105 - Peak and The End Rule

Our brains are funny sometimes. Often what we think a circumstance entailed is not really the whole of the story. Daniel Kahneman teaches that the peak point and the end point are really the most important parts of our story when it comes to our memory of it. When working with others, how can we utilize this to make the likelihood of a great experience for everyone? If we think back on almost any memory there is a high chance that our brain is going to trick us into thinking about it differently than what actually happened. Researcher Daniel Kahneman has taught about this great phenomenon called the peak and the end rule. Basically this is where our brains take the peak point in the experience and average it with the end point in the experience to create what our memory of the experience becomes. This is fascinating because if we understand the brain's function in this capacity we are able to hijack the pattern and use it to our advantage! Think about the experiences you create for your students or your family and how you could start to design high peak and end points to create better memories Another angle to take on this is to think from the students perspective and see why they are doing amazing in your classrooms or school and how this could be playing out. If our end points every day are boring then it destroys the experience. If we never reach a great peak point then the experience is less On the other hand we learn that we don’t have to be delivering a constant high point lesson, just high peak and end points with the most valuable content at those points to make it stick. This is such a fascinating idea that we can jump on to help create our schools, families, and communities to be places of positive memory and impact. As you are designing this next year keep this in your view!