Thought for the Day: Embodied Cognition Counts, especially when driving (a diss on the primacy of language)

Here's my thought for the day: words, and the cognitive maps based on them, can get in the way. The body can think for itself just fine.

Case in point: driving back into Cambridge from the Mass Turnpike today. The goal was to get to Widener Gate on Mass. Ave.
We came out of the last toll booth (Allston-Brighton?) and then merged onto the road that runs next to the DoubleTree Hotel. At which point I queried spouse as to our means of reaching Mass Ave, "Would be able to take a left on to Mass Ave or would I have to turn onto Harvard?"

Spouse: "I don't know. You usually drive this."
Me: "Yeah, but I can't see it in my head, and I sure can't see street names!"
(shifting through the left lanes of the three stop lights between the DoubleTree the intersection on the other side of the Charles so as not to get killed)
Me: "... I have absolutely no cognitive map, and the words aren't bringing anything up, but I bet that as we drive it and I see things, it'll all come back to me..."
(Pull up to the area in front of the Whole Foods where people are stopping and going and nobody can get out of the parking lot--I stop and go and not let somebody of the parking lot--this is an average day on this street.)
(Get closer to Central Square and pass the Irish pub on the left....)
Me: "Ok, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to take a left at Mass Ave., so I'll just go to Harvard Street; that'll run into Mass Ave at some point (although I have no vision of where or how)...."
(slow for people jaywalking, avoid the weird merge from the left (across from the police station), see a sign for left turn at Green Street along with a left-turn lane(never noticed that before)...)
Me: "We can't turn left at Mass Ave. We'll go to Harvard St."
Spouse: "Ok. You're driving."
(come into Central Square. No left turn allowed posted.)
Me (to myself): "Yup, got it."
(Cross intersection of Central Square, contemplate Bishop Allen street and decide it dead-ends me into a part of Mass Ave I don't want to be in (despite the lack of signage), shift from left lane to right lane to left lane to avoid stopped car (turning left) and bus (picking up passengers on right), and see the smaller Whole Foods up on my left. Know it's nearly time for my turn, so stay in the left lane despite the slow traffic. Pull waaaaay into the intersection so as to beat to light, but there are a LOT of on-coming cars for a Sunday afternoon, turn left and beat the light but have to swing into the on-coming lane (Harvard Street) to avoid the double-parked car (just an ordinary day of Boston driving). Drive further up the street. See a B & B where we have stayed at least three times before...)
Spouse: "Hey the Harding House. Know it well...!"
(We both laugh.)

We made it down the rest of Harvard Street, where we make it through the intersection next to the Barker Center (avoiding confused tourists/students/parent pedestrians, a bus, and other cars-- Spouse comments that he recognizes one of the students despite her different outfit), merge onto Mass Ave., and then zip into Widener Gate perpendicularly between two double-parked couch buses (tourists). After a long tour of the Yard (yes, the tourist pedestrians are affronted that cars actually move on the road and somehow never hear the two-ton car that is idling behind them for three minutes), we arrive home.

The point of this story is this: Words didn't work to bring me to the knowledge of how to reach my goal. There was no articulated word-map in my mind. Instead, sensory-motor experience and a faith in the ability to my body's movement in space/time to pull up the relevant connections as they were needed did. This is a demonstration of the power of embodied cognition.

Does this ability to use sensorimotor experience apply to knowing something more "abstract," like comprehending Chomsky?
That I don't know!
And my HT100 project may not answer.... :)

Ok, and my second point hopefully is easily apprehended: Boston driving is crazy!

NB--I've made this drive many times before. Most significantly, I made this drive every workday from November to March last year when I came home from team practice. I still don't know the names a lot of these streets. But I know how to get home!

All Work and No Play -- Thoughts about Developing Brains...

Sometimes being a teacher, even one with no children of her own (or, perhaps, at least 30 of her own per year!), leads me to think about child-rearing and school-based education, and a comparison of the two and of how things used to be....

Add to this, waking up to NPR and hearing stories on two successive Thursdays about brain-based research about emotional and cognitive development, after reading about said topics for two courses, makes me wonder how to fit it all together. My "fit" would be how we define the activity of learning and how we construct the school experience based on that belief.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=76838288
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19212514

Well, in the HT100 project I'm working on, there's something to be said about physical activity and its benefits for helping people think better. In the NPR stories linked to this entry, there's something to be said about playing (aka, "goofing off") that helps social and emotional development. So, playing is a good thing. Playing with others--as these stories show (look at the cites of the research!)--is even better. As the stories demonstrate, play can lead to development, even of self-regulation.

I wonder about the conclusions posited in the second story (from this past Thursday, Feb. 28), however. Modelling of process, even affective process, is helpful for the learner. But isn't being instructed by your teacher (being guided through a questionnaire about what you will do while playing) the antithesis of "free play"? It smacks of overdirection and, seriously, I wonder if this use of executive cortex will have some emotional burnout effects later in life. This executive cortex training is eerily reminiscient of what many Boomer parents do when overscheduling their children. I have worked with some of these kids. "Go and play by yourself" is hardly an option in their world, because they're too busy "excelling." To these children, what they've learned to do in school is to find to right answers to they can get good jobs--and they're can be screaming emotional messes when they can't get the knowledge necessary to excel in the commodified educational system. You know who these kids are--they demand to know "Will that be on the test?!"

(Yes, I told you I had opinions...).

School should include play-- running around recess and in-classroom playtime. This would be the opposite of "studying" for standardized tests. The rest of the day should include play and not school.* This does not exclude learning, however.

Some of the most important learning that occurs in the school years is social. Socialization is vital because these children will ultimately live, work, compete with, and love their peer group. (That's peer group, not parents as best friends.) That means knowing how to interact and figure out how to interact with others one's own age and process information by oneself. It means getting hit on the head by Allejandro when you call him bad names. It means learning to share your toys with Keisha. It means letting Carrie get her hair brushed for a change. It means jumping bikes off of ramps, hopscotch and jumprope, and wandering around aimlessly. Later on it means working in a quality circle or living in a democracy. Play is where children practice skills for cognition and for affect that will make them good species members later in life.

Closer to home, it means that running around the Southern Illinois countryside with five other kids, chasing Luna moths and hunting for snipe, was a valuable childhood experience, and I couldn't agree more...

*Depending on the age. Homework can be valuable practice for thinking skills if it is an authentic activity (see Grant Wiggins for more info in this area!)
http://www.grantwiggins.org/

[working on adding tags--will revise...]