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by Joshua A. Taton, Ph.D. | August 9, 2023 | 3 min read

On December 5, 2012, the Los Angeles Lakers guard, Kobe Bryant, became the youngest player in NBA history to score 30,000 points. He was only the fifth professional basketball player to reach that lofty milestone. 

Bryant tried to outline the psychological state that led to his many prolific achievements, one he described as "being in the zone." In his words, "You get in the zone and just try to stay here. You don’t think about your surroundings, or what’s going on with the crowd or the team. You’re kind of locked in.”

The "zone"—or what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described in the 1970's as "flow"—involves the loss of a sense of time while engaged in an activity. It has been characterized as complete absorption in the tasks at hand, including a sense of effortless joy. In a flow state, action and consciousness merge.

According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow is characterized by nine factors: 

1. A balance between challenge and skills (so the participant feels engaged but not overwhelmed); 

2. Clear objectives (the ability to concentrate on the immediate task while also knowing what elements are forthcoming);

3. A merging of action and awareness (i.e., complete absorption in the moment);

4. Clear feedback (recognition by the participant of what they are doing at all times along with the ability to respond);

5. A lack of distraction by outside or extraneous elements;

6. A strong sense of control; 

7. A lack of self-consciousness (reduction in anxiety from self-awareness); 

8. The loss of a sense of time (time either slows or "flies by"); and

9. An "autotelic" experience (the activity becomes an end unto itself).

In education, the theory of flow has been applied to learners (understanding how they can become immersed and successful in a learning activity) and to teachers (helping them manage classrooms by structuring activities to promote flow).

I think one of the nine factors, above, merits expansion and application to teachers' use of curriculum materials—namely, "clear objectives." To explain what I mean, let's explore how Bryant practiced basketball. According to sports journalist Rhiannon Walker:

Kobe Bryant used to practice moves he wanted to add to his game in slow motion. He’d find video footage of former greats and meticulously dissect exactly what they were doing on the court. Over and over, Bryant would practice those moves at a fraction of the speed until he felt like he’d mastered them, and even then, he’d still fine-tune things.

Oftentimes, flow is thought to be such a nebulous idea that those inhabiting it might be seen to be acting thoughtlessly or even randomly.

To the contrary, I think, flow connotes a highly-practiced structure—a set of routines (or "clear objectives") that are internalized so completely that they become fluent and automatic. This isn't unlike how scientists have characterized the unique ability of, say, chess experts.

An expert mathematics instructor relies on routines, practiced awareness of the different ways students think and solve problems, and content knowledge. Deborah Ball, the pre-eminent mathematics education scholar in the U.S., has described this expertise as has having "eyes [that] are focused on the mathematical horizon" along with having "ears to the ground, listening to...students."

I'd like to theorize that—just as Bryant "offloaded" a certain amount of cognitive responsibility to the plays that had been drawn up by the coaches, freeing up his mind to respond to other defensive challenges—teachers can enhance their classroom flow by relying on the structures (the "plays") of a set of curriculum materials. Internalizing the structure of curriculum materials and deploying resources effectively in the classroom, while using the design intentions of the curriculum authors and flexibly meeting the needs of students in the moment, is what I am calling, here, "curricular flow."

How might curricular flow be achieved? 

Just as Bryant explains how he relied on and repetitively honed the key elements of others' games, teachers can repetitively hone the key elements of the curriculum materials they are using. Note that, for the purposes of this post, I am assuming that such materials are what researchers would call "well-designed" materials that provide key insights for teachers on the content, the way students' think, and research-based practices.

Those key elements might include a deep awareness of:

• The overall pedagogical stance of the program

• The curriculum map (how the content unfolds and progresses across the year)

• The structure of units or chapters (how the weeks are intended to progress) 

• The intended sequence of events for daily lessons (e.g., warm-up, application problem, concept development, practice, exit ticket)

• The intended approach to implementing these daily classroom events (e.g., that the 10 min warm-up is supposed to include two, rapid-paced practice sessions with a "movement break" in between)

• How to prepare, effectively and efficiently, the next day's, week's lessons using these structures and knowledge of students.

Many district leaders inadvertently prompt "fatal flaws" in the implementation of curriculum materials by requiring their own elements that disrupt the flow of the intended lesson. These often undercut the research on the program and students' learning, often for dubious purposes, causing the teacher to—ironically and unfortunately—spend more time and effort planning, adapting, resequencing, and trying to meld together incongruous expectations.

Remember, for Bryant and chess players like Magnus Carlson, meaningful structure is essential to their success. Bryant didn't eschew guidance from coaches, nor partnership with teammates, when he was in a flow state. Rather, he relied even more heavily on what he had practiced, the tools at hand, so that he could respond more easily in the moment. He observed the circumstances at hand, depended on the repetitive structures practiced so often they were automatic, and then reacted appropriately as the game unfolded.

I welcome your thoughts.