brain yoga

In my intro to teaching class, the professor recently asked us to read Wikipedia's article on theory. He explained that he wanted us to see the different ways the word is construed in various disciplines and to understand that in the context of teaching, theories are more like methods—tangible practices determined by amassing a lot of evidence that suggests that these are the effective ways to do things—than abstract principles. In another class this week we encountered the latter. The course, which focuses on organizational behavior, pairs case studies with theory to equip us to become leaders who know how to effectively shape organizations. As I sat down with an article that posited theories about how people make decisions, I felt like I was back in a class on existentialism that I took in college. I remembered how hard I sometimes find it to process paragraphs and pages that revolve entirely around abstract ideas and logic; it just seems like that's not how my brain works. As I plod through such texts, I fail to visualize anything from what I read, and when I don't visualize, I often don't retain the information. So I have to sit down and read it again, taking notes along the way, building structure into the flow of thoughts since the author didn't seem to. After the note-taking, I can understand the text much better; I can at least visualize the notes on the screen, the four questions the author posed about how decisions get made and the subsequent categories I broke his explanations into it. I still don't visualize the content itself, but I put my mental processing of it onto paper, and somehow, that imprints visually on my brain.

That I learn best by interacting is not news to me. It's the crux of why archaeology impassioned me in college but history often didn't. Some historical accounts, like Zapata and the Mexican Revolution and Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, read like novels to me and don't get put down until I reach the last page; but a lot of history isn't written like that, so back in college, anyway, I found it harder to get into. In anthropology classes, on the other hand, I got to sit down at a lab table and face off with the skulls of our hominid ancestors; I got to study their size and shape, the prominence of the brow ridge, got to hold them in my hand and feel their weight. When I studied the ancient Maya, I got to stand amidst the buildings and stellae they long ago constructed and learn to read the hieroglyphs inscribed upon them; in that incomparable outdoor classroom, I got to listen as the man responsible for deciphering most of the glyphs taught us to see a smoke scroll here and a monkey's face here; taught us to add up the syllables and say the words; taught us to differentiate dates from textual statements and to slowly understand how these artful building blocks relayed information about warfare and conquest, royal births and deaths. In classes, I got to study slides professors had taken at long-excavated or newly rediscovered archaeological sites. Even when learning theory—that often-times deadly, abstract stuff—I got to study maps covered in symbols and differently colored arrows to learn the locations of hominid skulls or coastal campsites, to learn the competing explanations of the migration of hominids out of Africa or the newer take on the route homo sapiens followed to populate the Americas. That all this content stimulated my interest is no surprise; it stimulated my brain waves, tapping into all kinds of functions in my head.

Being back in school after almost a decade away from it is not just an adjustment to my schedule; it's an adjustment for my brain. While both my undergraduate studies and my professional work as a social studies editor were heavily focused on content, my graduate classes are teaching me mostly about academic disciplines and professional fields. That the subject at the heart of them—all courses being connected by the thread of education—is something highly tangible to me, something I have experienced in many settings and from both sides of the equation, doesn't always mean that the way my brain has to work to access the information is comfortable for it. It has been a long time since I read theory; a long time since I read so much of anything in one sitting, or in daily nine-hour sittings. But I consider all the struggles toward adjustment to be brain yoga. In some classes, the teaching methods are entirely new to me; in others, the packaging of the content is; yet in all of them, as the different control centers in my brain stretch their legs, shake out their muscles, and get back on the mat, they exhale a collective sigh of relief. It is exhausting to be inside your head so many hours a day; but it is exciting, especially when you realize that you can learn anything, in any format, no matter the limitations you might think were placed on your brain at birth. The brain is elastic, I think; resilient. Some corners grow dim over time, but all it takes to re-light them is a little effort, a little will, and a solid dose of curiosity. And with that optimistic thought, I leave you, my readers, to get back to my homework!