More from the book Brain Rules by John Medina. Chapter 2 is titled Survival and describes many of the aspect of our brain’s journey from early man to today. I found two areas that intersected with education that I found interesting.
The first was John’s description of Dual Representation Theory.
“Stated formally, it describes our ability to attribute characteristics and meaning to things that don’t actually posses them. Stated informally, we can make things up that aren’t there. We are human because we can fantasize.”
This relates directly to something I wrote about last month. The Big Word project seeks to attach websites to specific words. The implications are quite interesting. Here is what I previously wrote about…
Intersection
Approach
These words are mine. I bought them. Let me explain. I came across the Big Word Project from one of my favorite blogs Ugly Doggy. It is an interesting idea dreamt up by two creative thinkers in Northern Ireland. Their idea was to let people redefine a word by linking it to a particular website.
I chose Intersection and approach because for me they represent the philosophy of this blog. It is an intersection of many ideas and education. It is also about having a different approach to what we do in education. (Innovation and Education were already taken!) Ugly Doggy conducted an interview with the creators.
Here is one of the interview questions and answers...
Are the words pre-approved (you have a list and what is not there can't be used) and therefore finite? Or ANYTHING that is in a dictionary can go there?
- Lee: Not at all, anything that's a real word can be used. We're using the Oxford English Dictionary as reference. We have about 180,000 words on the site but we're missing loads so feel free to suggest more. We're not including places or names (unless the name is in the dictionary).
This got me thinking about its relation to education. If a word can take on multiple meanings and even take on locations on the world wide web, then what else could a word be connected with? A word could be connected with a picture, a sound, a smell, a country, a person, a movie, a song, a poem. If you think about it, this has some pretty powerful implications for education. We are moving from a "there is one right definition of a word" to a "a word can mean multiple things and those things will be specific to each individual." Word and meaning will take on many more meanings and concepts, and those can be individualized from a country, a culture, a group, or an individual.
One right answer for the question "What does approach mean?" or "What does Intersection mean?" is evaporating into links and tags meaning, unique to every person. This is getting very interesting.
The second part of the Survival chapter includes a discussion about how important feelings can be to learning. John explains that how our students feel about their teachers has a major impact on how our students learn.
“It follows from these ideas that our ability to learn has deep roots in relationships. If so, our learning performance may be deeply affected by the emotional environment in which the learning takes place. There is surprising empirical data to support this. The quality of education may in part depend on the relationship between student and teacher.”
In other words, your relationship with you student has a lot to do with how well that student will do in school. If you are constantly berating or disrespecting your students, don’t expect great results.
I once heard that…
I am not who you think I am.
I am not who I think I am.
I am who I think you think I am.
“If someone does not feel safe with a teacher or boss, he or she many not be able to perform as well. If a student feels misunderstood because the teacher cannot connect with the way the student learns, the student may become isolated.”
Principals, did you catch that? Your relationship with your teachers is going to have a large impact on how well they teach. Trust builds relationships.
Relationships matter in teaching and leading. Your success as a teacher or a principal will largely depend on how your students or your teachers feel about you.
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