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joycetheriot's picture

Generating new patterns

Generating new patterns or changing the symphony scores that were genetically imposed could be a valuable strategy for improving our ability to be successful, (however we judge success to be). Paul suggested that the 12 steps were used for alcoholics so that they could create a new frame of mind that avoided any use of alcohol. This comment struck me in particular because this program is known to be highly successful. Yet the participants are fighting against a disease that inflicts a devastating allergy to the very thing that they have an unbearable craving to ingest. Paul mentioned that the conceptual component to the program was to imagine an outcome that you expected to occur to your mind/life. I am excited by the notion that there are programs to restructure the brain of people that we thought were hopeless. The connection to our classroom is invaluable. We’ve discussed the idea that teachers are brain surgeons. I’ve seen (video) surgeries where the surgeon touches one area of the exposed brain and then asks a question of the conscious patient to judge the area that she’s disturbing. So then I imagine our experimentation to be similar. We find out what the student is thinking and if their constructed frame is weak we need to offer alternatives and then have the student investigate and compare all of it. S/he needs to reconstruct their own meaning based on their own logical reasoning.

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