As you read this post, keep this question in the back of your mind: Who am I?
Structure. We need it. Concepts connect, one to the other, throughout our minds. Without structure, all of the information would be intensely overwhelming, a vast stew of sensory data - reds and stench and furry sensations all jumbled together amorphously - concepts aimlessly bouncing around, causing synaptic log jams.
We would be overwhelmed into soulless inactivity because there would be no logic to how all of this internal activity interrelates.
In short, we need schemas, because they organize data into coherent structures, abstract as these structures are. For instance, after four decades playing and coaching soccer, my schemata for "the beautiful game" are labyrinthine and elaborate. These interlocking schemas help me to be a better fan, player and coach, because they enhance my understanding of the game.
Additionally, I have equally if not more intense schemata for interacting with others, and these various schemas weave and overlap with my soccer schemata. This helps me when I am coaching, because I can employ previously tested behaviors when I interact with my players, other coaches, referees, and so on. Of course, when I employ a schema in a particular situation, I do so because I anticipate that my behaviors will increase the likelihood of certain outcomes. When they do not, I may need to consider adjusting my schemas for those situations.
When I began coaching in the area, I did so after at least 15 years associated with soccer. Therefore, I started with a defense that consisted of four players: two wing defenders, one stopper, and behind her, a sweeper. Why did I choose that system? Because it was the only defensive schema I had ever encountered. I did not consider changing this defensive scheme, because I believed it was how soccer was played. Then, I began to notice that college coaches and some in this area began to use something called a "flat-back" system. After some time passed, I realized that this system was used by most college teams, so I felt that it was my duty as a high school coach to learn this system. It seemed to me to be the only honorable thing to do since I wanted my players to be ready for college soccer if they decided to go on. No one seemed to be using the stopper-sweeper system anymore.
I still feel badly about the first year I "taught" the flat-back system, because my mind had not yet fully adapted to it, so I was unsure about how to teach it, how to adjust each player so that the other team could not easily penetrate our back four. I considered giving up on it since the old schema had worked pretty well for me in the past. Instead, I kept reading about the flat-back, watching college and professional teams use it, and searching for drills to teach it. Over time, a new schemata developed in my mind. I began to "see" the flat back operate in my minds-eye, and it was only because of this that I began to be able to teach the system.
Back to the title of the blog. My previous strategies for teaching defense were attached to the mental structures that made up the stopper-sweeper system. This mental scaffolding helped me to see how to organize my defenders, and it allowed me to teach each defender what I wanted him to do within this system. The problem, though, is that this scaffolding transmogrified into prison bars because I could not see past this system to a totally different way for effectively organizing a defense.
Schemas help us learn because they give us structures upon which we can build ever more impressive cognitive cathedrals. However, what if these glorious feats of mental architecture - like say the Ptolemaic universe and all of the suppositions that arose from its proposed scaffolding - are indeed built upon quicksand, concepts that not only should be questioned but in fact are certifiably incorrect? For many centuries, scholars of all levels learned about the Ptolemaic schemata for organization of the cosmos, the Earth planted firmly in the center, and they lived their entire lives with this mental construction implanted as a factual truth.
Consider just how brave that Copernicus and Galileo had to be to question a 1400 year-old, authoritative scaffolding. How brave will you decide to be when you realize that your schemas - seemingly solid mental constructs you have about yourselves and your world - could not only be incorrect but also unhealthy?
What does it mean to be an American? What does it mean to be the race to which you most identify? Was Piaget who he was because of his race, because of his religion, because of his ethnicity? What does it mean to be a man? A woman? What does it mean to be an IB student? Is it different than other students? Better? Worse? What is the meaning of life to you?
All of the above questions are meant to call into mind your schemas. Heck, you even have elaborate schemas for how to spend your vacation days, and it is hard to imagine any activities outside of those schemas because you are imprisoned by your current habits. The people who say, "There is nothing to do in Farmington Hills," are really saying, "Please help me; my current schemas are inadequate for producing effective and engaging behaviors." I have been to the mall; I went to see three different movies; we have been to all of the post-holiday sales; now what?
What is worse is when one adapts a schema like "YOLO" but cannot imagine a way of going about it. Sometimes, that is where substance abuse comes in. "You only live once" then becomes one's reason for getting high or drunk, because he does not know how to seize the day with his existing schemas.
Consider theses ideas as you finish off the last few days of your vacation. I will as well!
