Pay Attention, Please
Written by Kara Bowman, Educator

"I think the one lesson I have learned is that there is no substitute for paying attention." Diane Sawyer

I’m not much of a natural when it comes to learning languages, but one phrase that’s seared into my brain is Fermez vos Bouches (shut your mouths) as spoken, not unkindly, by my high school French teacher. She wanted us to close our mouths because she knew that getting us to pay attention was the only chance she had of putting something into our brains and helping up pass the AP Exam (as well as find a restroom if we ever wandered into France). It turns out that she was right. There is no substitute for paying attention when it comes to learning.

What is paying attention? In short, it is learning to weed out extraneous information, both with perceptual selectivity and with cognitive selectivity. Imaging studies suggest that there isn’t one ‘paying attention’ part of our brain, but the act of focusing happens in different areas. The prefrontal cortex is involved in task-related activity and planning, the parietal cortex helps with bodily and environmental awareness, and the anterior cingulated with motivation. When a learner pays attention to something, using all of these parts of the brain, the part of the brain processing the information also becomes more active, making the information more likely to stick with us. In other words, “Construction of individual meaning (ie. learning) improves when students pay attention.” (Dialog on Learning, Tomkins Courtland Community College, 09/09/09)

Fortunately, we can train our brains to focus more effectively and, therefore, become more proficient learners. One method of increasing our powers of attention is meditation. (Jones, Rachel (2007) Learning to Pay Attention, Public Library of Science Biology) Researcher Richard Davidson and his colleagues tested subjects’ powers of attention with an attentional test. For example, subjects were asked to pick out numbers in a stream of numbers and letters shown to them on a screen. Subjects were then given three months of intensive training in a form of meditation that trains the mind to shut out distractions and focus on stimuli in a non-judgmental manner. When the subjects were asked to repeat the test, there was significant improvement compared to the control group. These subjects were not meditating during the test, but had actually changed their brains in a way that allowed them to improve their performance on the test.

Another method of paying attention is, ironically, to take deliberate breaks from paying attention. Researchers at Melbourne University found that people who surfed the internet at work for personal reasons were actually 9% more productive than those who were blocked from doing so. (This statistic excludes the 14% of workers who are prone to internet addiction, meaning they do not stop surfing even when they want to.) The attraction of internet surfing, according to Dr Coker, can be attributed to people’s imperfect concentration. “People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration. Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a days work, and as a result, increased productivity.” (The University of Melbourne Media Release, Thursday 2 April 2009) Of course, breaks do not have to be for online shopping but this study sure helps remove some of the guilt!

While I’ve never particularly prided myself on my surfing, internet or live, I’ve long considered myself an excellent multi-tasker and took satisfaction in being able to keep many balls in the air at the same time. I recently discovered that, like the rest of the mortals on the planet, I am actually only working on one thing at a time and I’m not so much a great multi-tasker as I am a great serial-tasker. We are actually switching back and forth between subjects, without needing much start-up time. We’re kind of like jugglers who actually only have one ball in the air at a time but keep changing balls so rapidly that it looks like we’ve got several flying at once. Okay, I could live with that. But imagine my surprise to find that I’m probably not very good at juggling at all.

According to researchers at Stanford, “the people who multi-task the most are the worst at it.” (Study Find People Who Multi-task Often Bad At It, Randolph Schmid, San Jose Mercury News, 08/24/09) People in the high multi-tasking group were worse at taking in information, organizing information, ignoring irrelevant information, and took longer to switch from one task to another. High multi-taskers tend to love more information but aren’t able to process it effectively. On the other hand, the fewer tasks someone undertook at one time, the more they were able to think effectively about the information in front of them. Whether the tendency to multi-task caused the lower attention, or lower attention people tended to multi-task, was not determined in the study. It is clear from this study, however, that paying attention to one thing at a time will increase our effectiveness. I guess my French teacher had it right so I think I’ll fermez ma bouche and concentré.

You can teach your children how to focus in fun, entertaining ways. Here are some items to capture and hold their attention. Ball of Whacks, Simplexity, Building Thinking Skills, Sand Pictures.

Food for Thought, or Thought for Food

Written by Kara Bowman, Educator

I used to know someone in college who was far skinnier than he wanted to be and would lose weight if he didn’t make an effort to keep it on. We would go out for lunch sometimes and he would say, “I don’t really want one, but I guess I should have a milkshake, too.” Sigh. Like most of us, I’ve never had that problem and have struggled with maintaining a healthy weight my whole adult life. This is not to make light of the problems of underweight people but, given the statistics on overweight Americans, I’m guessing most of us relate better to my situation than my friend’s.

Two of the largest selling book genres are cookbooks and diet books, which, taken together, attest to our enormous interest in food. There are currently thousands of food books in print so it’s hard to imagine anyone having anything new to say on the subject of eating. The End of Overeating by David Kessler, M.D. manages to approach an issue that’s dear to our hearts, not to mention our stomachs, with a fresh perspective. The book’s genesis was in a simple question that Dr. Kessler had: Why do we eat what we don’t want to eat? Dr. Kessler was the former FDA Commissioner who oversaw the redesigned food label (the food pyramid) and took on the tobacco industry so he was well-connected in many fields when he decided to go in search of an answer to his query.

The reward center of our brain lights up when we encounter food with a high reinforcing value. Sugar, fat and salt are reinforcing foods, meaning an animal will work harder to get them than foods without those ingredients. We then produce dopamine, which motivates us to seek these foods out next time in anticipation of the reward. As David Foster Wallace colloquially put it, "But then, so how come I can’t stop, if I want to stop, is the thing."

One reason we have trouble stopping is that the food industry uses its knowledge of our biology to give us a more pleasurable experience, which usually means eating things we can't resist. For example, Chili’s popular Boneless Shanghai Wings are made of deboned chicken (quick to eat), which is injected with a water and salt solution (the water makes it easy to chew), battered, breaded (the breading contains salt and sugar), deep-fried, and covered with ginger-citrus sauce (mostly sugar along with more salt). Accompanying the chicken is a creamy wasabi ranch dressing, which is made from mayonnaise and contains additional salt, fat and sugar. And this is only an appetizer. As a food consultant said, "(This dish) is the quintessential example of how to cram as much hedonics as you can into one dish."

The food industry also knows that the allure of the basic building blocks of sugar, fat and salt can be strengthened by adding factors such as variety (multiple flavors like chocolate with a caramel swirl), multiple sensory stimuli (such as smooth and crunchy together or hot fudge on cold ice cream), and emotional connections (such as the 'fun' atmosphere in restaurant ads). Dr. Kessler concludes that, "Rewarding foods are rewiring our brains. As they do, we become more sensitive to the cues that lead us to anticipate rewarding foods." This makes it harder and harder over time to resist foods when we’re walking by a bakery, sitting in a meeting with muffins, or even possessing the knowledge that there are cookies in the house. Overcoming our resistance is why our ice cream, which used to be offered in vanilla, chocolate or strawberry fifty years ago, have now exploded into flavors like Ben and Jerry’s Everything But The… which contains chocolate and vanilla ice creams, Heath® bar chunks, white chocolate chunks, peanut butter cups, and chocolate-covered almonds.

After some sleuthing in the food industry, Dr. Kessler states, "I began to develop an overarching theory about eating for reward: Chronic exposure to highly palatable foods changes our brains, conditioning us to seek continued stimulation." This sounds a lot like addiction (in fact, dopamine is the same chemical released when using cocaine). Dr. Kessler continues, “Conditioned hypereating works the same way as other 'stimulus-response' disorders in which reward is involved, such as compulsive gambling and substance abuse. Such disorders are characterized by a high degree of sensitivity to sensory stimuli, and they typically lead to a perceived loss of control, an inability to feel satisfied, and obsessive thinking.” Dr. Kessler found that most overweight people and many normal weight people had obsessive thoughts of food. This rings true for at least some people because Overeaters Anonymous is an organization based on the twelve-step recovery model of addiction that helps members with what they term 'compulsive eating'.

So now that we understand the problem, what is the solution? The End of Overeating outlines several steps we can take to reprogram our brains to have a healthy relationship with food. The first is to change our emotional connections with food. We have developed simplistic associations of certain foods with comfort and pleasure, which leads us to overeat (eg. cherry pie tastes good). By using more complex thoughts, we can push ourselves away from something so it no longer seems desirable and other things seem desirable instead (eg. cherry pie is full of fat and sugar and I'm going to feel good if I skip it and bad if I eat it). This conscious thought will help make it easier over time to change your habitual thoughts. Another change we can make is planning our eating. Replacing the impulsive act of eating with a thoughtful act will help us behave in accordance with our true values and give us structure that will help support us. Understanding our triggers gives us more control as well. One of my favorite take-aways from the book is the realistic assessment of my own behavior. If I know that every time I think I'm going to have just a few crackers I really end up eating more than I want, I can stop myself from taking the first bite because I will no longer believe my thought that I'm just going to have a few. This technique can be coupled with avoiding traps, such as sitting far from the muffins in a meeting. Another technique is to make rules, such as not allowing yourself to eat between meals (behavior the svelte French consider bizarre).

After thinking I would have no interest in another book about food, I found myself fascinated with learning about how food influences my brain and how my brain influences my food choices. You can help pass on what you know to the young people in your life with several Museum Tour products. Teach the children in your life healthy attitudes about eating while playing with the International Dinner Play Set or the Playful Chef Kit. Learn more about what you eat with the Kitchen Chemistry Set or teach young children to make nutritious meals with The Playful Chef Cookbook.

The Architect in Each of Us

Written by Kara Bowman, Educator

Apparently long before David Letterman appeared on the scene, people were obsessed with lists. The historian Herodotus (484 BC–ca. 425 BC), and the scholar Callimachus of Cyrene (ca 305–240 BC) listed the seven wonders of the ancient world: the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Mausoleum of Maussollos, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Architecture plays a prominent role in this list since, of these monuments, four are buildings and the Gardens also contained structures.

For thousands of years, people have been inspired to greatness by the dream of constructing buildings of beauty. Who hasn't looked up at a building and felt awe and wonder, as well as appreciation for the architects who gave us the experience? Since humans began constructing, building design and style has always been considered in relation to materials, environment, use and artistry, often with inspirational results.

My son and I were recently in a diner with Trivial Pursuit cards on the table. He picked one up and asked me, "Who invented the arch?" I was amazed not at the answer (the Romans), but by the question. I never thought about the fact that the arch had to be invented, but rather assumed that it had always existed. Of course it has always existed in nature, but one person was the first to copy that idea and incorporate it into an edifice. In reality, each of the practical, structural and ornamental details of architecture came from the mind of an architect, which means that architects must combine a knowledge and love of science with a talent and appreciation for art and the creativity of being able to think, "What if?"

Miriam-Webster Dictionary defines architecture as simply, “The art and science of building.” Richard Rogers, a British modernist architect, takes it further by saying, "I believe very strongly, and have fought since many years ago, to get architecture not just (included) within schools, but architecture talked about under history, geography, science, technology, and art." Architecture touches so many aspects of what makes us human, and learning about architecture can open up innumerable avenues to learning about humanity.

Since so many deep strains inside us are touched by architecture, how can we encourage young architects and the architect in each of us? Children are natural builders and love to use blankets to create a fort, blocks to create a zoo, sand to create a castle, or sticks to create a magical kingdom. According to Architecture in Education, when children engage in construction play, they face all of the challenges of real architects. Kids have clients who give them problems to solve with constraints, such as the size of the dolls who will use the buildings or the number of kids to fit into the fort. They must use available materials and be aware of the structural limitations of stacking too many blocks or the ‘legal’ implications of using a heirloom quilt. Young builders must consider land use (if I build the castle in the hall, will my brother trip over it?) and deadlines (when is bathtime?). Finally, they aim to impress with their building acumen and inspire awe with their creativity, just as adult architects do. In this sense, you have only to provide space, time, materials and appreciation of their creations in order to let their natural problem-solving skills and ingenuity flourish.

Even without knowing about architectural styles and periods, you can talk with your child about buildings in books and in your neighborhood. Ask questions. Why does a mall have no windows? Why doesn’t a front door have a large glass panel like a sliding door? Why are houses made out of wood and public buildings often made out of bricks or stone? Which buildings are old and how can we tell? How have windows changed over the years? Why are roofs more peaked in colder climates? The questions are never-ending and those of us with children know that they will come up with even more. As your child gets older, specific architectural styles can be explored, along with the engineering issues involved in creating large structures. The guessing, thinking and researching involved will help your child develop curiosity, logic, competence, and a love of learning, whatever profession she eventually chooses.

You can ask yourself the same questions about how form follows function, how materials were selected, and how styles have evolved to fit time and place. You can learn about whichever aspect piques your interest in great structures: the religious art in medieval churches, the efficiency of great modern home design, or the engineering audacity of huge bridges. If you would like to begin to learn about styles, try the website of the Victoria and Albert Museum which beautifully catalogs the distinctive features of each of the ten main architectural styles along with a fun quiz at the end. Don’t forget to play, too, with 3D puzzles, home design software, local architectural tours, or just digging in the sand with your kids!

Museum Tour has many products available for architects, young and old. Try Ubersix contruction sets to erect giant skyscrapers and bridges. Archiquest building blocks are available in several different sets, such as Pyramids, Castles, Pagodas, and Russian Domes. The award-winning Young Architects Building Set, has all the materials for a 10 to 14 year-old to design and build a three-dimensional model of a home or other building. If your architect prefers to read, try the wonderful preschool book Pippo the Fool, which is about a competition to design a dome for a Cathedral in Florence.