Friday, February 22

A glimpse of the future

"I'd rather have my brain using my mind, than my mind using my brain."
We had no school today, instead, we attended a presentation by Rachel Zahn. She introduced first the concept of rapid learning, which demands a break each 20 minutes of two to five minutes to refresh the brain.

During the first break, everyone participated in the suggested exercise, which consisted of choosing a point a reference, closing the eyes and counting up to four breath out cycles. The next breaks ended in chatter and running around, which meant we skipped a lot of breaks, while skipping over some parts of the presentation.

Rachel talked about the approach to bring some scientific backup to the Alexander Technique, especially from the areas of neuroscience and philosophy. Unfortunately, I did not take notes, but might have a chance to ask about Buckminster Fuller's three questions on monday.

Alexander's (and John Dewey's) idea to use the technique for education becomes more tangible, and ideas of David Chalmers, Varela and others provide a link between the work and science. I just jotted down some of the names that I heard tonight, and will have to do some research about their concepts soon.

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