Anecdote: Brain rules

« Brand stories | Main | Practising the art of creating possibilities »

30/09/08 |

Brain rules

By Shawn Callahan. Follow me on Twitter. Filed in Knowledge, Quotes.

I'm reading John Medina's Brain Rules and thoroughly enjoying it. Here's a snippet illustrating his humorous style while making an important point.

Any learning environment that deals with only the database instincts [our ability to memorise things] or only the improvisatory instincts [our ability to imagine things] ignores one half of our ability. It is doomed to fail. It makes me think of jazz guitarists: They're not going to make it if they know a lot about music theory but don't know how to jam in a live concert. Some schools and workplaces emphasize a stable, rote-learning database. They ignore the the improvisatory instincts drilled unto us for millions of years. Creativity suffers. Others emphasize usage of a database, without installing a fund of knowledge in the first place. They ignore our need to obtain deep understanding of a subject, which includes memorizing and storing a richly structured database. You get people who are great improvisers but don't have depth of knowledge. You may know someone like this where you work. They may look like jazz musicians and have the appearance of jamming, but in the end they know nothing. They're playing intellectual air guitar.

Apart from a great last sentence, this paragraph is a warning against the pendulum swinging between rote and improvisation. I suspect we are at the impro end at the moment and at risk of being guitar heros.