneous options.
Conditioning for Complexity
Everyone talks about teens and how they need to learn to "make good choices." The teens I am fortunate enough to know make excellent choices, and I believe it's at least partly because their parents encouraged them to choose for themselves starting at a young age. They were "conditioned for complexity" when they were allowed to choose from a few options ("Would you like corn or peas with dinner?"), a few more options ("Which books would you like to read?") and, finally, a complex variety of options ("Where would you like to go to college?").
Categorizing
When life gets chaotic, I get organized. Presented with a large set of choices, I look to see how they might be related, what they have in common, how they differ. Using categories to restore order to chaos is a creative act that helps me to assess a situation and make sense of it. The act of categorizing requires me to make some initial choices, which then makes subsequent choices easier.
When I was overwhelmed with curriculum choices, my strategy was to go back to reading about homeschooling so I could narrow down the options. Many of the best books on homeschooling began with a description of five or six common methods: traditional or "school at home"; classical, based on the Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric stages of learning; unit studies, multiage, interdisciplinary and theme-oriented lesson plans; eclectic, a combination of methods and materials; and unschooling (also known as child-centered or interest-based learning). By focusing on one or two of these methods, I was able to eliminate entire categories of curriculum from my search and thereby limit the number of resources from which I had to choose.
When I was overwhelmed with curriculum choices, my strategy was to go back to reading about homeschooling so I could narrow down the options. Many of the best books on homeschooling began with a description of five or six common methods: traditional or "school at home"; classical, based on the Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric stages of learning; unit studies, multiage, interdisciplinary and theme-oriented lesson plans; eclectic, a combination of methods and materials; and unschooling (also known as child-centered or interest-based learning). By focusing on one or two of these methods, I was able to eliminate entire categories of curriculum from my search and thereby limit the number of resources from which I had to choose.
Being Specific
One way I encouraged my kids to make good choices was by teaching them how to set goals. I asked them to imagine and describe exactly what they would like to accomplish by the end of each year. When they were still young and a year seemed too far in the future, I asked them to picture the end of a day, a week or a month. I could then help them work backwards, figuring out what steps they would need to take to reach their goals. Once they had a clear goal in mind, they could assess for themselves whether or not their choices (for example, studying versus playing video games) would result in adequate progress. This type of planning seemed to work better than lecturing my kids to do something or reprimanding them for something they hadn't done.
I'm gradually refining my technique for designing courses for homeschooled high school students. When I planned my first course, I adopted the "buffet approach," offering students extensive lists of resources and options from which they could choose. Some students enjoyed the variety, but others were discouraged by all the choices so they opted out and ignored my recommendations.
I've since learned to be more judicious—I try to provide only a small subset of carefully selected items and focus instead on making sure students can find additional resources on their own.
As I work with online tools and techniques for filtering, sampling, and curating online resources, I'm also getting better at selecting what I need from the Web. (More on that work in future posts.)
I've since learned to be more judicious—I try to provide only a small subset of carefully selected items and focus instead on making sure students can find additional resources on their own.
As I work with online tools and techniques for filtering, sampling, and curating online resources, I'm also getting better at selecting what I need from the Web. (More on that work in future posts.)
Related TED Talks
If you are interested in more TED Talks related to choice and how people choose, consider the following three:
- "Choice, Happiness and Spaghetti Sauce,"(2004) an entertaining talk by Malcolm Gladwell
- "The Paradox of Choice" by psychologist Barry Schwartz (2010)
- "Sometimes It's Good to Give Up the Driver's Seat" (2012) by Stanford professor Baba Shiv
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