Notable Swiss child development theorist, Jean Piaget, explained learning as a continual process of achieving equilibrium, or balance, in our state of “knowing”…Then that balance is challenged when we encounter new stimuli, resulting in disequilibrium. When this happens, we try to apply our existing schemas (knowledge or ways of knowing) to the new stimuli (assimilation).  We also seek and adopt entirely new schemas (accommodation).  We tinker with all of this until we achieve that state of balance, or equilibrium once again.  (Until the next time we encounter new stimuli…)

Disequilibrium, also known as cognitive dissonance, is not a very comfortable state to be in.  It can feel frustrating, and challenging.  It can cause fear, anxiety, and even panic. It is, however, necessary for true learning to take place. If we never encounter anything that challenges our current ways of thinking or knowing, then we never move forward. We never get smarter, more adept, more diverse, more eclectic, and that seems like such a dull place to be!

Since I started learning how to code, I’ve been thinking a lot about disequilibrium. Now I did expect this, as I’ve chosen to mindfully toss myself into a situation in which the whole point is to feel disequilibrium. For a psychology-minded, art-loving, people-oriented thinker like me, learning to code throws me as off balance as I possibly can be! The unexpected part is that it seems like the more I learn, the more disequilibrium I feel. This isn’t necessarily bad, but rather just something I know I have to examine.

I have achieved some small victories, and gained a sense of confidence around knowing the vocabulary and foundations of coding. However, the newfound confidence comes with a newfound sense of the gravity and scale of this project, and also more innate anxiety about the possibility of failure.

This challenge is causing me to examine all kinds of mental messages that are fairly entrenched.  For example, the message “I’m bad at math, and math-related endeavors” keeps creeping up every time I get to a tough point in one of my coding tutorials or challenges. The message “I might just not be good at this, and might have to quit soon”, keeps tempting me. Now just to be clear, I’m fully committed to pushing through the disequilibrium and playing with different strategies until I figure out my challenges. However, my commitment to learning to code is fairly new, and the negative messages have been with me since childhood.  It seems like the more I think I can actually do this, the more my brain examines the notion that maybe I actually can’t, and searches for ways out.

Through my time spent at a wonderfully intellectually engaging school, as well as my personal yoga practice, I have come to believe that a real test of our humanity is how we deal with our feelings around disequilibrium. Disequilibrium is always challenging, and there are many possible ways to deal with it, for example:

1. We can back off when we feel it, assuming it means we have entered into territory in which we should not be.
   • When we are in the habit of backing off, we tend to never move forward.
   • As dedicated as I am to learning to code, I’m having a hard time preventing my brain from going here first!
2. We can fight it.   
   • When we fight, we use our energy in all kinds of ways that may or may not be productive.
   • Fighting through difficulty is necessary in some
     situations, but also can produce even greater fatigue and burn-out in others.
   • Every time I encounter an urge to quit, my next instinct is to fight!
3. We can just relax, accept it, and breathe into it.
   • Often when we can really just accept and explore our disequilibrium, we move forward in the most profound ways.
   • This is what I’m trying to do after I work through quitting and fighting!

I don’t mean to imply that #3 is the only way disequilibrium should be worked through, but rather that it’s what I’m trying to do.  The more I breathe into my challenges, the more I discover about my struggles. I am working hard to acknowledge, but reject the negative messages.  The tutorials are getting harder, and I’m taking longer to complete tasks, but I just keep telling myself that it doesn’t HAVE to mean dire things ahead.

Going back to Piaget’s theory, I wonder if I’ve been practicing more assimilation than accommodation. I’ve been using my existing learning schemas to approach coding, but I think my existing learning schemas might be reaching their limit. Perhaps what I’m going to need to do is learn and adopt some entirely new schemas and ways of thinking about these challenges.

This is intimidating, as changing our ways of thinking is never easy.  This is also exciting, however, because part of the reason I want to learn to code is to discover for myself the types of thinking necessary to successfully do it. I feel as though I might be on the precipice of some big shifts in my thinking. I also realize that I’m going to have to work even harder, but also feel my disequilibrium even more consciously in order to discover those shifts.

What do you do when you find yourself in a state of disequilibrium?

(Photos were taken at the Chihuly Exhibit at the Denver Botanic Gardens.  They have nothing to do with coding, but the exhibit provokes a certain sense of disequilibrium between nature and humanity, which I think is relevant!)