Positive Priming: Unlocking Student Potential

(...it can help teachers, too)

I’m hoping this post can give you a better understanding of Positive Priming: both what it is and how to implement it. However, I know it is not all-inclusive, so if you have any questions, please email me at duanejourdeans@gmail.com. During these crazy COVID times, I think it is also important to mention that Positive Priming can also be done virtually! 

The Reality
This is the challenge: as humans, we are wired to scan for the negative...for threats. So we are inherently constantly scanning our environment for what can kill us--or maybe harm us not just physically, but emotionally. This means we are really good at finding the negative. To overcome this overwhelming magnetic pull, we need to put in work to change what we focus on. Positive Priming can help. 

Where Did Positive Priming Come From? 
I think I coined the term Positive Priming around 2016 or so. I had been using the strategy for a number of years before, but I officially named it only a few years ago. However, the whole idea of the benefit of positive emotions came from North Carolina years before. Dr. Barbara Fredrickson of UNC is one of the world’s leading researchers of positivity--in fact, one of her books is titled Positivity. Within, Fredrickson shares a concept called the Positivity Ratio. Basically, if a person has a ratio of about 3 positive emotions to every 1 negative emotion, they will flourish...they will be pretty successful. Over time, there has been some debate about the ratio being 5 to 1, but I think we can all agree that anywhere between 3 and 5 will be just fine for what I’m discussing here. This concept is what led me to start thinking about Positive Priming. If I could help my students have a better positivity ratio, they might be more successful. So I researched more. Fredrickson identified 10 major positive emotions that were most impactful: joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love. My focus was to attempt to ignite one or more of these emotions in my students within the first few minutes of class each day. 

What Can Positive Priming Actually Do For Your Students?
The scientifically-proven benefits of Positive Priming are many. Here are some of my favorites:

• Helps retain information 
• Enhances the ability to be more open, and able, to learning new things
• 3x more creative
• 31% more productive
• Up to 10x more engaged
• 23% fewer fatigue symptoms

The Basics of Positive Priming

• The intent is to move students from a negative or neutral mental state to a positive one. 
• I reserve about 1-4 minutes to prime students
• I try to use a variety of priming activities, but honestly, I use a lot of video. 
• About 25% of the time, I tie the priming activity to what we are actually doing in class, but you don’t have to. I store these ideas in my daily plans for each unit. I’m constantly scanning what I watch and read for ideas of priming activities. The other day I saw a television episode that had a brief mention/parody involving Macbeth. I immediately searched YouTube for the clip and pasted the link into my unit plan. 

A Sample Week of Positive Priming
I will say that I don’t usually follow a pattern each week anymore. I try to use some variety from day-to-day, but I do use WOW Wednesdays and Thank You Thursdays almost every week. In addition, each day I give students a small bit of time to talk about the priming activity. It is usually just like 30 seconds, but it could be more depending on how it resonates. At any rate, here is what a week of priming could look like: 

• Monday: AWEsome Monday
  • I try to inspire Awe on Mondays, and I usually use video. Some ideas include amazing nature videos, microscopic creatures, views from space, cliff divers, or some weird animal. Essentially, I try to show them something they have never seen before, or something they have never seen in that way. 
• Tuesday: What Went Well or WWW
  • There are two versions I use of WWW, but both are based on students writing down what went well in the last 24 hours (if you do it on a Monday, you can include the weekend). 
    • 3 things that went well
      • 1 thing that went well with 3 details
      • Experts would say that the second is more powerful because you are actually mentally reliving the experience which really brings out positive emotions a second time. In many ways, your brain is thinking you are experiencing it again. 
• Wednesday: WOW Wednesdays
  • This past year, I implemented what I call WOW Wednesdays. This is where students were responsible for “WOW-ing” their classmates with Positive Priming. I explained all the positive emotions and gave them some “appropriateness” guidelines;  then they signed up (with a partner if they wanted) for a Wednesday during the quarter. It was a huge success! I think the largest impact revolved around the emotion of amusement. The students knew what made each other laugh, so a typical WOW Wednesday involved some Vines, a Tik Tok, or YouTube video that definitely appealed to the audience. The other benefit is, as a teacher, you don’t need to prep anything for Wednesday priming. 
• Thursday: Thank You Thursdays
  • For this activity, we focused on gratitude. Students were asked to send a message to someone expressing gratitude. They could send a text, Snap, email, write a letter...basically any type of message they wanted. They loved it! It was a day I would let them keep their phone out on their desk because many of them got a positive message back right away from the recipient. And sometimes that message was from a parent asking them, “Okay, you must want something.” Ha!
  • You can also alternate week to week by having students write down 3 NEW things they are grateful for and keep an ongoing list. This past year, we actually did both together quite a few times and it made an excellent impact. (I did a study on it and plan to write a blog post about it soon.)
• Friday: Funny Friday
  • My wife uses Fail Friday where she shows a funny “fail” video or picture(s), and her students really enjoy it. Sometimes I do that as well, but regardless, I try to appeal to amusement on Fridays, and it is usually a video. Sometimes I mix in a discussion of what they are looking forward to for the weekend. Anticipation is my 11th bonus emotion that primes, too. 

And There's a Bonus!

Here is the beauty of this entire post: Yes!--Positive Priming will work for your students,  but...wait for it...it will work for teachers, too. In essence, if you engage in priming activities, you will reap the benefits as well. Enjoy the videos. Laugh. Write down 3 new things you are grateful for. Do as much as you can. You don’t have to do every activity every class period, but even if you choose one hour a day to engage, you will put yourself in a positive state...and it will help bring out the best in yourself and your students. 


P.S.
In my Positive Charge workshop, I help participants collaborate and actually create multiple days of potential Positive Priming activities!