Monday Morning Musings
Posted on March 8, 2021 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet
Food for thought or thoughts of food?
What are you thinking about at this exact moment?
What was your first thought when you woke this morning?
How about your last thought last night before you nodded off?
Lately, I have had a preoccupation with the human brain. I’m sure many of you wonder what’s going on beneath my skull… if anything! You see, as a grade 6 teacher, I am required to teach all subjects including art. For those of you familiar with my stick figures when I play Pictionary, you must shudder at the thought of me giving art lessons. You needn’t worry. I steal ideas from other teachers and then just stand back and turn my students loose. They are very creative and don’t need me to tell them what to do.
One of the required courses is called PSD which stands for Personal and Social Development. It covers a wide swath of topics including the human body. The past few weeks, we have been discussing the human brain. One of my colleagues, Torie, a great gal from Saskatchewan, team teaches this course with me. Rather than get too technical right out of the gates, Torie did an exercise with my students. She handed each of them a sheet of paper with a diagram of the human brain without any of the parts labelled. She then asked a simple question. “What do you think about?” She went to the smart board and started to make a list. Food was a popular item as were friends, family, sports, and hunting. A few of them were brave enough to mention school. She then asked them to look at the brain and try and identify how much of each activity occupies their brains at any particular time. Then they colored in each of the activities.
I found the exercise really interesting, so interesting that I did one myself and I am throwing down the gauntlet and asking you to do the same. Find an image of a brain on the internet and print it out. I think you will be surprised when you see your results.
What DO you think about most of your waking hours? Yes. I realize that it depends on any given day but over time, what are the big things that fill your brains with thoughts? For many of us, our family would represent a decent chunk of space. For the past year, Covid has been on everyone’s mind. I mentioned the challenges of teaching, my writing, relationships, finances, and gratitude. I am probably not alone when I put down uncertainty about the future as a significant piece of the puzzle. Sadly, for some people loneliness and boredom occupy some of this precious space.
I am happy to report that I never think about the former President of the United States anymore.
I plan to hold onto my chart and redo it again in 6 months and a year.
Last week, we did a more formal exercise where we looked at the brain and what parts control certain activities. If you need a refresher, take a look at the image at the top of the page.
Speaking of refreshers, I feel like I’m back in school. Duh, Len, you are back in school or has the part of your brain that controls memory suddenly atrophied. I’m not talking about teaching. I’m referring to learning. In order to teach all subjects, I am constantly looking at material that I learned back in the 50s and 60s. Once again, it amazes me that the brain recalls with shocking clarity the sights, sounds and smells… and knowledge from over a half a century ago.
I was reminiscing the other day about the storm of the century in Montreal on March 4th, 1971. A few of us traveled to Montreal to watch the Habs play and got caught in this incredible storm. Here’s my account of that event fifty years ago: https://www.week45.com/the-habs-and-the-hab-nots/
Finally (mercifully), I watched a lot of golf on the weekend. The Bay Hill Invitational is played in Orlando on a property owned by the late legendary golfer, Arnold Palmer. A number of years ago Peter and I spent a few days at this tournament as spectators. Lots of great memories. Here is one of Palmer’s famous quotes which I believe says it all: “The road to success is always under construction.”
Have a great week. Things will look much brighter (especially in the evening) later this week when the clocks go ahead one hour.
P.S. Drum roll. Not really but this post is a bit of a milestone. This is my 1200th post on my website. Thanks to many of you who have been with me from the start.
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