The Russian Tale

Robert Kegan closed out his Learning & the Brain session with this Russian tale, told to him by his grandfather, and included in his book How The Way We Talk Can Change The Way We Work. Kegan facilitated his interactive, collaborative workshop by taking us through the major exercise described in his book. The exercise might best be described as understanding our languages of commitment. More on that in weeks to come. For now, here is the tale.

It was winter and a woodcutter was walking through the woods, with plans to chop some wood to bring back home. Along the way he found a bird in the snow. The bird was cold and weak, and the woodcutter took heart, picked up the bird, placed it in his jacket, and continued into the woods.

Upon arriving at just the right spot for chopping some wood, the woodcutter realized he would have to put the bird down in order to do the chopping and carrying home of the wood. Wanting to keep the bird safe and warm, the woodcutter looked around for a place to put the bird. In the distance he spied some cow pies recently dropped by a passing herd. The woodcutter walked over to the warmest pile, dug out a nesting spot, and placed the bird within the surrounding warmth.  The woodcutter returned to his cutting area, cut down the wood he needed, then picked up the wood and carried it home.

Meanwhile, the warmth of the cow pile was nourishing the bird, so much so that the bird regained its strength and started to sing a lovely song. Off in the distance a hungry wolf’s ears perked up upon hearing the bird’s song. The wolf set off in search of the source of the sound, and soon came upon the bird nesting in the cow pile. With one big gulp, the wolf had his meal and the bird’s song had stopped.

This Russian tale has three morals which, according to Kegan, is the standard for Russian tales.

Moral 1
The one who gets you into a pile of s**t is not necessarily your enemy.

Moral 2
The one who gets you out of a pile of s**t is not necessarily your friend.

Moral 3
If you wind up in a pile of s**t, don’t sing about it!

Third (and Final) Day’s Distillation

Ah, awake since 4:30 this morning, I write this post from the comfort of home, still percolating from the intellectual and emotional bubbling of being in Cambridge and attending the Learning & the Brain conference.

Being one who likes to sit near the action, yesterday afternoon I situated myself up close, front and center, to better tune in to the four keynotes. My neighbor to the left turned out to be a fascinating 68 year old woman who, back in 1985, was the founding President of a public charter boarding school – the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. A few years ago she stepped down from that position to focus on consulting and writing a book, and in the course of her work has traveled to Australia and Africa, among other places. I couldn’t help but be interested in hearing more of her story, and peppered her with questions that she kindly obliged me in answering. She epitomizes, for me, what it means to be a lifelong learner and an intellecutal entrepreneur. And then I realized, as Monday’s afternoon session was beginning, that this multi-faceted woman was Tuesday’s opening keynote speaker!

Stephanie Pace Marshall received a rousing reception from an audience of approxmiately 600 as she finished her hour talk Igniting and Nurturing Whole Minds – How Advances in the Learning Sciences Can Frame and Shape the Transformation of Learning and Schooling. While it may be a lengthy title for a talk, which was full of stories, not-so-subtle pokes at the current state of spending on school and family services, and NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Marshall left us wanting to hear more.

She talked about transforming schools rather than reforming them, and ardently urged us – the teachers in the audience – to politicize the discussion. She brought up A Private Universe, a movie that pointedly shows how basic concepts can be misunderstood and carried around with us until and unless someone sets us straight, yet teachers thought they had taught and students thought they had learned. You can download Marshall’s notes for her talk here. Among her closing thoughts:

We don’t have time for pessimism. Pessimissm only works in good times.

The second keynote of the morning was really not a talk but an interactive workshop with Robert Kegan, whose book, How The Way We Talk Can Change The Way We Work, I read prior to the conference. The workshop, Understanding and Overturning the Immunity to Change: An Interactive, Experiential Presentation, was all that and more, because if any part of this entire conference was going to transform us, this was it!

Funny, engaging, and thought provoking, Kegan walked around the room making eye contact as he encouraged us in our exploration of what it is we are committed to and what we are doing that prevents us from realizing this committment. That was the easy part. Next we had to take this apart and get into the real nitty gritty of what stops us from doing that which we say we want to accomplish. This is psychology and brain science taken to the most personal level.

Kegan left us with a Russian tale complete with three morals, but you will have to wait till tomorrow for that tale, as this one has reached its end!

Second Day’s Distillation

A most stimulating series of sessions today, beginning with Kenneth S. Kosik’s talk about The Adult Brain and Memory: How Learning Protects Against Alzheimer’s. Kosik is soft spoken with an impressive command of his information that he is able to share in layperson terms. As with Sam Goldstein yesterday, Kosik cautioned us to be skeptical of products touted to take advantage of the brain’s plasticity, as there is minimal data to support those claims. He presented an Alzheimer’s 101 class and, for the first time, I began to truly understand what is happening in my father’s brain. I took extensive notes that will be shared with my mom and brother, and when Kosik was finished, the words “compassionate scientist” were what first entered my mind to describe him.

At the very end of Kosik’s talk he mentioned a new technology of Connectomics, designed “to trace the fine wiring of the brain more accurately than ever before … could soon generate a complete wiring diagram–including every tiny fiber and miniscule connection–of a piece of brain.” If you have two minutes and thirty-three seconds, take a look at this 3-D reconstruction of a piece of rabbit retina.

Following in this strand of adult brains and learning, Kathleen Taylor and Annalee Lamoreaux, professors from Saint Mary’s College of Education in California, presented on Teaching With The Adult Brain in Mind. This was an interactive and lively session on adult development and adult learning, for which the slides and bibliography will be made available here.

The afternoon session consisted of four keynotes, three of them talks and one of them a movie, all focused on the topics of Brain Plasticity, Stress & Adverse Experiences. I was tickled to be seeing and hearing some of the people who have been mentioned in the literature. Bruce McEwen gave a jam-packed talk, interspersed with some humor and many well planned slides, on Stress and Neuroplasticity in Learning. Seth Pollak, perhaps one of the best grand ballroom presenters because he made eye contact and walked around, plus had superb slides consisting almost entirely of visual imagery, and told humorous and touching stories we could connect to, spoke about Developing Brains and At-risk Children.

The last two speakers had related topics. Elkhonon Goldberg gave a long talk (he had to skip portions in order to not exceed the time limit too greatly!) about Brain Plasticity and Cognitive Fitness. This was followed by the thirty minute documentary, A Change of Character, by Neal Goodman. Goodman’s movie covers the change in life of a patient who had damaged frontal lobes from a stroke and Elkhonon’s efforts to help restore the patient’s prior personality.

It is 9:45 at night and my brain is still raring to go, still processing the multitude of information taken in, and eager to further distill and discuss the ideas! However, I have a 7:15 breakfast date with my email colleague, so I am now going to work on winding down!

First Day’s Distillation

Two opening keynote sessions and two afternoon sessions about the teen brain = one very full day that began at 6 this morning.

Sam Goldstein kicked off the conference with his engaging talk: Hardwired to Learn: Creating Schools that Nurture and Grow Developing Brains. He was funny, entertaining, and thought provoking while telling stories and sharing visuals that contained more images and less text. He began his talk with a disclaimer, reminding us all to “Question the band wagon!” and think twice about information that is presented. Quoting Daniel Boorstin:

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge.

The second keynote was given by Norman Doidge discussing his book, The Brain That Changes Itself. I had been especially looking forward to hearing him talk, having devoured his book with much appreciation. Well, live and learn. He is a far better author than presenter. Garr Reynolds would have been appalled to see Doidge’s presentation because Doidge read his slides which consisted, more often than not, of bulleted sentences!

Seventy-five minutes later, after lunch, I was raring to go for Frances Jensen and her session about The Paradox of Learning in the Teen Brain. This talk was the quick version of Teen Brain 101, a “short course for teens, their parents and teachers”, which Jensen designed with Harvard colleague David Urion. Their goal was to explain to teens and those who deal with them “fundamental insights that neuroscientists figured out years ago” but the information just never made it out to the public. Armed with complementary visuals (except for some of the charts) and a lively narrative, Jensen was stimulating and highly informative as she explained the science behind the functioning of the teen brain; she left me hungering for more.

Jeb Schenck wound up the day with his presentation on Teaching the Teen Brain: Connecting Memory, Emotions & Actions. Having heard Schenck’s name mentioned at various past confernces, and having read one of his books, I was eager to see him present. He did not disappoint, though I did not learn anything new, prompting me to double check that my choices for tomorrow’s morning sessions are based upon content and not speaker.

Topping the day was having meals with a delightful colleague who I had previously met by email as a result of her reading this blog. We’ve shared three meals together and have yet to run out of conversation! I also ran into an administrator with whom I had the pleasure of working for five years at the school prior to my current one. We spent a grand forty-five minutes catching up and pondering our futures. And now, I am so ready to fall sound asleep!

Arrival!

Boston Marriott Cambridge
The MIT book store is across the street.

View from my room on the 14th floor
That’s the Charles River, followed by downtown Boston.

The reason for being here!

And she’s off!

Cerebellum Up Close

The Cerebellum is my favorite part of the brain. I like the sound of the word, which means “little brain” in Latin; though if you check the meaning of cere and bellum, you might be surprised at their individual meanings. How they come together to form “little brain” is all a matter of Latin semantics.

In dissecting a sheep’s brain, I see why the cerebellum is described as resembling cauliflower. (The cauliflower is on the left.) Unlike a head of cauliflower, though, the human cerebellum is quite a bit smaller, about the size of a golf ball or a fist. I’ve also seen it described as two halves of a peach and as “two clams side by side”.

The cerebellum is located in the rear of the brain, below the occipital lobes and attached to the brain stem. The white mass, which branches out tree-like, is the “white matter” and consists of nerve axons. There is so much white matter because the cerebellum has so many neurons. The darker, brownish tissue is “gray matter” and consists of nerve cell bodies. The Purkinje cells, which comprise the third of three layers of the cerebellum, “are the most complex nerve cells and interact with perhaps as many as 100,000 other nerve fibers, making more connections than any other cells in the brain.”

Like the rest of your brain, the cerebellum has two halves that are connected by a thick bundle of nerves. It comprises only ten percent of the brain’s physical size, but contains more than 50 percent of all the neurons, which translates to more nerve cells than any other area of the brain.

“Information is constantly being fed to the cerebellum, which makes modifications as needed.” Messages from the muscles, tendons, and joints are “sent to the cerebellum, which does not initiate movement, but monitors and modifies the progress of movements.” The cerebellum sends information to the cerebrum, which then determines if anything needs to be changed and relays that information back to the cerebellum, which makes the changes. The cerebrum and cerebellum work together much like a pilot and copilot.

This mini-brain has huge responsibilities, many of which call out to me as a teacher. The idea of kids or adults sitting still for long periods of time while trying to learn makes no sense to me, given the tasks ascribed to the cerebellum. Anyone who teaches should aim to take advantage of this powerful portion of the brain. Here is what the cerebellum does:

• handles motor patterns
• coordinates muscle movement
• maintains bodily equilibrium (posture, balance)
• handles cognitive patterns (speaking)
• automates certain repetitive tasks (breathing, heartbeat)
• responds to novelty

Resources:

• Neuroscience for Kids has a Flash fly–through of the brain. The cerebellum makes its entrance about two-thirds of the way through.
• At KidsHealth you can read and interact with information about the cerebellum and Your Brain & Nervous System.

Most of the quoted information in this post comes from these two books:

• The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding the Brain, by Arthur and Mitchell Bard, is a clearly written explanation of how the brain functions. While some may scoff at the title, I found the book most helpful for getting me started on the anatomy of the brain, and continue to reference and reread parts.
• The Great Brain Book – An Inside Look at the Inside of Your Head, by HP Newquist, may have been written for young adults, but I found it a highly accessible story of the brain, from the history of its study to the way it works. There is a wonderful two-page spread that details what happens in your brain while you are watching a movie. I suspect most of us rarely “think” about how we think in such detail!

Learning & the Brain conference – 1 week to go!

Back in February I expressed my delight at hearing the news that my grant proposal for funding attendance at April’s Learning & the Brain conference was approved. Well, the conference begins next weekend!

Also sometime in February, I began email correspondence with a graduate student/teacher who has similar interests to mine. (Ah, the benefits of blogging; that is how we met.) We’ve emailed about books, grad school, Smart Boards, and the April Brain conference. And now we have plans to meet in person at the conference.

And then, there are the books. Reaching the last chapter in my current book, How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work: Seven Languages for Transformation by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, I realized that I had read the books by the opening and closing (Kegan) keynote speakers of the upcoming Brain conference. This seems rather fitting, though at the time of reading Norman Doidge’s book I did not know he was the opening speaker for the conference.

Pictures at a Dissection

Well, last weekend I dissected a preserved sheep brain. The previous week a colleage (a Science teacher with whom I co-teach the elective “Frontiers in Science”) brought me a fresh-from-the-butcher sheep brain, and we spent 20 minutes exploring it. The brain was soft and squishy. Having been partially frozen, as it melted it became almost like goop. Wish I had my camera, as it was easy to pick up or point out individual parts.

The preserved brain I dissected over the weekend was quite firm, making it easy to cut and hold, yet because it was preserved the brain seemed more like a plastic model. On May 3rd the “Frontiers in Science” class will dissect sheep brains, and the brains we will provide will be half from the butcher and half preserved brains.

My next goal is to further study individual brain parts, and for this I am hoping to borrow a microscope from school.

Pre-Dissection

Searching for “brains for dissection”, I discovered the NKU Cognitive Neuroscience blog post of September 24, 2006, and this enticing blurb:

Check out this fascinating video of brain dissection (Dissection 15), which I first learned about from Mind Hacks. The video is used for an anatomy class, not neuroscience, so the level of detail is rather course, but for those of us who never had the opportunity to saw off the top of someone’s skull and run our fingers through a human brain, this is a real eye-opener.

From there it was an easy hop to the University of Wisconsin Medical School’s Department of Anatomy. The Department has an extensive set of Anatomy Dissections, 27 at last count, consisting of videos ranging in length from 5.5 minutes to 35 minutes. The video quality is excellent, providing bird’s eye views of the dissections of parts of the human anatomy, coupled with technical explanation by the person doing the dissection.

I was fascinated and disappointed by Dissection 15, the 26 minute dissection of the Brain. Fascinated to see the dissection, plain and simple. Disappointed because it focused on the blood supply and surrounding structures, and did not highlight the actual brain parts. I wanted to see the corpus callosum, the hypothalamus, the amygdala, the cerebellum in greater detail, and more of the inner workings of this magnificent and amazing body part. Nonetheless, for a first time view, amazing!

I also found a number of online stores that sell sheep brains, and have purchased a sheep brain for dissection from Home Science Tools. I also purchased their Brain Mammal Dissection Guide. There are a number of sites with directions and information about sheep brain dissections:

• Exploratorium – Sheep Brain Dissection: The Anatomy of Memory
• Home Science Tools Sheep Brain Dissection
• Dr Burnett’s Sheep Brain Dissection at Clayton State University
• The Sheep Brain Dissection Guide from the Hanover College Psychology Department

I am quite looking forward to the arrival of my sheep brain (it shipped this past Wednesday) and am hoping it arrives in time for a weekend dissection. (It did! More on that in future posts.) At any rate, my plan is to take pictures of the brain parts and post them here coupled with explanations about the parts. Think of this as the next step in my Brain 101 posts. {This post was written prior to the dissection but posted after the dissection, which is why the dating is out of sequence.}

By the way, in early May I will be giving a talk to a high school Frontiers In Science class. This is a one semester elective that covers the latest discoveries and advances in science. The topics include stem cells, twenty first century spy technology, chemistry of love, teleportation, germ warfare, robotics, synthetic organs, invisibility, the nuclear age, SETI, the brain, and ongoing technology talks. I am giving the talk on the brain, and as part of the first day’s Introduction to the Brain, we will be dissecting sheep brains. I’ll keep you posted!