May 5 2013: As we increasingly think in terms of neuro-chemicals and brain circuitry, or in terms of conditioning and reconditioning, such values, alas, are phasing out of life of our children. If we do lose it at some future date, perhaps some part of our humaneness would be permanently compromised. As one of my friends observed: "Every time I see this one it reminds me of Stephen King. "I have the heart of a small boy." "You do?" "Yes! It's in a jar on my desk!"
Apr 21 2013: Joshua Prager, you are indeed brave and lucky - perhaps even blessed. You are brave because you braved a tragedy in life - and I have known that people have committed suicide for much less. I call you lucky or blessed because of the very fact that you were able to stare the very tragedy right in its eye. If one's hand of foot is cut, I can live, but what if my head is cut? Baby can be born without limbs but can an embryo become a baby even if it does not have head? What I am saying is that the last human freedom that Victor Frankel told us about also depends on the level of trauma. I consider you lucky and blessed that your wounds did not incapacitate you from remaining a human - a recognizable life form. I am glad that you were able to withstand such a huge crisis in your life.
Apr 18 2013: Conceptualising mental illness is a serious problem without a unified single comprehensive answer. Though I am unable to provide link, I recently had heard Professor Chomsky saying in a video lecture something like: "Indeed there would be chemicals linked to every behavior, but to consider them cause of the behavior would not be appropriate." And I agree with him because how the mind creates meanings is not known, neither is known how different meanings are arrived at by same person in similar situations, and more importantly, which of those meanings are `normal'. I think we not only have no answers to the questions but we are not likely to have any answers either. That elusive link between mind and body is no where to be found and not likely to discovered.
I do not hesitate to maintain, that what we are conscious of is constructed out of what we are not conscious of – that our whole knowledge, in fact, is made up of unknown and incognisable.”
Sir William Hamilton (1865)
“Outside consciousness there rolls a vast tide of life which is perhaps more important to us than the little isle of our thoughts which lies within our ken.
E. S. Dallas (1866)
As quoted in “Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering adaptive unconscious” by Timothy D. Wilson.
Is this talk not linked with recent promulgation of DSM V where every behavior has been treated as illness and there is a molecule to `cure it?
Feb 10 2013: Bravo Tyler DeWitt. Capacity to make the subject interesting - say, make the subject palatable and digestible, in your words to tell stories - is something that separates great teachers from the rest. Please continue teaching as students would need you.
There is one problem that needs an input from your genre: How much of inaccuracy in story telling is tolerable so that the story would continue to convey the science and would not become grossly inaccurate? Without specification of such limits, the story telling can hide - as it does in not so good schools in India - sloth.
Feb 10 2013: I am still unable to figure out how to do this. Since the realization that this might be the most important moment of the day can possibly come - if at all - only at the end of the day. So, I would need to record everything that I do and then select the right moment. I would need extra 24 hours per day to do that.
I think that memories that remain - with all the distortions therein - are kind of an abstraction and extraction from the experiences. Just as health is derived from the food we eat and other things....... the memories we have are derived from the experiences we have had......... and we surely will not remember much of the events but the crux of it would reach our innermost being and stay there in the form of kind of genes.
Feb 10 2013: The trouble with `teaching' adolescents when their brain is more malleable is that such learning can come only from adults, whose views are crystallized if not calcified. Therefore, the question still remains: Whether the adolescents should be `taught' or should be allowed, encouraged and facilitated to learn.
Jan 28 2013: @ Theodore A. Hoppe
I did not ignore any part of the talk. If you think about it, religious sermons are woven around such veiled threats - if not this, then.... The trouble with this method is that truths are prescribed and given, and obedience is ordered and compliance is enforced. This is no way to take the child to adulthood for several reasons: First, no one knows the entire truth, and two, regimentation is not the way to teach. Also, we do not know what do we mean by learning and how it takes place. Several case studies by psychiatrists and psycho-therapists show that strict regimentation end up scarring the children - often for life. Powellian prescription to me is a recipe more likely to end in a disaster.
Winnicott has written a book long ago "Maturational Processes and Facilitating Environment." As yet, I have not come across any psychologist or a psychiatrist who advocates what Powell prescribes and I would like to go with the people in know of things not the people who are eminent.
Jan 27 2013: "I then invite them to ask questions, and when they raise their hands, I say, "Come up," and I make them come up and stand in front of me. I make them stand at attention like a soldier. Put your arms straight down at your side, look up, open your eyes, stare straight ahead, and speak out your question loudly so everybody can hear. No slouching, no pants hanging down, none of that stuff."
" and the first thing we would do is to put them in an environment of structure, put them in ranks, make them all wear the same clothes, cut all their hair off so they look alike, make sure that they are standing in ranks. We teach them how to go right face, left face, so they can obey instructions and know the consequences of not obeying instructions. It gives them structure. And then we introduce them to somebody who they come to hate immediately, the drill sergeant. And they hate him. And the drill sergeant starts screaming at them, and telling them to do all kinds of awful things. But then the most amazing thing happens over time. Once that structure is developed, once they understand the reason for something, once they understand, "Mama ain't here, son. I'm your worst nightmare. I'm your daddy and your mommy. And that's just the way it is. You got that, son? Yeah, and then when I ask you a question, there are only three possible answers: yes, sir; no, sir; and no excuse, sir. Don't start telling me why you didn't do something. It's yes, sir; no, sir; no excuse, sir."
That too is Colin Powell -
When you treat kids like that chances are that quite a few of them would be scalded - perhaps for life. Such attitudes could also lead them to drugs just as other reasons could. Could it be that such attitudes are contributing to higher suicide rates in the army? I don't know.
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A comment on Talk: Joshua Prager: In search of the man who broke my neck
A comment on Talk: Thomas Insel: Toward a new understanding of mental illness
I do not hesitate to maintain, that what we are conscious of is constructed out of what we are not conscious of – that our whole knowledge, in fact, is made up of unknown and incognisable.”
Sir William Hamilton (1865)
“Outside consciousness there rolls a vast tide of life which is perhaps more important to us than the little isle of our thoughts which lies within our ken.
E. S. Dallas (1866)
As quoted in “Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering adaptive unconscious” by Timothy D. Wilson.
Is this talk not linked with recent promulgation of DSM V where every behavior has been treated as illness and there is a molecule to `cure it?
A comment on Talk: Tyler DeWitt: Hey science teachers -- make it fun
There is one problem that needs an input from your genre: How much of inaccuracy in story telling is tolerable so that the story would continue to convey the science and would not become grossly inaccurate? Without specification of such limits, the story telling can hide - as it does in not so good schools in India - sloth.
A comment on Talk: Cesar Kuriyama: One second every day
I think that memories that remain - with all the distortions therein - are kind of an abstraction and extraction from the experiences. Just as health is derived from the food we eat and other things....... the memories we have are derived from the experiences we have had......... and we surely will not remember much of the events but the crux of it would reach our innermost being and stay there in the form of kind of genes.
A comment on Talk: Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings of the adolescent brain
A comment on Talk: Mitch Resnick: Let's teach kids to code
A comment on Talk: Colin Powell: Kids need structure
I did not ignore any part of the talk. If you think about it, religious sermons are woven around such veiled threats - if not this, then.... The trouble with this method is that truths are prescribed and given, and obedience is ordered and compliance is enforced. This is no way to take the child to adulthood for several reasons: First, no one knows the entire truth, and two, regimentation is not the way to teach. Also, we do not know what do we mean by learning and how it takes place. Several case studies by psychiatrists and psycho-therapists show that strict regimentation end up scarring the children - often for life. Powellian prescription to me is a recipe more likely to end in a disaster.
Winnicott has written a book long ago "Maturational Processes and Facilitating Environment." As yet, I have not come across any psychologist or a psychiatrist who advocates what Powell prescribes and I would like to go with the people in know of things not the people who are eminent.
A reply on Talk: Colin Powell: Kids need structure
" and the first thing we would do is to put them in an environment of structure, put them in ranks, make them all wear the same clothes, cut all their hair off so they look alike, make sure that they are standing in ranks. We teach them how to go right face, left face, so they can obey instructions and know the consequences of not obeying instructions. It gives them structure. And then we introduce them to somebody who they come to hate immediately, the drill sergeant. And they hate him. And the drill sergeant starts screaming at them, and telling them to do all kinds of awful things. But then the most amazing thing happens over time. Once that structure is developed, once they understand the reason for something, once they understand, "Mama ain't here, son. I'm your worst nightmare. I'm your daddy and your mommy. And that's just the way it is. You got that, son? Yeah, and then when I ask you a question, there are only three possible answers: yes, sir; no, sir; and no excuse, sir. Don't start telling me why you didn't do something. It's yes, sir; no, sir; no excuse, sir."
That too is Colin Powell -
When you treat kids like that chances are that quite a few of them would be scalded - perhaps for life. Such attitudes could also lead them to drugs just as other reasons could. Could it be that such attitudes are contributing to higher suicide rates in the army? I don't know.