
Dr. Caitlin Kight explores the connection between ikigai and education, highlighting how it can benefit both students and educators in episode 29 of the Ikigai Podcast.
Caitlin is a former behavioral ecologist and is now an education researcher and leader of the Academic Development and Skills team at the University of Exeter, where she helps academics and support staff reflect on their education-facing activities and improve their teaching and learning techniques.
*Watch the full playlist above.
Behavioral Ecology with Dr. Caitlin Kight
Are there similarities between humans and other organisms? Caitlin talks about her fascination with behavioral ecology, especially with birds, and how she finds their connection to human behaviors.
The link between bird behavior and human actions
Caitlin: Something that I find really fascinating when you think about any kind of behavioral ecology and animal behavior research is there's always this temptation to anthropomorphize a little bit, right, because you think, ah, what they're doing is clearly what I would be doing. It clearly means this because this just seems right.
But we know, after you do these really carefully calibrated studies, you think actually what they're doing is this, and that's not what I expected. But at the end of the day, there are still things where we think they are doing something that's quite human. One example of that is we know that birds tend to sing a lot in the morning because the conditions are right.
It's just really good Physics for their sound to carry. And so they do it in the morning, they've just awakened and so they get a bit of food, they get their energy. Then once they've got their energy, they can do their calling to try to get their mate, and so we have very functional explanations.
However, one of the things I love is that we also do see that birds sometimes seem to be singing and calling purely for the joy of it. And also sometimes they seem to be practicing. So they'll sit and very quietly just kind of sing to themselves to get better at something. And I love that kind of thing. Because it just seems so human.
I think probably there is some aspect where you know, we all have these underlying motivations, where sometimes things are just joyful, or we just want to get a little bit better at something and I love that there's that connection and how we approach these universal tasks if you like.
Nick: Well, that's fascinating. I didn't know that they practiced singing like we would. So that is fascinating.Why I Love Vultures
Caitlin shares her admiration for vultures, highlighting how they are often misunderstood yet play a vital role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem.
Vultures are often misunderstood by people
Nick: One of your favorite birds is the vulture, which you mentioned on a radio show. So would you like to explain why you have this love for vultures where most people probably wouldn't?
Caitlin: Yeah, definitely vultures have not always been my favorite group of birds, and I have had different favorites over the years. An early favorite was the blue j because when I was out, banding birds: so we capture birds in these nets and put bands on them so we can track where they go and what they were doing, and I caught a blue J. And it just watched me the whole time. Like, I've got my eyes on you. I know what you're doing. You're not outsmarting me, and I just loved its attitude.
But vultures, actually one of the real reasons that I like them, you've just mentioned is that a lot of people don't, and I think that they really get a bad rap. They're not understood very well by a lot of people. You know, in my part of the world, they're called buzzards. So I live in the UK and in the UK, a buzzard is a hawk, a bird, it's a predatory bird that will target things and kill them. And in the US, what we call buzzards is a vulture.
Vultures do not typically, for the most part, they don't go hunting for things -- they just eat, carry, and that's leftover. So this is a real misunderstanding where people malign them because they think all they're going to do is kill my pet rabbit, or my chickens or my lambs or whatever. And that's not true.
Actually, what they're doing is serving this wonderful purpose in the ecosystem where they're taking things that no longer otherwise have a purpose, and they're breaking them down and returning the little bits of them into the environment. So they can come back as plants, funky animals, whatever.
I think that's amazing, like what better role than to be the link between something dying and something being reborn, you know, not to get overly floral about it. But for me, that's such an important part in the ecosystem. I think it's such a shame that people don't understand how they do that.
In fact, in places like Africa and India, they're severely threatened, because it's been misunderstood for so long, and there have been poisoning events that have killed them off. So those functions are no longer being fulfilled, and I find that really tragic because it's this lovely part of the cycle of life.
Oshiegai in Education
If your ikigai is to teach, the Japanese have another term for that: oshiegai (worth teaching). Do you feel a sense of ikigai by sharing your knowledge with others? Caitlin shares how she ends up becoming an educator: sharing her knowledge with other people and considering it as her ikigai.
Passion for teaching
Nick: I think for you, teaching is a type of ikigai, and I actually learned this on my last episode, that we can use the word teach and add the suffix gai, and that becomes oshiegai so the verb for teaching Japanese is oshieru and when compounded with Gai becomes oshiegai, which means you feel it's something worth teaching, or perhaps you've got a student, or many students you feel that they are worth teaching.
So it's another example of taking Gai and adding it to a verb. So we've got verbs like hataraku, which becomes hatarakigai, so it's something as work worth doing; or asobu which means play, asobigai, play with doing or activities worth doing.
And now we have oshiegai. I think I shared this with you, there is something enjoyable about sharing knowledge and things you learn, and almost sharing that with others as a gift. I think if you find a sense of purpose in that.
So when did you realize you wanted to teach and share knowledge?
Caitlin: This is another question that I often get, like the bird question, and this one, I actually think is even funnier, because, with the birds, I can't exactly specify a thing. With teaching, what I can say is that I always swore I would never teach.
So there are many different educators in my family, particularly on my mom's side of the family. I grew up watching my mom as a teacher, and I could see how grueling it was, and she loved her job, she did not say bad things about teaching.
But I would see how she would have to stay up till two in the morning grading or whatever. And I thought, wow, that does not seem like a good work-life balance, I definitely don't want that. So I always swore I wouldn't do it. And you know, here I am. But I consider myself a communicator for a really long time.
I was a writer, basically, from when I was a little girl, I remember the moment that I was first writing a story and thought, wow, this feels amazing. I'm filled with excitement about this. I always knew that I liked communicating, which was a real blend of both of my parents.
And at some point, I kind of realized that actually, all this communication that I was doing all this outreach about science, actually was teaching. So I could call it whatever I wanted to call it. But the end game for me was always giving people the information that I thought they would need or would value and want so that they could make decisions.
So they could make decisions that were well informed and not just some kind of random gut instinct sort of thing. And really, that's what teaching is, isn't it? You're trying to give someone the tools that they need to navigate through life.
And so I had to eventually give up and realize that actually, I'd been doing this all along and setting myself along this path, whether I wanted to openly admit it or not, and at that point, I said, right, let's just double down and just do it. Let's just focus on that and really see what we can get out of this.
What Led Me to Discover Ikigai
With her passion to find creative ways to educate people, Caitlin stumbled upon the Japanese concept of ikigai. She shares how she was able to incorporate ikigai during one of her sessions, and how the students responded well with the concept, which led her to explore more about it.
Delving deeper into ikigai
Nick: I did some research on your website and found a quote, I think that sort of encapsulates what you've just shared. So I'll read the quote:
"I am passionate about finding creative ways to educate no matter the audience or the setting. This is something I frequently lecture on, and in order to keep my content fresh, I often try my hand at new techniques."
I think I learned that from you when you offered to do a Lego series play session for our group related to ikigai, and I thought, well, who is this Caitlin lady, she's already wanted to teach Lego in my ikigai tribe.
And I thought, wow, this will be cool. So we did that. And that was lots of fun. So yeah, you are very passionate about finding creative ways to educate.
And so now you are pursuing your second doctorate in education, with a focus on self-study, as a reflective practice for educators. And I have this idea, maybe this led you to learning about ikigai?
Caitlin: Yeah, it did, actually, when I was teaching a bit more than I am now, one of the things that I taught was doctoral supervision. I would often go in and talk not just to supervisors, but also to doctoral students to hear about what their concerns are.
What are the things that they're worried about? So I could take that to their supervisors and say, here's how you can help. And in one session, I was invited in as a panelist to talk to the PGRs, the post-grad researchers about the next steps with their careers.
So what are they going to do when they graduate and go on into the world as baby doctors, and one of their real concerns was, what if I don't land a job in academia, and that is becoming increasingly a challenge, where people will get a Ph.D. and then they can't stay in a university because there's just not enough jobs?
And it's, it's something that really worries people and obviously, I got a Ph.D. but I did not become a professor.
And so I always try to help them feel a bit more secure. You know, there are many options, and actually, ultimately it doesn't matter what your job title is. What matters is, are you doing something that makes you feel good. Are you doing something that you like?
And in order to try to help communicate that idea, I was poking around. I had been on social media and had seen ikigai at some point, a year or two ago, and I thought, this would be a really good thing to take in and share with this group of students, I think this idea of this Purpose Driven Life and all that I think they could really see this visual and understand what I'm talking about. And that was the western ikigai graphic.
So I poked around online to try to find that to take into the session. And when I did, I found your website, actually. The students in that session really responded well.
They all scribbled this, what is this, I want to go find this, and they really liked the idea, which I thought was great. And I thought, there's clearly something in this.
But what I found really exciting in looking at your website, was that the western thing is really interesting and really useful. Just the concepts there are great philosophical prompts to think about things reflectively.
But it looks like it was just the tip of the iceberg, about what ikigai really could be or really was. And I wanted to learn more because that's exactly what I do. I'd like to dig deeper. And I like to look at this reflective practice.
And so that is what brought me to enroll in the program and to really think about, what is this philosophy in this approach? And how could this maybe structure or support or feed into the work that I'm doing more generally thinking about reflective practice as an educator?
Values in Relation to Ikigai
Have you ever contemplated the things that you really value in life? Is it vital for us to establish our values? Caitlin talks about the importance of having values in our lives and how ikigai gives people a way of putting their values in the center of all things and understanding them.
Values inform ethical decisions
Nick: You touched on values, and I know that's one area, you did some work related to ikigai, I think you presented values in relation to ikigai to teachers. How did that go and how was that received?Caitlin: I really want to have a conversation with colleagues about values. And what I find really frustrating is that often, people don't seem to think that it's very interesting or very exciting.
So often have a session on values, you only get a couple of people which has been the case with me. So I have a couple of colleagues in particular, who are really interested in values, and these are folks actually who do a lot of work in ethics.
So I've got a colleague who's on an ethics committee for our department, and I've got another who helped set up an ethics conference.
People who deal with ethics on a daily basis, really understand how important values are because values inform ethical decisions. So when you're sitting there filling out ethical paperwork, it's kind of it's right in your face.
I think a lot of people don't just in the daily course of things, they don't think, what are my values? And how are my values manifesting what I'm doing? And that is true of me as well.
I'm not saying that I walked around with this right in front of me at all times. And I actually think that's really fascinating.
I actually think if you look at schooling all the way down to little kids, we don't really, especially not in the way that they used to back in ancient times, we don't say here are the values we want you to have.
Now, in some cases, those values are embedded throughout. So this is what I referred to with the hidden curriculum. So by talking about certain things, or excluding certain things, or discussing stuff in a certain way, we are absolutely touching on values.
But we don't necessarily explicitly say right, one through 10, here are the values you should have. I think we try to not do that because we know that we live in this diverse culture, we don't want to be top-down. In theory, teachers don't.
I think the system, this is a whole other discussion, I think the system is a bit more controlling. But teachers I think try to generally be open.
But what we don't necessarily do is say, right, whatever the values are, here is how you go about interrogating them, here is how you can think about what your own values are, and understand how that impacts your life.
And I find that really amazing, because this is kind of fundamentally important, right. I certainly had a family where we had discussions about values, and it was quite clear what the values were.
So I always felt that I had a pretty good hold on how to think about values. I think a lot of people don't have that. And that's not a critique, I think it's kind of fallen out of practice because people aren't as religious, and that used to happen in religion much more.
So now we just don't typically sit around the dinner table talking about these things, and an understanding of what our own values are.
If you also don't have an understanding of how to figure out those values, then you might find that you're consistently making decisions that are just all over the place.
You're not really putting yourself on the life path that you want, you're not ending up where you want to be, things don't really feel satisfying, because they're not quite right in some way.
What I really like about ikigai, is that it gives you this way of really putting that right in the center of all things.
Because it's acknowledging, yes, this is fundamentally important, you need to tap into that and know what it is that you care about, and order those things so that you can make those choices in a deliberate fashion.
You see how that links up to your relationships. You see how it links up to your job, and so on.
And I really liked the fact that it pulls all of those things together and shows especially how values run through all of them, and just really gives people an easy and quick way to say okay, here's how I can figure this out. And here's how I can organize my life around that.
For the full podcast conversation, go to: Oshiegai and Ikigai in Education with Dr. Caitlin Kight