A Case Against Instant Gratification | Kerry Brennan

A Case Against Instant Gratification

Kerry Brennan Delivers the Opening of Fall Term Address

Several years ago a younger boy complained to me that he was having a hard time excelling in Latin. In fact, he had typically been scoring quizzes and tests in the 70s. While I was not the one to come to for tutoring about the content, I volunteered to help him assess his strategies and see if there were some adjustments in approach that might help him learn the material better. We discussed what to most of you would seem obvious. The boy explained to me that he had no regular, quiet, private place in which to study, and that he was often distracted by younger siblings. I suggested that he work with his parents to declare a sovereign place in his house that would give him optimal opportunity for concentration. I looked at his backpack. It was overflowing with random papers; many were wrinkled beyond recognition, and nothing was easily retrievable or even identifiable. We discussed a system for organizing his materials with binders and tabs and a commitment to maintain an ordered set of papers requiring daily attention. I looked at his textbook. There were no underlinings or helpful margin comments. I suggested he make an effort to use his book, imagining that it could be helpful not just initially but on subsequent occasions when he would benefit from notes that would have highlighted the most important features. And then we talked about how he prepared for assessments. He said he just read over and over the pages of the book that covered the tested material. He failed to look over his homework assignments from that unit, or—when it came time for tests—he failed to study the quizzes whose material would constitute the same material. Frankly, I would be surprised if he could find the quizzes. I asked if he worked together with other boys in order to study for assessments. He said he did not. He said he wasn’t sure that was allowed and Wouldn’t that be cheating? Finally, I asked if he had seen his teacher for feedback, for suggestions about how he might improve. Despite the fact that I knew his teacher to be among the most generous with time outside of class, the boy complained that he thought he would be bothering the teacher, and no one else was doing that. You all know that one of the great virtues of our school is that we celebrate the acknowledgement that someone needs help and are glad when a boy seeks it out—from his classmates or from his teachers.

There was so much about this boy’s approach that was concerning. It was as if he had failed to hear any of the advice that had been given him since he arrived at the school.

“I remember my grandmother trying the instant coffee—doctored with the obligatory sugar and cream—and my grandmother saying, “This isn’t coffee” before she ran to the sink to spit it out.”

Nonetheless, I thought there was an opportunity (given the boy’s will to improve) to impress upon him some suggestions for an altered approach to his studying. All of you in hearing this horrifying tale can perhaps identify with parts of it. (I hope very few of you identify with all of it!) There was so much that needed to change. And yet because there was so much that needed to change, I thought there was a possibility that an altered approach could lead to satisfying improvement. More important, I wanted the boy to develop skills of assessment and self-criticism so he could monitor himself and improve. And I wanted him to look around at others (not during a test mind you!) in order to learn of their approaches. Finally, I wanted him to see his teachers as helpful allies, members of the same team, eager to offer the time and advice that would lead to his improvement and greater satisfaction.

On practically a daily basis, the boy would let me know how the new plan was going. He seemed committed to it but still unclear about some of the elements, and not very effective at keeping himself on track. One day, he told me that he had a test the next day. I reminded him of approaches we had discussed and hoped they would help him feel more confident going into the test. I saw him the next day, after he had taken the test, and asked him how he thought he had done. “Oh, I’m sure I aced it—after all, I am working differently.” I appreciated his optimism and told him I wanted to hear back from him when he got his test back. Two days later I ran into him outside my office:

“Did you get the test back?”

“Yes.”

“How did you do?”

“I got a 76. Sorry to say it, but I don’t think any of your methods work.”

I was amazed by his cheekiness, but also troubled by his conclusion. I decided that we needed to talk a bit more, as soon as possible. He had a free period later that day. I found him shooting baskets in the gym (another possible impediment to his giving his studies his all...) and asked him to come see me. I said that I was concerned about his conclusions and thought we should explore how he had prepared for the test. “The night

before the test, I locked the door to my room so my brother and sister couldn’t pester me, and I put on headphones so I couldn’t hear the TV blasting downstairs, and I studied. I studied harder than I ever have; in fact I didn’t go to bed until 10.” “What about the other nights?” I asked. “What do you mean?” he responded. “Did you create that same cocoon other nights or was this the only one?” “I couldn’t do it other nights. The kids were in and out and I couldn’t find the headphones.” I ran down the list of the other items. I checked his bag, and I discovered he had not done any of the other things. He had not studied with his classmates. He had not seen his teacher. He had done just one of the things I had suggested…and just for one night. He thought we had ended this meeting when he said, “See I don’t think your techniques are modern enough and, just sayin’, they don’t work.”

You can imagine that I was disappointed and a bit angry. I had mistaken this boy’s desire to get better grades for the will to do what he needed to do in order to learn more and then, also, to get better grades. Frankly, he was a disciple of the school of instant gratification. Instant gratification. He expected a brief encounter with a helpful technique, with hard work, to dramatically alter the outcome. Frankly, we are all trained to be disciples of the school of instant gratification.

From Instant Coffee to Delayed Gratification As someone who has lived a long time, I can say safely that the appetite for instant gratification has only increased over the years, because technology has made it possible for more and more to be accomplished more and more quickly. I remember a conversation between my grandmother born in Slovakia in 1894 and my mother born in Schenectady in 1924. My mother was trying to convince my Old World grandmother that instant coffee was the way to go. My mother had grown up with her mother’s coffee making ritual that took a bit of time and dirtied a pot that needed to be cleaned out. I remember my grandmother trying the instant coffee—doctored with the obligatory sugar and cream—and my grandmother saying, “This isn’t coffee” before she ran to the sink to spit it out. Instant coffee. Instant gratification.

To continue on the coffee theme: I remember a time last year in our own faculty dining room in which there was installed a fancy machine that not only dispensed coffee but also various variations including cappuccino, latte, and espresso. (Mr. Pojman was partial to the pumpkin latte fantasia so reminiscent of his Ohio youth. But, I digress.) A colleague of mine was standing at the machine having dialed up his beverage order—probably requiring all kinds of internal processing variations—when I heard him say after about 10 seconds, “God, will this thing work? I’ve been standing here forever.” Hmm. Not instant enough.

A similar impatience was demonstrated around the other most important machine in the building: the copying machine in the faculty workroom. Another colleague had sent the machine a signal from the quiet confines of the teacher’s office instructing it to copy two-sided and stapled, making 25 copies and committing it to memory for subsequent printing needs. I came upon the machine already magically, with no one seemingly present, coughing up the copies that were part of my colleague’s order. I noticed the copies reflected a particular discipline in the school and, sure enough, within seconds arrived one of that department’s foremost practitioners. “Wow,” the teacher said, “is the machine still making those copies? I thought by the time I got down here they would be done. What’s the matter with this thing? It seems to get slower and slower. Come on. Come on. Come on.” I was no help. And frankly frightened by both the teacher’s expectation and impatience. Instant gratification.

Sometimes we are fooled by adjustments to our behavior that yield results we want. Sometimes I exercise for 20 minutes and am encouraged that the scale declares me one pound lighter. Sometimes we cram for a test and the result is better than it would have been if we had not crammed. Did I learn the material? Will I retain it? Why am I learning this anyway? Last year I remember walking through the weight room and seeing various boys challenging their capacities. One boy (who was not very big or, frankly, developed) was lifting one set of weights and every 20 seconds examining his biceps. We’ve all done it. But virtually no discernible difference had occurred in this boy’s frustratingly modest physique! Instant gratification.

I want immediate rewards from what I consider to be an appropriate amount of work. We are victims of this expectation. In virtually every part of our lives we can press a button, flick a switch, record a prompt, and all sorts of wonderful things occur. Our technology has been designed to be faster and “more powerful” (a euphemism for being able to access all sorts of data instantaneously). The quest continues with no endgame in sight. Computer companies, phone manufacturers, game designers are

all striving to give it to us with the greatest ease and in the shortest amount of time. The desire to be faster and broader is no crime. Our culture has created an expectation for more and more and more. And we have been trained to demand the same ourselves. We are rarely faced with having to wait for something. We are rarely required to be patient. To be persistent. To return repeatedly to a problem. To consider the steps and stages and time it takes to accomplish a complex task. Our VEX aficionados experience problem solving in real time, but even in that realm there is a premium on arriving at a conclusion, a Legos crushing crane, as quickly as possible. Throughout our evolution from an agrarian to an industrial to a technological economy, we have repeatedly heard that the companion of better is always faster, or, to put it more agreeably, more efficient. I submit that our task on behalf of the advancement of the culture is not simply to find ways to do things more efficiently, but quite the opposite: We, in fact, have to learn how to wait for results, how to commit to a longer process, how to anticipate that time and energy appropriately applied will yield a result that is satisfying and useful and perhaps even a pleasure. It is this, delayed gratification, that I want to consider a bit today.

10,000 Hours Malcolm Gladwell, a well known commentator on the human condition, and a critic of contemporary mores, made a startling observation in his best-selling book, Outliers. I mentioned this a couple years ago, when we had a Hall featuring various people in our community who had committed to something in order to achieve near perfection. You remember Mr. Ryan with his painting, and James Henshon with his foul shooting, and Dr. Kokotailo with his fly fishing. The overall lesson was that practice does not make perfect, but it gets us closer to being competent at something. Perfection shouldn’t be the goal. I mentioned Gladwell’s theory then. He claims that in order for someone to get really good at something, the person needs to spend at least 10,000 hours doing it. In our school in which the generalist is king, it would be hard to dedicate that great a portion of one’s time and energy to a single proposition. Yet I’m sure you would agree that a few of our best musicians and some of our best athletes have done that very thing.

I did not know Gladwell when I was an eight-year-old starting to learn how to play the piano. I don’t know if others of you were like me. I played the piano a lot. I played at the piano. I played pieces I liked, popular songs mostly. Sometimes these were old songs my parents favored; sometimes they were Beatles’ tunes; sometimes I made stuff up. What I rarely practiced were the Classical pieces assigned by my piano teacher. Or the dreaded scales and arpeggios. Usually, the day before my weekly lesson, I would go to town on those pieces in the hope that I would at least make a reasonable showing for my teacher. I remember another mother asking my mother once if she had any trouble getting me to practice. She said, “Kerry practices too much. It’s just that he plays the stuff he wants to play and not what was assigned.” Somewhere early on, in all the years I took piano and organ lessons, I asked my mother why a certain piece eluded me. I suggested it just wasn’t worth it. She said, “It isn’t about this piece. You’ll get it eventually. But what you have to learn is if you do the hard work now, it will pay off later.” If you do the hard work now it will pay off later. Delayed gratification. And all that piano playing has resulted in lifelong competence in that realm, as well as great joy.

Quarters, Jell-O, and Maple Syrup For my family, eager to pursue the American Dream as we conjured it, saving money was a big deal. I never remember anyone in my family—my grandparents or my parents—having a loan. We bought things when we could afford them, and the way to afford them was to scrimp and save. One way in which my grandmother taught me about this was with a folder issued by the bank with maybe 80 slots in which you could put quarters. I saw my grandmother a couple times each week, and every time I saw her she would give me a quarter to put in the folder. You know the

lesson of the story. Without hardly being aware of it, I was saving. After 40 weeks I had accumulated $20. I did not spend that money on some special toy, but rather deposited it into a bank account that actually yielded some interest in those days. It was de minimus by our standards, but the lesson was intentional and the discipline was taught. Delayed gratification.

I remember cooking occasionally with my other grandmother. She was a great cook, and Christmas time was a week-long period of feverish kitchen activity. I remember her making a certain kind of delicious, much appreciated cookie over three days; the dough had to be assembled, the yeast had to make it rise, the dough needed to be rolled out, the prune filling needed to be made and allowed to settle, and on and on until there was a remarkable, satisfying conclusion. All along I sampled what was being prepared—raw dough, too tart filling. It was not only not satisfying but distasteful. Literally. What a dramatic contrast the end result would be to the unformed iterations along the way.

Does anybody still eat Jell-O? I was a Jell-O fiend. I loved it. Throughout my youth there was always a bowl of Jell-O in the fridge. I learned an important lesson in chemistry, and in patience, when I was 4 or 5 and eager to eat the Jell-O. I tried it and it was soupy. In fact, my mother had just put it in the refrigerator a few minutes before. She said, “You can eat it now— or, should I say, drink it now—if you want, but then there will be no real jiggly Jell-O later. Or you can let it form. Wait. And have some Kool Aid now if you’re really interested in slurping down some too sweet red liquid.” Cooks in our community like Mr. Randall know the time it takes for a meal to be just perfect. For him it starts by planting and growing the basil that serves as such a delectable ingredient in the mix, the source of the delicious pesto. Many of us on the faculty and staff at least will likely remember grandparents who made things from scratch. In my childhood people “put up” fruits and vegetables—planting the plants or trees, watering and pruning them over four months, harvesting the fruits and vegetables, peeling and cooking them and storing them in airtight jars so that in the dark of winter “fresh,” delicious food would be available for our otherwise wanting tables. In those days, supermarkets largely stocked fruits and vegetables only in season. People had to plan ahead, do the work, if they wanted to have some enjoyment later.

At Cleveland’s University School, at which I worked for 14 years, there is a longstanding tradition on its exurban, multi-acred campus. It involves harvesting sap to be made into maple syrup. This is a long process that takes place over several weeks. Only participating wholeheartedly in this process once (it is amazingly hard work!), I was amazed by a couple of things: one is how much time it takes to tap the trees, gather the sap, boil it down, and extract the maple syrup. To be efficient and effective the process required planning. And patience. Along with the time it took, I was also amazed by how much sap it took to yield the liquid that was appropriate for the syrup. Almost 40 gallons of sap were boiled down to yield one gallon of syrup.

100,000 Trees When I think of individuals who were exemplars of delayed gratification, and when I think of magnificent maples that yielded the sap, I think of Elzeard Bouffier, chronicled in the well-known book by the famous French writer Jean Giono. The original title of the book was The Man Who Planted Hope and Grew Happiness. Its modern title is The Man Who Planted Trees. While Bouffier’s work

“Often as teachers we acknowledge that our work with and for you boys does not vividly yield the rewards of recognition and gratitude in the moment, but over time, we will benefit from unseen harvests.”

can be appreciated as an example of environmental stewardship and tireless service, to me it is, even more, an exquisite example of delayed gratification. In the early years of the 20th century, Bouffier set foot across the region he loved between the Alps and Provence. He realized that a way of life that had been taken for granted was diminishing. Streams were drying up and fields were barren. He decided in a primitive, but ultimately sophisticated, way that the health of the ecosystem could be altered by the introduction of trees. Too many trees had been harvested in that region—used for development far away from that spot, and the people of that area were suffering the consequences. Bouffier set out to make a difference. He began by planting one hundred acorns a day. He discovered a precise, easily repeatable technique that included sorting out viable acorns, choosing the best 100, thrusting an iron rod into the earth to make the hole in which he placed an acorn, and then covering up the hole. In three years, he had planted 100,000 trees. He estimated that 20,000 had sprouted, and that 10,000 would survive. Bouffier planted trees for more than thirty years—every single day, the same routine. By the time he died, hundreds of thousands of trees were thriving and had altered the ecosystem so that 10,000 people who came to inhabit that region lived lives of prosperity with burgeoning farms, plentiful water that flowed in clear streams, and thousands of trees providing shade and sustenance for decades to come. Bouffier exhibited what the author called “tenacity of benevolence” and “unfailing greatness of spirit.” We have much to learn from this character: how a solitary person can make a dramatic difference, how one’s creativity and generosity can solve problems, and especially how one’s persistence, patience, discipline, and industry can, over time, transform the planet and the experience of countless others. He understood delayed gratification and was confident that the hard work he did in the present would yield magnificent results in the future.

We Reap What They Have Sown Sometimes we are taught to be impressed by the virtues of certain groups of people—ethnic cohorts or people of a particular era. One could extend the example of delayed gratification beyond people’s lifetimes in regard to institutions they established or families they raised. I know personally that while my immigrant European grandparents realized some satisfaction in the lives they bravely forged here in the New World, two generations later they would be pleased by the comfort, meaningfulness, impact, and joy of the lives we,

“We believe that your time at the school will be productive in the here and now, but for my purposes today that your time and work here will—in the future, near and far—result in your being mindful, virtuous, kind, effective, civic minded, contributing, loving people. ”

their grandchildren, have been privileged to live. The sacrifices they made led to the opportunities we enjoy; indeed, we stand on the shoulders of giants. It paid off. We are reminded of this reality, too, when we acknowledge the delay in justice and human rights for certain groups in our country. Even as we commit to improvement and change, we can be grateful for those who went before and sacrificed in order to get us to where we are today.

So, too, are institutions the beneficiaries of those who have gone before, establishing a vision and virtues for what was to follow. As we do each year on Founder’s Day, we latter-day descendants of Roxbury Latin’s founders can imagine the delayed gratification they must feel not just in a foundation that has maintained their original modest ambitions, but one that far exceeds them and continues to evolve in its quest to form and affect boys who themselves will lead and serve and positively affect the future. Often as teachers we acknowledge that our work with and for you boys does not vividly yield the rewards of recognition and gratitude in the moment, but over time, others will benefit from our unseen harvests. As we just sang, “We reap not where they labored, we reap what they have sown.” Discipline, and Marshmallows In my continuing effort to illuminate life’s greatest truths by referencing famous psychological experiments (I didn’t appreciate Tripod’s cynical report of the Trolley Problem), let me offer one more; it’s The Marshmallow Experiment. This involved four- and five-year-olds. Remember those days? The experiment involved bringing an individual child into a room, sitting the child down in a chair, and placing a marshmallow on the table in front of him or her. Then the researcher offered the child a deal. “I’m going to leave the room. If you do not eat the marshmallow while I am away, I will reward you with a second marshmallow. If you eat the first one, you will receive no second marshmallow.”

One treat now or two treats later. The researcher left the room for 15 minutes. That’s a long time when it comes to marshmallow temptations or to be alone, period. There was a camera in the room.

The footage was entertaining. Some kids jumped up and ate the first marshmallow as soon as the researcher closed the door. Others wiggled and bounced and scooted in their chairs as they tried to restrain themselves, but eventually gave in to temptation

a few minutes later. And, finally, a few of the children did manage to wait the entire time.

I expect that result was predictable. The children had been prepared for this experiment by participating in other situations in which crayons or stickers were promised, and then either were delivered or were not. Children developed attitudes about the promise of waiting as a result of experience and previously divergent experiences. This was ultimately about knowledge, discipline, and trust.

This, however, was not just a one-time experiment. In fact, it was a longitudinal study in which the kids were followed throughout their lives (for 40 years, actually) and some conclusions were drawn subsequently. I know there are cynics in the audience, but bear with me on this. The children who were willing to delay gratification and waited to receive the second marshmallow ended up having higher SAT scores, lower levels of substance abuse, lower likelihood of obesity, better responses to stress, better social skills as reported by their parents, and better scores in a range of other life measures. I did not find evidence of meaningful work, successful romantic relationships, or civic activism, but you catch the drift. If you train yourself to delay gratification, this discipline will be associated with other benefits that are clearly positive.

Toward Our Best Selves What does all this have to do with us? Each day we invest in our well being. We engage with activities and challenging thoughts in order to grow and change. Sometimes it is hard to appreciate that a given assignment, a given course, a given set of requirements even will lead to academic epiphanies that are discernible and life changing. Instead, in our designing a school experience for all of you, we are assembling content and skills building and diversity of exposure and team building and joyful collaboration in order to pique appetites, but, also, to form unassailable habits that will serve us well throughout our lives. These are habits of persistence, perseverance, discipline, stickto-itiveness; of hard work, coping with disappointment, making apt choices, acknowledging delight, and knowing satisfaction. But we also know that not all that is good that will come out of these years of your life will be known to you now. You will be frustrated. You will question why you have to do this thing. You will complain that we are piling it on. You will feel exhausted. And frustrated. And even resentful. You’ll wonder if it is “worth it.” Of course, what I am asserting is that the most delectable fruit will emerge later. When you are undergraduates. When you fall in love. When you immerse yourself in a profession. When you give freely to your community. When you commit to a partner and parent children. When you lose your parents. When you are faced by tough decisions involving truthfulness and integrity.

By practicing situations in which values are important if not essential, we believe that your character will be shaped and revealed. We believe that your time at the school will be productive in the here and now, but for my purposes today that your time and work here will—in the future, near and far—result in your being mindful, virtuous, kind, effective, civic minded, contributing, loving people. You will have formed important habits. In you, then—in the best selves you become—those of us who are imagining a program, and urging hard work that benefits you, will receive our delayed gratification. But so, too, will you.

In an era that tempts us to seek only instant gratification, therefore, I assure you that you will be better served if you can imagine that hard work and principled engagement is worth it— that, at the least, it will result in something good in the future. Of course our lives can’t just be about delayed gratification. We need to have both instant and midway gratification as well. I like water to pour out of a faucet when I turn it on. I like to conveniently warm my leftover pork lo mein in the microwave. I like to hear the sounds of the Glee Club after a particularly good rehearsal and better yet at a culminating concert. I like to see the football team learn a play on a Thursday and have it lead to a touchdown on Saturday. And, to get a bit spiritual and to talk about the ultimate delayed gratification, I look forward to the feeling that at the end of what I hope to be a long life I can feel as if I made a positive difference, that I treated people well and was kind and generous despite what will have been real, regrettable flaws. And, if such a possibility exists, that my reward will be in heaven.

I wish that for all of you, as well. In a year that comes on the heels of 17 months of remarkable sacrifice, uncertainty, disruption, and fear, I wish for all of us the gratification that comes reliably from our joining together to do our work, to learn and to teach, and, as always to forge a living community of rigorous pursuit, reliable support, fertile friendship, and love. Stick with it. Have faith. Have hope. Work hard. And, of course, have a great year. //