How to Help the Brain Learn

Today is the day that many students return to school; many students have already been in school for weeks. The New York Times has an interesting article that posits that all we think we know about study habits, and some of what we know about learning, is wrong.

Think about the ideal study place. You're probably imagining some place with few distractions, a clean desk, good lighting. You're probably imagining that the most effective way of studying is to plant yourself and concentrate for 3 or 4 or 5 hours.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Variety turns out to matter. Here are the results of an interesting study: "But individual learning is another matter, and psychologists have discovered that some of the most hallowed advice on study habits is flat wrong. For instance, many study skills courses insist that students find a specific place, a study room or a quiet corner of the library, to take their work. The research finds just the opposite. In one classic 1978 experiment, psychologists found that college students who studied a list of 40 vocabulary words in two different rooms — one windowless and cluttered, the other modern, with a view on a courtyard — did far better on a test than students who studied the words twice, in the same room. Later studies have confirmed the finding, for a variety of topics."

And varying the subject matter studied matters too: "Varying the type of material studied in a single sitting — alternating, for example, among vocabulary, reading and speaking in a new language — seems to leave a deeper impression on the brain than does concentrating on just one skill at a time. Musicians have known this for years, and their practice sessions often include a mix of scales, musical pieces and rhythmic work. Many athletes, too, routinely mix their workouts with strength, speed and skill drills."

The article posits that frequent testing is important. The more we make the brain retrieve information, the more solidly the brain stores that information.

The article tells us that what we think we know about teaching may be wrong. Different teaching styles can all work; as someone who manages a large department full of different teaching personalities, I was relieved to read that.

And we've spent several decades now learning about how some children are visual learners and some are auditory learners and some are kinesthetic. This article says that there's no evidence for these theories. Shocking! It even dismisses the idea of some students being right brain learners and some being left brain.

The article is full of ideas about the best ways to help the brain learn. These techniques can be adapted for all of us, since the best way to age gracefully is to continue learning new things.

So, happy back to school, back to a more structured life, back to rigor. We won't have fall weather here in the southernmost tip of the continental U.S. for at least 6 weeks, maybe several months. But already, I feel a change in the air (metaphorical not meteorological), a slight tilt in the sun's light.

Zen and the Art of Communal Living

Today is the birthday of Robert Pirsig, most famous for writing Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a book which I've already written about at some length here. The story of this book's path to publication has given comfort to many a writer; it was rejected 121 times, and has gone on to sell over 5 million copies. May all our worthy yet rejected manuscripts fare as well--or even half as well!

I thought of that book briefly, as we watched Wild Hogs this week-end. I wondered if any of those characters could fix their bike, should something go wrong in the middle of nowhere. The answer would be no, which is part of the plotline of the movie: suburban men leaving their comfortable lives. I felt this urge to hop on a motorcycle and see America, even though I knew I'd be more comfortable in a camper, especially in terms of safety.

I wish I was mechanically minded. I wish I could play an instrument. You might think these two statements have nothing to do with each other, but in some ways, they do.

Yesterday, my spouse and I wrote a song. He came up with the music as he plucked at his violin, and I started to create some lyrics. We even have enough rudimentary music theory in our brains that we could write it down.

Is it a song that will change the world? No. But it was fun to create together.

Today is also the birthday of Jane Addams, creator of communal living environments extraordinaire. She created a communal house in England, before returning to the states to transform Chicago. Well, perhaps that's a stretch. But maybe not. Two thousand people each week used the social services and spaces (day care, library, meeting spaces) provided by Hull House. She was the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

I've always been fascinated by communal living experiments, and have done some dabbling of my own; in the 90's, my spouse and I had 2 housemates, both good friends, and their pets. I continue to think about that experiment and ways it could be improved upon. At the same time, I've gone to monasteries, which have been doing communal living in successful ways for thousands of years.

I wonder if having a spiritual focus helps communal projects have longevity. If a community gathers together to pray regularly, perhaps it's harder to fight or carry a grudge.

I wonder if having an artistic focus helps communal projects have longevity. If a community supports artistic visions and enables people to live out those visions, will people be more committed?

I continue to have this dream of a huge piece of land where every resident would have his or her own cottage. There would be communal spaces, like a kitchen, a media center, a chapel, a library, a studio with art supplies of every kind. There would be hiking trails, a huge garden, and perhaps some small animals, like chickens and goats.

Could such a place be self-supporting? Perhaps by selling eggs, produce, goat cheese? Or by having visitors come for retreats? Is this just a crazy utopian dream?

My grandmother, who grew up on a farm that supported several generations, used to scoff at my ideas of returning to the land. She told me that I had no idea how hard it was. But I've always been attracted to the idea of being self-sufficient. My great-uncle (my grandmother's brother) always pointed out that the family had been well fed during the Great Depression, and able to feed others. They may have had to wear their shoes with the holes in the soles patched up, but they never went hungry.

In these days of the Great Recession, it's an appealing idea. The idea of such a place also supporting people's spiritual and creative aspirations makes it an even sweeter dream.

Now, how to go from dream to plan . . .

Rethinking and Reshaping Higher Education

All over a variety of media this season, one of the targets of ire has been tenured professors and education in general (from high school on up, although we see quite a focus lately on post-high school education). For those of you who have missed it, here's an essay in The New York Times that sums it up nicely. Several books have just been published that call for an end to tenure and an end to how college has been done. These authors have been on the interview trail to promote their books, and I've listened.

I've felt a profound sense of disconnect.

Where are these professors that these books excoriate? People who earn over $100,000 a year? I've never met a one. People who only work a few hours a week? In what teaching universe?

I know the answer: at some of the most elite universities. But let's be bluntly honest: most higher ed faculty aren't teaching in that world.

The higher ed faculty I know are teaching an extra class for free or taking furlough days. They're grumpy, but they know they're lucky to hang on to full-time teaching jobs. I also know plenty of people cobbling together a pittance by teaching lots of classes as an adjunct and working in tutoring centers.

Even faculty at state schools aren't living the life of leisure described by these books. They may have a 3-3 teaching load, but they have scads of other duties.

I suspect that these authors are mad about a state of affairs that hasn't existed in years, or decades. I had a similar sense when I read Christopher Hitchen's God is Not Great. Hitchens wasn't describing a church that I had ever known. He was still mad about Church, as it existed in the middle of the twentieth century. If he had explored the Church of the 3rd world in the 21st century, he might have really found something to worry about.

Still, these authors make some valid points. Many of us are teaching a curriculum that was valid for the middle of the 2oth century, but may need some rethinking for this century. That's a topic for another post, but a question for today: if you were remaking college curriculum, how would you shape it? An Economics professor takes a stab here. What would your answer be?

Online vs. Paper

I thought about giving this post this title: "When It Rains It Pours." But in a week where a hurricane lashes almost the whole Atlantic coast, with more systems swirling out there, I decided on a more mundane title.

But really, how many weeks can I remember where I have 2 poems published? Not many, if any. My poem, "Left Behind," is up at Qarrtsiluni. Go here to read it or to click on the link to hear me read it. It's a poem which imagines what happens after the feeding of the 5000 by Jesus. And yes, the poem is a playful nod to that wildly popular series of apocalyptic books from a decade ago, but those books really have nothing to do with this poem.

Two poems in one week--and both in online journals. That rarely happens with paper journals, but I do notice that acceptances often come in clumps. No mystery there--I usually work on submissions in a big burst.

Qarrtsiluni was one of the first online journals that made me really see that the online form could do so much more than paper. First of all there's all the color that an online journal can use. And then, there's audio, a whole new dimension. Can video be far behind?

And then there's the matter of readers. Karen writes here about the readership that she has that she wouldn't have without online journals. And more of us are reading online and expect to be able to read online. If a voracious devourer of books like me finds myself increasingly reading on a computer, what does that say for the rest of the world. My poem on Qarrtsiluni can be delivered by all the means that younger readers have come to expect: podcast, e-mail feed, I-tunes. And yes, I realize that I'm probably leaving out some content delivery system that only younger readers know about right now.

For those of you who are ready to dip your toe into the electronic waters and submit, Diane Lockward writes here about what she'd like in an online journal and she she gives us a list of journals that fit her criteria here.

I think about an older generation of writers and wonder if they'd have been happier with an online option. Today is the birthday of Richard Wright, who finally got so disgusted with his country that he moved to Paris. I doubt that being able to publish online would have eased his eventual hatred of his native country.

I remember reading Black Boy in high school, because Native Son was deemed too intense for us. So, naturally, I read Native Son. Now I read that there's an unexpurgated version. Holy cow! The expurgated version was intense enough, as I remember it. Those two books paint an important picture of what life was like for minorities before the Civil Rights era.

I do think that the Internet, with all its content options, has helped usher in a brave, new world. In some ways, we may have a less repressed era, since we all control the printing press. Unfortunately, it's up to each of us to make smart content choices, and I continue to be horrified at how unskilled many people are at determining the truth and horrified at how skilled people are at manipulating human gullibility.

That overwhelming abundance of information makes me especially appreciative of online journals. There's one poem on the screen; I can handle that. A thick journal that arrives by U.S. Post is too much. It goes in the never ending stack of paper bundles that wait to be read.

"Sleepless Beauties"

One of my poems, "Sleepless Beauties," appears in the latest edition of The Innisfree Poetry Journal. Go here to read it.

I wrote it several years ago, a time when I seemed to have a majority of friends who had teenage daughters. Their experiences made me think of my own teenage years, and my sister's teenage years. At the same time, I was seeing the teenage girl years, second hand, through the eyes of the mom. I was reading fairy tales and reading blog postings about fairy tales. All of those influences came together into the poem that you'll see when you navigate on over to The Innisfree Poetry Journal.

Hurricane Distractedness

With Hurricane Earl off our shores, I find myself increasingly distracted. In some ways, there's no reason to be so distracted; we don't really expect the storm to affect us. Actually, we've already been affected, but in a good way, with gorgeous weather: a strong breeze, drop in the humidity, achingly blue skies, and heat that isn't unbearable.

Hurricane Charley will always haunt me, with its last minute change in direction. If you lived in the Port Charlotte area, you'd have likely gone to work in the morning, expecting a Category 2 hurricane to hit the Tampa area, some 3 hours north of you. You might not have boarded up the house or laid in supplies. And then, 6 hours later, you'd have a Category 4 hurricane bearing down upon you.

In 2005, my spouse and I briefly thought about not using the hurricane shutters as Hurricane Wilma approached. Wilma was going to approach us from the west, so we thought we might not even have a real hurricane. But I knew that Wilma had already made history as the most intense hurricane on record, with that dropping barometric pressure. I was haunted by Wilma parking herself over the Yucatan peninsula for 2 days. Two days with a hurricane roaring overhead. Good grief! So we closed up the house, and I'm glad we did. I have friends who swear we experienced a strong Category 3 hurricane, but the official record was only a Category 2. It's amazing the damage that was sustained, some damage that still isn't fixed.

And so, I go to the NOAA site periodically. I go to Dr. Jeff Masters' blog at the weatherunderground site. I am fascinated by all the people who comment. I am mesmerized by all the images. All these currents of wind and water that swirl around the planet, and so many of us move through life with no awareness of them.

I've thought of writing about hurricanes and literature. Early in the summer, I picked up two wonderful books. Patricia Smith's Blood Dazzler does amazing things, an astonishing collection of poems that deal with Hurricane Katrina. I love the way that Katrina comes to life. I love that a dog makes its way through these poems. I love the multitude of voices, so many inanimate things brought to life (a poem in the voice of the Superdome--what a cool idea!). I love the mix of formalist poetry with more free form verse and the influence of jazz and blues music. An amazing book.

In Colosseum, Katie Ford also does amazing things. She, too, writes poems of Hurricane Katrina. But she also looks back to the ancient world, with poems that ponder great civilizations buried under the sands of time. What is the nature of catastrophe? What can be saved? What will be lost?

No, I will return to these poems in the winter, when the Atlantic cools a bit. I will appreciate this time, since I suspect that during my lifetime, we will cease to have a separate hurricane season. I suspect the seas will continue to warm, which will mean that we will always be susceptible.

But let us not think of that. Let us return to our resolutions to live a better life. Today I will pick up a different book of poetry, perhaps the latest by Diane Lockward or Susan Rich. They, too, have been on my to read shelf all summer. I'll plan good meals.

If you, like me, have been feeling some amount of shame about the dinner ritual, you must read this great article at The Washington Post. The article exhorts us to return to dinner the way Mom did it. The article posits that too many of us are striving to be too gourmet or too exotic every night of the week. Time to return to some time honored approaches which are quick and nutritious. Many of the cooks advocate the simple meat, two veggies, and a starch. But I'd also include stews and casseroles. I've been feeling somewhat guilty about our once-a-week pleasure dinner of grilled hamburgers (with meat from a local shop that grinds its own, so the risk of contagion is reduced) and red wine. But lo and behold, those types of meals are advocated by many of the home cooks interviewed in the article.

So, it's been a half hour since I looked at radar images. Time to bring this writing to a halt so that I can stare mesmerized into the whorls of a satellite stream!

Technologies, Old and New

I spend a fair amount of time thinking about technology on any given day, but during the past 24 hours, I've thought about it more than usual. I spent time photocopying, a technology that still seems miraculous to me--and now, many of us can afford a small, home copying machine (in the form of our printers, which can print scanned documents, or our printer-copier-scanner-fax machines that many of us have).

Then I went to my book club, which celebrates an older technology. We're all still reading the books we choose on paper. We discussed Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, a book which wrestles with the eclipsing of various technologies, especially in the music business, and it presents the first successful short story told in PowerPoint format. We meet in a classroom, and towards the end of our meeting, students started to arrive for one of our member's classes. It was great to watch them watching us talking about books. By then, we had started talking about Justin Cronin's The Passage. Vampires, the end of the world, disease! Several students started taking notes.

I came home and prepared some poetry packets for my fall mailing. How many years have I greeted fall by sending out my poems in envelopes with stamps? Many, many years. But this year, I'm just as likely to send them electronically. It's a shift; we seem to have reached a turning point where more journals accept electronic submissions than don't.

We realized later in the evening that we needed some cash for the yard guy. I hate going to ATMs at night, so we went to the grocery store, where we could pick up some groceries and write a check and get change. How many years has it been since I wrote a check for actual goods that I bought, goods right there in front of me in front of a cash register? Sure, I'll purchase my electricity that way. But a check for groceries? Years, if not decades.

While in the grocery store, my spouse had a hankering for Kool-Aid, which led us to the powdered drink aisle--or the powdered drink section of the prepared drink (but not soda pop) aisle. We had exactly 4 choices, all rather mundane: cherry, grape, lemonaid, and tropical punch. What happened to the Sparkleberry Punch flavor? We bought 5 packets for a dollar, which may be overpriced for citric acid, I'm not sure. It still seems cheap to me. We're probably the only people in the tri-county area still mixing up our own Kool-aid and making our own iced tea, the way our moms did, and their moms before them.

This morning, I noticed that I'm not the only one thinking about technology. At The New York Times, there's a great essay written by a man who went to a Buddhist retreat where he spent 5 hours meditating and 5 hours walking each day. He returned home to observe his brain wrestling with technology: "So there you go: covetousness, schadenfreude, anxiety, dread, and on and on. It’s the frequent fruitlessness of such feelings that the Buddha is said to have pondered after he unplugged from the social grid of his day — that is, the people he lived around — and wandered off to reckon with the human predicament. Maybe his time off the grid gave him enough critical distance from these emotions to discover his formula for liberation from them. In any event, it’s because the underlying emotions haven’t changed, and because the grid conveys and elicits them with such power, that his formula holds appeal for many people even, and perhaps especially, today."

And at the same website, the ever-wonderful William Gibson weighs in on visions of the world envisioned by older sci-fi and the reality of Google: "Cyberspace, not so long ago, was a specific elsewhere, one we visited periodically, peering into it from the familiar physical world. Now cyberspace has everted. Turned itself inside out. Colonized the physical. Making Google a central and evolving structural unit not only of the architecture of cyberspace, but of the world. This is the sort of thing that empires and nation-states did, before. But empires and nation-states weren’t organs of global human perception. They had their many eyes, certainly, but they didn’t constitute a single multiplex eye for the entire human species."

We live in interesting times, as we watch technologies seem to eclipse each other and then sometimes, technology comes swooping back to reclaim a piece of territory. We wrestle with new technology's impact on our attention span, just as humanity has always wrestled with issues of attention, intention, and efficiency.

What will today bring? Before I get too enswamped in modern technology, maybe I'll read a poem or two. Maybe several times. Sandy has a great post on reading a manuscript and thinking about how she should change her approach to reading volumes of poetry. Maybe I'll adopt her strategy for a single poem. Maybe I'll choose one poem each week and spend each day reading that same poem several times. An interesting Fall resolution . . .