Coloring books for adults are apparently a big new craze. Amazon’s #1 bestseller in stress management/ self-help is a coloring book. And there are many to choose from with beguiling names like Calm and Balance and Enchanted Forest and Secret Garden. Now I have no problem with people of any age coloring inside or outside the lines, with doodling, drawing,…
“Once upon a time there was a mindless little girl named Little Red Riding Hood “ So begins Ellen Langer’s introduction to her delightful The Power of Mindful Learning. Long before the word was the trend du jour in education there was Ellen Langer’s Mindfulness (1990) and then The Power of Mindful Learning (1997). Her initial example – the tale of Little…
Just before the break there was a message on the head’s listserve from Myra McGovern of NAIS. NPR journalist Tovia Smith was working on a story about what schools are doing to relieve the growing pressures and stresses on students and was looking for input. This happens to be a topic close to my heart. Growing up, being a teenager,…
There’s a slow food movement so why not a slow mind movement? Some years ago Guy Claxton wrote Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less. It made a compelling argument that the mind works best when we trust the unconscious – our “undermind” tortoise mind. The hare brain is the deliberative, logical, conscious thinking we all…