Postcards from the Funny Farm

Have you heard the story of the lumberjack who cut more wood by taking breaks?  If you know the tale, you know the secret: he was sharpening his axe.  Like chopping wood, studying and reading are activities that we actually do better when we take breaks.

Whether you are in school or at work, it’s important to not to overwhelm your brain. Science tells us that the mind cannot usually absorb more than three things at a time. So, if you are reading, take breaks and remember the tendency of the brain to retain 3 things in one sitting. Yellow pads are an excellent resource for this, as simple as that sounds. You’d do well to “space out” the time you have to study as well. The theory of time spaced learning got me through College Algebra at the junior college. I struggled with math up to then and a teacher shared with the class about it. My life has been improved ever since!

The theory is as follows: instead of studying to absorb new material over the course of an hour, break up your time into 15 minute increments (suggested). The data shows that memory is imprinted strongest when you start and stop a study time. Therefore, instead of having strong memories only twice in an hour, you will have them at the start and stop of each mini session. This equals more knowledge! Now this was great news to me, because I loved taking breaks from math!

When it comes to studying for memory, less is more and quality is better than quantity. Slow down and take more breaks, you’ll be amazed how much more you retain for life!

I was out watching my two girls play by the pool and an interesting thing happened. My youngest reached for an inflatable ring next to some car covers that was being blown away from her by the desert winds. I told her to hold on and daddy would get it. She persisted in reaching for it as if it was the most amazing item in the world. I couldn’t help but wonder why such a vanilla, plain and unexciting object would be so important to her. There were three others like it by her and a life jacket as well. Then I got to thinking: she has gotten used to that faded plastic ring that probably cost us less than a dollar. To her, it has become an object of fun. I started remembering all the bikes I had as a kid and some of the stuff I really loved but wasn’t worth much.

A lot of times in my life I think along the lines of “They just don’t make them like they used to.” This is because I am naturally nostalgic about the things of my past, namely: of my youth.

We’d do well to remember two things based on this ring:

1. Things have no “value” to our lives apart from the meaning we assign and pour into them. This is especially true for kids. -and-
2. Instead of drawing close to things we should open our minds to all things. If you like IBM computers, try MACS and vice versa. Etc.

My daughter showed me with her ring today that what I do is just as good as what my parents did for me and life is simple to a child. She may remember that ring for years as a simple of playing in the pool with dad based on the meaning she assigned to it. I think probably this afternoon I would have expired it to the recycle bin had she not shown me it was special.

Do you have an object or a memory of one that you assign(ed) meaning to?

Whether you are learning or teaching, it’s important to not over stuff your brain. Studies have shown that the mind cannot absorb more than three things at a time. So, if you are writing, don’t make more than 3 main points or they will be wasted on over-fed minds. If you are looking to read and understand something, break it down into three or less main categories. Yellow pads are great for this. You’d do well to “space out” the time you have to study as well. The theory of time spaced learning got me through College Algebra at the junior college. I have always struggled with math and a teacher shared with the class about it. My life has been improved ever since!

The theory goes like this: instead of studying to absorb new material over the course of an hour, break up your time into 15 minute increments. The data shows that memory is strongest when you start and stop a study time. Therefore, instead of having strong memories only twice in an hour, you will have them at the start and stop of each mini session. This equals more knowledge retained! Now this was great news to me, because I loved taking breaks from math!

When it comes to our brains, less is more and quality is better than quantity. Slow down and take more breaks, you’ll be amazed how much more you retain for life!

We all have those blissful memories of youth and summer. Whether it was eating watermelon in the cul-de-sac or enjoying snow-cone or popcorn machines the grownups on the street rented for a special event like the Fourth of July. Or maybe it was just traipsing through the mud out behind the house or down the creek. There’s something about the discoveries and kaleidoscopes of youthful perception that stay in our psyche forever.

Some of you know I am taking a brief vacation from blogging. I’ve asked some excellent blogger friends of mine to do some guest blogging and so far Marcia has been kind enough to offer her muse during my “get my head together” and “recharge my writing batteries” time. This summer should be an amazing time for my family and I know I will be writing some of my best stuff. Furthermore, I feel a sense of arrival with my “inspiration” writing niche. I’ve had one other niche since I started, you may recall the “language blog” days … that ended up being forced. I’m hopeful I will stay excited about writing on inspiration until I am old and grey … well, old … I’m already turning grey ;)

A few others besides Marcia have shown interest in guestblogging so stay tuned for theirs. I should be back full-swing in a week or so. Thanks for being patient and checking back. For now, since it doesn’t require much effort on my part, I checked in tonight with a question for you:

What is the strongest memory of youth and summer you can recall?

I have music around me as much as possible. It lifts my spirit and makes me more human, I think. Someone might say that I am in my own la la land because I have a playlist for before the kids get here called “Feelin’ Good Classroom Music.” To that voice I say: “No, it took effort to get those songs loaded and it takes effort to press play when I get to work.” I put music and meditation on a high pedestal when it comes to work. In a given day I am barraged with requests from the administration, parents, and of course the kids have many needs. As an educator, it is easy to get caught up in my “to do list” and stress over it. When I stress out, the first casualty is my creativity and that ironically is that can solve most these professional issues of stress.

In short: I need music at the beginning of the day.

I’ve read that every one of the 5 senses has a different component related to memory. Scent, for example, has hedonic component where if you smell something you haven’t smelled since you were a kid, you might recall volumes of memories … it can even be overwhelming causing people to pass out I have read. Music is like that as well.

I have on this songlist music that takes me away to a place where I feel free and open to create and innovate my work. I also have a big comfy desk chair that I bought years ago at a discount furniture. It helps the musical effect, let me tell you! I am a moody person, to put it simply. For me, music is just as important as a drug would be. Recognizing that and being responsible to have a boombox or computer playlist in my work area is a facet of responsibility, no la la land here ;)

There are meditation actions one can take such as TM, prayer, mantra repetition and others. These are also important. There are so man things I can do proactively to have a great day at work. Nothing, however, prepares me better for my job of creativity and patience than quality time hearing musical notes and melodies being played in the morning. Whether it’s Theme from a Summer Place or DEVO singing Girl You Want from the Tank Girl soundtrack, playlist rules and I know it makes me a better teacher in a good mood every day.

Have you made a “Feelin’ Good” playlist?

How many electronic items do you own that are obsolete? I went through my classroom the other day collecting old items like cables and tape recorders and even a record player to clear out some clutter. It was remarkable to me how many district-purchased things were now useless. I remember when I was a senior in high school in 1987, I had a computer class in which we worked tediously on Apple computers that ran programs from those disks that actually were “floppy.” It got me wondering about what might soon be obsolete that I use today.

It’s kind of a depressing thought to me to think even the very blog I write in daily will one day be replaced with something else. Certainly my Compaq laptop with 36G hard-drive memory and 500M RAM has been supplanted in the marketplace. I’m actually afraid to look at what is out there now, and my laptop is only about two years old. Oh, and do I need to go into much detail on this keyword: hybrids?

Anyway, without letting progress overwhelm me, I try to be a student of the marketplace. Mostly in blogging and educational tools, but in all other areas of my life where it seems to be an issue. For example, my wife and our kids and I are moving into our new home in 30 days. This is so exciting and I find myself reading up and considering all the features of a home audio and tv system. I don’t have the money to get them all right away, but nowadays that may be a “plus” for the long term. I want to “future proof” my home as much as I can. If that means paying a little more for some things, I think it will be wiser in the long run. One example I ran across are HDMI splitters. Ignore the fancy name, they are simply connectors that hook up the speakers to your sound system. I read the current audio cables people use nowadays will not be able to handle the up-and-coming-systems of the near future. This is, of course, only one example of what likely lays before me on my first-time-home-owner safari!

All this stuff is enough to make me want to wear earplugs when I go shopping for electronic stuff.

Do you ever walk through the TV’s at Wal-Mart and think: “If only I’d have waited a couple more months?”