Moving at the Speed of Creativity - Predisposed for risk taking?

Predisposed for risk taking?

Published by Wesley Fryer in edtech, science on January 30th, 2006

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Scientists are reporting discovery of “a gene that may control whether or not someone is a risk taker.” The published research cited in this article is from October 2005. The article’s author rhetorically asks:

Why does one person like to skydive or ski off cliffs while someone else is happy reading a book? After studying mouse behavior, scientists now have a clue into a certain gene that may be a factor.

I would restate this question for the context of schools and technology integration:

Why are some teachers willing to take risks, embrace ambiguity to a greater extent than their peers, and repeatedly utilize educational technology tools with students when inevitably things will go wrong and something won’t work? Could a contributing factor be a teacher’s genetic predisposition to risk taking? If so, how much of a contributing factor is aversion or fondness for risk taking?

Anyone who works with technology in schools knows the teacher’s willingness to take risks and embrace ambiguity is a major in factor in their level of technology implementation. I would argue it is not an absolute determining factor, but it is a player. In the 2001 Education World article “Same Time, This Year,” Linda Starr reported on “what they [a group of educators] felt were the major roadblocks to full-scale technology integration in their schools.” Time, training, and support were the major factors identified in the article, a repeat of a previous year’s article asking the same question. But under the category of “moral support,” Linda included the need:

to provide teachers with a safe place to take a risk. We have to know that risk-taking is supported and encouraged and that if something fails, it’s OK.

Willingness to accept REASONABLE risks should be regarded as a key ingredient for the classroom of the 21st century. We want teachers as well as students to feel empowered and supported in taking pedagogical and learning task risks that are both reasonable and appropriate. It will be interesting to continue following this line of genetic research that relates to these issues.