Airplane Safety Talk a la Dr. Seuss
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Humor & comedy, Training & development
If you’ve ever been an airplane you’ll have, no doubt, sat through the requisite safety talk. The one you’re supposed to pay attention to. After all, what could be more important than knowing how to get out of the plane in an emergency?
Plenty.
Folks ignore the safety talk plenty. Enter creative ways to get said folks to pay attention.
I heard this airline attendant on a flight a while back … Dr. Seuss style.
It made me laugh. It also made me pay attention.
If only all learning & development could be so creative & have such impact.
Tags: creativity, Dr. Seuss, safety, training & development
How can you get your hands dirty from the ground, without touching said ground?
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Diversity & culture
Here’s a brain teaser for you. Why, other than from an environmental perspective, would you need to be concerned about spitting or dropping garbage on the ground?
How would it be possible for you to get your hands dirty from things on the ground, without ever having your hands touch the ground?
Your answer depends on your perspective.
I saw this sign recently on a college campus & it gave me pause for thought.
If you get around by way of your feet, then this question might be puzzling.
If, however, you get around in a wheelchair, it makes complete sense.
Ahhh the illumination & inclusion that can come from a wide perspective. And, the confusion & chaos that can be caused from a narrow one.
~~TGIF- each Friday I rejig & re-post a blog entry from my www.life-lenses.com blog, which is about enhancing our perspective & worldview.~~
Tags: handicap, perspective
Why a Neuroscientist Lied to Her Kids – Mental Time Travel vis a vis Full Body Brain Memories
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Training & development
The following article was originally published in the Washington Post & written by Dr. Kelly Lambert. No link to the article is provided as the article has been taken down, but the previous link is to Dr. Lambert’s website.
As I look out the window to my sunny backyard & leafy avocado & banana trees, no one knows more than I that it ain’t Christmas. However, as some parts of the world are still in a deep freeze & as I’m always a sucker for interesting neuroscience (aka how our gray matter works) I thought you might like a little time travel of your own…
I’ll never forget that December day 12 years ago, and the family holiday crisis I so narrowly averted. I had spent the morning at my office writing a neuroscience textbook, and was looking forward to returning home to spend some time with my 3- and 7-year-old daughters, Skylar and Lara. But the news I received from my husband as I walked through the door was devastating. The girls had been exploring in the attic — a space I’d thought was the perfect hiding place for Santa’s gifts. It was more than a week before Christmas and they had just seen their presents!
I’m not sure where it came from, but some maternal lobe in my brain immediately became activated, and I morphed into Santa’s legal counsel. “I was afraid this would happen!” I told the girls. I went on to explain that Santa had contacted all the parents whose kids were expecting bulky gifts that year and shared that he was having back problems. Mrs. Claus had insisted that Santa send some of those gifts ahead of time via U.P.S. so he wouldn’t be in so much pain delivering them on Christmas Eve.
But there was a condition to this agreement. I had to sign a contract stating that I would not, under any circumstances, let my children see the gifts before Santa had a chance to set them out on Christmas Eve. If the children saw the gifts, they would have to be sent back.
“NO! NO!” cried my girls. “We … we only saw a few of them. We don’t even remember them.”
I told them that I was probably going to get in legal trouble but I would send only a few back and keep those they hadn’t seen. After serious consultation, we all agreed this was a good plan. I took a deep breath and continued decorating the house.
In addition to being a mom, I am a behavioral neuroscientist, a professor and a generally serious-minded, reality-based person. So what in the world had I just done? Why did I invent this incredible story in a desperate bid to protect my daughters’ belief in Santa, instead of seizing it as a teachable moment to tell them the truth?
While it may seem that I had abandoned my scientific training, nothing could be further from the truth.
Although children are born with a full set of 86-billion brain cells, or neurons, the connections between these neurons are relatively sparse during these early years. As their brains develop — as more and more micro-thread extensions form between neurons, and neurochemicals zap across the tiny gaps — children slowly learn about the rules of the physical world, and the distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. Eventually, they learn that reindeer can’t fly, that Santa can’t visit every child’s home in one single night and, even if he could make such a trip, there’s no way he could eat all those cookies. Magical beliefs are pruned away as mature neural circuits reflecting real-world contingencies become solidified.
Because my holiday memories were consolidated at a time when my brain effortlessly conjured up images of flying reindeer, I still feel a bit of that Christmas magic when I encounter holiday sights, smells and sounds
Luckily, however, we don’t completely lose those old ways of thinking, because the brain appears to retain a mechanism for neural time travel. By this, I don’t simply mean that adults have warm memories of having believed in Santa Claus. Pascal Boyer, a professor of memory at Washington University in St. Louis, differentiates between what he refers to as episodic memories — the first time we sat on Santa’s knee or the year a blizzard knocked out the electricity — and mental time travel memories, or M.T.T. These come closer to re-experiencing a remembered event. Professor Boyer describes how neuroimaging evidence indicates that, when certain events are recalled — presumably after being triggered by familiar sights, smells or sounds — emotional brain areas are activated as well as visceral responses. You relive the feelings you experienced in the past. These recollections can be thought of as full body and brain memories.
This can be traumatic, as it is likely to be for people who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Or it can be more mundane. Imagine that someone had a chili dog before riding a roller coaster and then got sick. For years, he may be overcome by nausea whenever he encounters a chili dog — even if he knows perfectly well it was the motion of the ride that made him ill. When the brain considers something to be important, it is difficult to extinguish its responses to conditioned memories. Thankfully, it can happen for happy memories as well.
Tags: brain development, Dr Kelly Lambert, learning & development, memories, neuroscience
The scale of the universe by Cary Huang (a practice playground for Mountains & Carrots)
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Creativity & innovation
A fun, interactive site, this website allows you to see, in multiple perspectives, the scale of the universe.
Don’t forget to scroll in & out to change your perspective & click to find out more about an object.
Scrolling out is like getting an automatic Mountain Life Lens™ perspective (the view from above), while zooming in gets you a focused Carrot Life Lens™ perspective. For you Mountains what, in your life, can you zoom in on? And for you Carrots, what in your life can you take the larger view of?
Yin & yang, peanut butter & jam, marshmallows & a campfire – Carrots & Mountains make lovely bedfellows.
~~TGIF- each Friday I rejig & re-post a blog entry from my www.life-lenses.com blog, which is about enhancing our perspective & worldview.~~
Tags: cary huang, perspective, universe
Breaking News: You’re not being oppressed when another group gains rights you’ve always had
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Diversity & culture, Humor & comedy
Best responses (never mind the added bonus it’s short & snappy) to the issue of so called ‘reverse discrimination.’
Tags: discrimination, humour, oppression, someecards
Is the glass half full or empty? Or all full (a la 9gag.com)
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Diversity & culture, Humor & comedy
This from 9gag.com, is a great example of perspective.
What you look for is what you see.
~~TGIF- each Friday I rejig & re-post a blog entry from my www.life-lenses.com blog, which is about enhancing our perspective & worldview.~~
Tags: glass half full, perspective
Finding inspiration for reading for the love & learning of it
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Training & development
Welcome to my office. That’s Galito (my kid’s cat) keeping guard of my library.
My love of books often has me salivating over & buying books faster than I can read them. So based on my annual to do, to done, to’odle, I sought inspiration for getting the printed matter into my gray matter.
I picked out 12 books (okay, more than 12 but I’m an optimist) I want to read this year (not including fiction). I pulled them out a bit from the shelf so they stick out of my bookcase & are noticeable.
That’s the pile on the left above.
I decided to place books I’d read on the right, pulling them out a bit too so they’re noticeable (see the two sticking out below).
It’s working like a hot damn so far. I’m taking a ridiculous amount of pleasure transferring a book from the left to the right.
You’ll notice there are two books on the right which I’ve already read this year (January’s books was Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter Levine & February’s book was Train Your Brain to Get Happy by Teresa Aubele, Stan Wenck & Susan Reynolds).
Both are great books by the way if you’re interested in how the brain books (the latter book despite its somewhat sappy title & overuse of exclamation marks!).
And here’s a closeup of the books I’ve yet to read this year on the right.
What about you? How do you motivate yourself to read for the love & learning of it?
Tags: brain based learning, brain development, peter levine, reading, trauma
Stars can’t shine without the darkness
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Change management & wellness
This image is from 999,999,999 people.
I love it.
It speaks to hope, perseverance, balance, faith, seeing the big picture, glass 1/2 full kind of thinking. All in all a wonderful perspective.
~~TGIF- each Friday I rejig & re-post a blog entry from my www.life-lenses.com blog, which is about enhancing our perspective & worldview.~~
Tags: perspective, Wellness
A new twist on having a ‘bun in the oven’
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Creativity & innovation, Humor & comedy, Training & development
What does a bun in the oven mean to you?
As someone who graduated, got engaged, got married, got pregnant & gave birth without the power of the internet behind me, I find it fascinating how people are using technology to share, teach, delight, surprise & confound…
For those of us in learning & development, it’s a fantastic example of a creative way to explain something.
Take a boo at this bun & enjoy.
Tags: creativity, humour
A different perspective on play, thanks to Fred Rogers
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Change management & wellness
Wise words from the wise & adorable Fred Rogers.
What do you think of when you think of play?
A Mountain Life Lens™ might think of the big picture / how to relax on the whole, while a Carrot Life Lens™ might think of specific things to do.
A Head Life Lens™ might ponder the practicalities of play while a Heart Life Lens™ may focus on how they want to feel.
A Journey Life Lens’™ attention may be focused on, well, the journey, while a Destination Life Lens™ would see the goal of play as important.
A Go Life Lens™ may ask, ‘what are we waiting for, let’s play!,’ while a Stop Life Lens™ may say, ‘hang on, let’s think about this for a minute.’
It’s a matter of perspective. What’s yours? Play around with it.
~~TGIF- each Friday I rejig & re-post a blog entry from my www.life-lenses.com blog, which is about enhancing our perspective & worldview.~~
Tags: fred rogers, play