“What's been distracting you lately? Have you had any experiences with the neural re-wiring that Davidson describes, or have you seen it in action?”
Now You See It: How Technology and Brain Science Will Transform Schools and Business for the 21stCentury by Cathy N. Davidson
Because of work (I need the bread, man!), I will probably miss Ms. Davidson’s speech on Dec. 4-5, and I’ll be kicking myself really hard! Does anyone know what time she’s on? If it’s late enough, maybe I can make it…
Her book is one that I absolutely intend to finish (during winter break)—the kind of thoughtful, well-researched nonfiction I really enjoy (and also plugs into many thoughts I’ve had).
Some thoughts about the reading….
The Invisible Gorilla Experiment: would I have noticed? I’d like to think so; I’m pretty good at puzzles/scenarios like this—but there have been a handful of times in my life where I could not see the face in the vase (or whatever), and in frustration, I would approach the point of belligerent action—and then WHAM! There it is! [Facepalm!] Boy, did I feel stupid.
So I will admit to cognitive fails on occasion.
[This reminds me of a creepy tale I read about in RE/Search: Industrial Culture Handbook (1983), concerning institutionalized brutality and attention-measuring.In some sort of undefined neuropsychiatric lab in San Diego, trainees are shown “gruesome films which become steadily more horrific…[including] an African youth being circumcised…When the film is over, the trainee is asked questions like, ‘What was the motif on the knife handle?’ or, ‘How many people were holding the youth down?’” (p100)This is a sick, sick, sick variation on the Invisible Gorilla Experiment, but one who’s final purpose eludes the civilized me.The evil me sees the purpose if you are trying to create soldier/spies/agents that will “see all” no matter what the situation, a kind of negative reinforcement to increase the subject’s attention. Since this happened in San Diego, I get the feeling that somehow the Navy is involved…]
At other times (quite often, actually), I have been the recipient of other’s attention blindness. If I’m just standing there, say, reading a newspaper, people I know—sometimes very good friends—will walk right on by, some looking right at me (right through me, I guess), near enough to touch!
I told this to a friend, and she said I was utilizing “the glass shadow,” some sort of Zen technique using stillness to become invisible. I’ve looked up glass shadow, and all I get is Angelina Jolie’s first film. Is anyone familiar with this? (The Zen invisibility, not La Jolie’s debut…)
BTW, if you were invisible (via some scientific method, not Harry Potter-style magic), you would be blind. Can you guess why?
Leaping ahead, on p.12, I fall in love with Davidson when she gets to a point that I’ve been harping on since I began my involvement with pedagogy (and one Sir Ken Robinson has eloquently commented on [go HERE to watch, and be willing to watch the whole thing, especially the valedictorian’s comments/speech at the beginning]):“If kids must face the challenges of this new, global, distributed information economy, what are we doing to structure the classroom of the 21st century to help them? In this time of massive change, we’re giving our kids the tests and lesson plans designed for their great-great-grandparents.” [italics and bold are mine]
Later, Davidson asks, “What if kids’ test scores are declining because the tests they take were devised for an industrial world and are irrelevant to the forms of learning and knowing more vital to their own world?” (p17)
Lemme tell ya, the majority of the 7th graders I taught in summer school were NOT stupid—heck, some of them were downright cunning—but most of them didn’t see the point. I remember some of them asking me, “Why are we reading this?” And I got into trouble for saying, “I don’t know; I’m not sure I can answer that.”
Fab Cathy D. continues, slamming the “standards” being foisted on the schools (great criticism of common core HERE)—“standardized tests and standardized thinking, which trumpets tradition and looks steadfastly backward more than a 100 years for its vision of the future. We haven’t done much better with many of our workplaces. A cubicle in a modern, global office is rather like the proverbial fish with a bicycle. It’s hard to imagine anything less relevant.” (If you are unfamiliar with that “proverbial fish with a bicycle” reference, go HERE.)
That last statement reminds me of the pack of lies we were sold about telecommunicating to work, or the “deskless workplace”—Ha! Like bosses are ever going to let their drones out of their sight!
When you have beancounters and contemporary Gradgrinds in charge, it will never matter how souped-up your tech is, or how many bells and whistles the latest iWhatever has. They want to be able to sneak up on you at any point during the eight to twelve hours you are trapped at work. I know this. I was a reporter, but I still had to go into a zombie cubicle farm. 99% of what I did was either online or on the phone. My presence in that fluorescent light hell was unnecessary—except to keep the lizards bosses happy. Guess they will never “learn, unlearn, and relearn.” (p19)
What starts tying things together is the evidence CND brings up showing the unique and fascinating ways humans develop their cognitive abilities, from Baby Andy to the work of Giacomo Rizzolatti (mirror neurons) and Frans de Waal’s work with primates.
One point I’d like to make—de Waal uses the example of the killer whales and teaching/learning/empathy, and it may not be a complete anomaly: Orcas are mammals with brains larger than humans—maybe empathy and teaching “individually, to the best skills and abilities of the students, in a way that’s interactive and geared to the particular relationship of student and teacher” (p55) is tied in with brain size.
Meanwhile, according to New Scientist magazine, “it has been discovered that some whales also have spindle neurons—specialized brain cells that are involved in processing emotions and helping us interact socially. Spindle cells, named after their long, spindle-shaped bodies, are the cells that are credited with allowing us to feel love and to suffer emotionally.”
Meanwhile, whales have been reported to show empathy (like how a mother whale deals with her calf), and whale-songs can be quite soul-stirring (although that could be me anthropomorphizing these gentle giants…)
--C’mon Junior, just slide up on the beach and grab lunch!--Awwwww, Dad, do I have to? The pod’s going to the Great Barrier Reef…--You’re going to Sea World if you don’t slide up and bring me a seal toot sweet! Get up there, kid!
Here’s another question, though:Great White Sharks off the coast of South Africa also do something similar to orcas—when they propel themselves up from depths to grab a seal on or near the surface. This is shark behavior unique to this region of the South Atlantic, but is it learned behavior? Nowhere else does it happen with sharks (discounting Hollywood movies). Do Great Whites teach their kids, or is this something else? (Some say sharks have brains similar to humans, but findings are inconclusive…)
The killer whales seem localized to the South Atlantic, as well (in Argentina)—is that a factor we are not considering, that locale may have something to do with this? (Is Atlantis training super-aquatic creatures for eventual world conquest?)Some cool footage, though…
Getting back to Davidson:We have this incredible human brain, with untapped powers and unrealized potentials—What has been described sounds like the most amazing piece of jeweled machinery: that our brains are glittering palaces of mystery—that our brains are almost mirror neurons to the internet—as vast as space—inside our heads.
Personal aside: I love the notion of “distraction” being some sort of early warning system—we could be plugged into…what? The great cosmic unconsciousness? Some Jungian collective subconscious?(Psychic Radar? Grooooovy!)
But if so, brain potentiality increases, right?
Instead we get “The standardized, machine-readable multiple choice test…[a] pattern of learning less like what is required to search and browse credibly and creatively on the free-flowing Internet.” (p57)
How utterly dispiriting! It is like some horrible conspiracy to keep people—especially students—from reaching their complete possibilities. It suits the hierarchy we are trapped in to make humans into square pegs forced into round holes; like the rejecting of multimodal education methods in favor of very old school alphabetic written-on-a-page essaying.
Sigh… I do hope Davidson has a happy ending to Now You See It, maybe some suggestions for a better future…
I am certainly looking forward to finishing this book, though!
"...the more you test, the less you learn..."
Ivan Lerner 
Thomas Peele 
Konstance Teleisha 
Kareem Joseph 
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