Doc Meek

Archive for April, 2010

Even though I have advanced degrees, I have continued on the pathway of active learning all my life. This not only provides me with an endless supply of new learning and new knowledge which I can apply to help children and adults overcome learning problems, it keeps my brain active and my thinking sharp.

Isn’t that what we all want?

I am constantly reading new material and engaging new ideas. I just completed reading a book by Dr. R. Douglas Fields (2009), The Other Brain: From Dementia to Schizophrenia, How New Discoveries About the Brain are Revolutionizing Medicine and Science. Engaging! Exciting! New frontiers!

Look to my future posts for more on this entrancing new brain science.

Reading, Thinking and Walking

I am also trying to remember to walk every day. If I take different pathways on my walks, I not only am increasing my blood flow and oxygen uptake throughout my body and brain, I am engaging new learning as I encounter new scenery and different people on each of these excursions. Some days, I walk the same way and still encounter new things to engage my brain, if I remember to stay attentive to my surroundings.

Photo from The New York Times, December 20, 2007, “Walking May Lower Dementia Risk,” By TARA PARKER-POPE

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/walking-may-lower-dementia-risk/

Of course, some days, I just walk along oblivious to my surroundings! I am running my brain internally only, grinding on, or playing with, some problem or new idea. It’s probably better to use the brain in a new and different way, than to grind on the same old problem, eh? 😮

Your best refresher from problems pounding you down is DSD.

DSD? Do Something Different

Many of my clients told me it saved the day for them, whether as a student, or as a mother, or as an employee, or as a private person.

The more different ways you can engage your brain in new learning, the better the brain works, and the sharper your thinking remains (or becomes).

I really should take up something  completely different from my “routine” reading and walking and driving and flying. If I could carry a tune, I could take up singing, eh? How about painting, the artistic kind? Winston Churchill did that to keep his brain refreshed.

How about learning to play an instrument? Music engages the brain in novel and inspiring ways, and creates and enhances learning channels in superior ways we don’t fully understand. Even just playing gentle music (say, Baroque, or any music with about 60 beats per minutes) in the background when you are reading or studying helps the brain to learn.

Music lubricates learning, so to speak.

So does learning a second language. Even when we are older. 😮

Square dancing anyone?

I used to go square dancing every week. It was different from my usual desk-work and research habits, and I loved it! Challenging! We had to listen to the caller’s dance instructions while we were in motion. So we were getting a brain triple-play: music, physical motion and rhythm, and and auditory workout to boot.

Photo from “History and Heritage of Modern American Square Dancing”: http://www.eaasdc.de/history/sheindex.htm

It always seemed such an odd thing to me that whenever it came time to go square dancing, I was too  mentally tired and unmotivated to go, even though I knew it would be good for me. So I devised a simple “personal policy”:

“Go anyway.”

The amazing thing was that I would come home from square dancing, exhausted physically, yet I was less tired and more motivated to do whatever showed up, than I was before I plodded to the dance in the first place. Amazing. Talk about seemingly “backwards logic,” eh?

Doc Meek, Active Learning Strategies Specialist

Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA

When we think of our brain, we naturally think of what is inside our heads, located between our ears, behind our eyes, and safely within our skull.

Very few of us would think of our brain as partially residing in our intestines. Our spinal cord, maybe, not our gut.

We do say to others sometimes, “I feel in my gut that this is true, ” when we have no hard evidence to back something up. However, we don’t think of that as a brain activity usually, do we?”

Well, perhaps our “gut” doesn’t think in the way we usually think about thinking. However, it is intimately acquainted with our brain and they talk to each other all the time. We may not understand the language they are using when they talk to each other. They do understand it, however, and are really good at communicating with each other.

And, amazingly, when the stomach or intestines are having trouble with food or toxins in the food, they not only yell at the brain, they cause the brain to function less than optimally.

“Brain fog,” is familiar to many. Thinking of the digestive system as a possible cause of “brain fog” is not something very many of us think about.

Not very often would a parent think of digestive problems as related to the learning disabilities of their child.

More on this “second brain” in my future blog postings here.

Doc Meek, Learning Specialist

Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA; and South Jordan, Utah, USA

For many years, I started out my parent and student classes by saying, “According to one study, we use only about 5% of our brain.”

“In fact, the study nailed it right down to us using only 4.67% of our brain.”

After that “dismal” news, I would announce to the parents and students, “However, since everybody in this room is smarter than that, we’ll be using 10% of our brains and doing very well in this class.”

Smiles all around. 😮

The neuroscientist that called my remarks a “silly adage” is right in one sense. Multiple parts of our brain are involved in our daily activities, much more than 10%.

My teaching is that most of this daily brain activity is not in our immediate awareness, usually.

For example, we may think about what we are going to say, and we may even rehearse it very carefully in our mind before we say it. However, when we actually start talking the patterns of our speech are “looked after” for us by our “automatic brain.” We do not usually have to think about how to string an actual sentence together. We do not have to pause before every word to try and figure out what comes next, do we?

The same thing is true for walking, for example. We may think about where we want to go. We may even rehearse it very carefully in our mind before we start out. When we actually start walking, however,  most of the activity is “looked after” for us by our “automatic brain.” We don’t have to say to our foot, “lift up” or to our knees, “bend please.”

Do we?

So the brilliant neuroscient and I are both right. His point is that we are constantly using a large percentage of our brain, even when we are asleep, even especially when we are asleep, eh?

I want to say more about the “fun” the brain is having when we are asleep in one of my future postings here.

My point to my parent and student classes, about us using only 5% – 10% of our brains is this: “Only a very small portion of what our brain is doing is in our immediate awareness. Our hair grows, our eyes shine, our hearts beat, and our food is digested without us having to think about it.”

Usually. 😮

In fact, one of the great ongoing challenges in psychology and brain science is the question of what our brains are doing that we don’t know about. At least at the moment.

“What is my brain up to that I don’t know about?” you may well ask.

I will address this in one of my future postings here.

Doc Meek, Inspiring Learning Strategies Specialist

Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA; and South Jordan, Utah, USA

It’s Sunday today and perhaps a good day to remind ourselves of the value of going the second mile, whether in employment or learning.

My friend told me about a time when his employer was in a time bind. A customer needed some work done as soon as possible. This was on a Friday. Instead of waiting until Monday to start the work, my friend put in some weekend time and completed the desperately-needed work by Monday.

The employer had not asked for this.

My friend not only got more work done than expected, he also learned a lot by taking personal initiative and not waiting to be told explicitly what to do by his employer.

My friend wrote in his journal about his employer:

“This exceeded his wildest expectations. He was very pleased; and the word really got around . . .  that the job had been done in jig time. [This] was a significant milestone in setting my philosophy of operation as regards my work for employers. I had always been inclined to give them a good shot with the expectation that they would return the favor with promotions, pay increases and the like as conditions would permit.

“I got a lot of positive feedback from them that helped me to keep that philosophy valid in my mind.

“I am glad that I did that . . . because the world is full of people who feel that employers do not have anything more than the minimum coming to them. And employers sense that immediately, by and large, and return in kind: just the minimum. It makes for a dreary, adversarial world.

“An employer who sees an employee going the extra mile will almost inevitably . . . respond in kind. It makes for a much better world, based on trust that the other party will do the right  thing when the proper time comes.

” . . . you can no more escape the rewards of going the extra mile than you can escape the inevitable sanctions of giving only the minimum.”

What has this got to do with learning?

Teachers, college instructors, university professors, whomever, are no different from employers when it comes to the personal initiative of their students.

Whether you are on the job or in school, when you go the extra mile, when you take personal initiative in working or learning, you can no more escape your future benefits of this behavior (however long they may be in coming) than you can escape the problems (however long they may be in coming) of not taking charge of yourself.

Am I saying that you should always take evenings and weekends to work and learn?

No, you need healthy recreational times, as well as hard-working times. Both are needed to ensure future benefits.

I am saying that you can be balanced in general and still go the extra mile in helping others, and yourself, in work, in play, in learning.

Doc Meek, Active Learning Strategies Specialist

Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA; and South Jordan, Utah, USA

The baby cries, laughs, frowns, smiles, and tries to grab on to  everything within reach (and out of reach!). Fail, fail, fail. And fail again.

The baby keeps grasping, grasping, trying to do the impossible–control its arms and hands.

Fail, fail, fail, and fail again.

Finally, aha, success.

Smile.

The baby grasps and holds something in its grip.

And of course puts it immediately to its mouth.

Success!

And then more failure and more failure and more failure.

Sometimes tears. Mostly just continuing efforts to notice, to see clearly, to touch, to grasp.

Everything is new. And interesting. And even wonderful. The baby’s wonder and joy at learning every new and little thing inspires us. Reminds us to be open to new learning every day.

The mother or other guardian stands by, encouraging every bit of learning in the baby. Watching, caring, nurturing, loving. Stepping in to stop the baby if its learning drive puts it in danger of some kind. Standing back to let the baby learn so it can grow and develop into a self-managing person.

Change is easy for babies.

They are learning machines from birth onwards. And even before that. They are also teachers. They can teach us many things about learning, and loving learning. Babies are the supreme example of staying open to new learning every day, every hour. All the time.

Change is easy for babies because their early life epitomizes change. They are change, almost moment to moment.

Yet, in order to thrive, babies also need to be changed by others as well, to have their diapers changed, to have their location changed, by their mothers or others. Babies need to be fed, to be cared for, to be nurtured and to be loved by their mothers or others.

And in one sense this is true for all of us. We may be at a stage in life where we are still immediately within the sphere of our mother’s or another  guardian’s influence, or we may be older and somewhat beyond the sphere of the influence of others. Or we may be much older and way beyond the influence of others. Or at least we think we are.

Still, whether we like it or not, we are somewhat influenced by our mothers or other early guardians until we die.

So it is with teachers. Our students are influenced, for good or ill, by what we do and say in the now–in the present moment–all the days of their lives, until they die.

Are our students grateful for us, now, in the present? And we for them? It is up to us. And it is up to them also. We can work together, today, to inspire each other to be the best that is in each of us. And the best will be different for each of us, and different every day as we work together.

Will our students be grateful for us in the future? And we for them? That is up to us. And them. What will we do for them, and for ourselves, today? What will we do all together to inspire each other along the pathway of learning?

Today. Right now.

When is a good time to change?

Now.

Yet we do not always remember the lesson of the baby, the lesson of the little child. That now is the moment, the only moment we have, to enjoy, to value, to change.

We can change in an instant. To anger, yes, and also to happiness, although it seems that we are quicker sometimes to change to anger than to change to inspiring moments, to uplifting present moments, to moments of interest, to moments of curiosity, to moments of  learning, to moments of joy even.

Doc Meek

South Jordan, Utah, USA; Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, CANADA

Doc Meek

Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta, CANADA; and South Jordan, Utah, USA



A school teacher wrote me the other day, asking about anger management in the classroom.

I referred him to my previous blog entitled “Anger Management in Schools,” as an introduction. (See previous blog entry dated April 10, 2010.) That represented a starting point for anger management, for individual students, for immediate short-term solutions in the “foreground” of the problem so to speak.

Here I would like to explore longer-term “background” solutions.

Longer-term solutions for anger management

YouTube video:  queue Bowling Lessons for Beginners : How to Choose L… If this link doesn’t open, copy/paste this URL into your website browser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05dAjzKrz9g&feature=channel

Sure success for learner mastery

Previously, I wrote about how to learn just about anything, or change just about anything, by having low goals.

Low goals?

{If you missed this, you can go back and read my previous blog entry: “Learning and Changing by Having Low Goals?” April 13, 2010}

Now I want to share with you an example of how to guarantee success at just about anything you set out to learn or change, or just about anything you want your student or child to learn or change.

Here’s the true story

This is the account of a Dad who was a championship bowler. Or maybe it’s really about a Dad who knows that you can teach anyone to do anything, provided you go about it intelligently.

Or perhaps it is simply a story of gentle wisdom.

Or maybe it is really an account of a very little child who learned very early (courtesy of a thoughtful father) that he could learn anything. And love it.

Here’s what happened.

When the boy was 3 years old — picture the cute blond curly-haired little guy — the Dad decided to take him over to the local bowling alley to teach him how to bowl. The Mom was really upset: “Jim, he’s only 3 years old! What are you thinking!?”

“Chunk it down”

The Dad prepared carefully. He set up the pins in the usual way on the bowling lane, at the end of that long, narrow varnished hardwood lane. Then he added a little extra carefulness. Because there were no “gutter bumpers,” he placed two more pins beside the ones on the surface of the lane, down in the gutter. He placed one extra pin down in each of the open gutters that run along beside the raised lane all the way to the end.

Then he carefully placed a ball (it was the smaller, lighter 5-pin ball, not the larger, heavier 10-pin ball) in the hands of his 3-year-old son, after having demonstrated to him how to hold the ball with two hands, and swing it between his legs and then let go.

His little 3-year-old son gave a mighty heave and the ball wobbled about half way down the lane and fell lazily into the gutter. (I did not remember to tell you that the Dad had placed 2 more extra pins in the gutter, one on each side of the bowling lane, about half way down the lane.)

As the ball wobbled off the lane about half way down and hit the strategically-placed pin in the gutter, knocking it over, a cheer went up from the father! His son had knocked over a pin on his first throw! Other bowlers who had been following the little guy with interest cheered and clapped mightily.

The little bowler himself clapped his hands in glee!

Success at the first throw!

Would it surprise you to learn that the little guy went on to become a championship bowler? And he enjoyed his career. Always. Because he had learned to enjoy learning, to love learning something new. He simply succeeded. From the very start.

This is not just a bowling story, or  just a sports success story, is it?

Every day, parents and teachers are learning from this type of example, and doing just exactly this type of learning-teaching.

Parents and teachers make every effort to guarantee success, from the very beginning.

“Chunk it down. Chunk it down. Chunk it down,” as my old linguistics coach used to say.

Guarantee success.

Simple.

Not easy.

Simple.

Blessings, Doc Meek, South Jordan, Utah, USA; and Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, CANADA

I thought we were supposed to set high goals? “Aim for the stars, and then at least you might be able to hit the mountaintops.”

The problem for some, however, is that they aim high and then when they fall short, they feel like a failure and give up. “Hopeless,” they say. “I just cannot achieve highly like others seem to do so easily.” Then they reduce their effort to minimal, or give up altogether, saying to themselves, “Let’s get real; I am not cut out for real success.”

Many a brilliant student (and adult) has thus given away their high potential in the face of seemingly good advice: “Aim high.”

My fellow Canadian, Raymond Aaron, has a unique approach to the goal-setting problem. More about Aaron’s genius in a future post. You can check him out for yourself if you wish:

<http://www.raymondaaron.com>

Another way to look at this is to use a medical example. One of my physician friends had a patient who was too exhausted to get out of bed. She was under good medical care (his) and she wanted more pills for more energy. He said to her, “What you need is movement — exercise — not more pills.”

She expostulated: “Exercise! I can’t even get out of bed!”

He thought of the goal of aiming for the stars and hoping you hit the mountain tops, or even just the foothills.  Here it just would not do. So he gave her his low-goal version of goal-setting. He asked her if she could do exercise for him for just 10 seconds. Well, she could hardly refuse. She did that for a few days and then he asked if she could give him 30 seconds of exercise. She did it. (He told me later that if she had been unable to entertain an initial goal of 10 seconds of exercise, he would have simply reduced the goal to 5 seconds, or to 2 seconds if necessary.) He was out to guarantee her success, not her failure.

He then gave her his highly-modified version of “aiming for the stars”:

“Start low . . .

go slow . . .

and don’t stop!”

She did start low, she did go slow, and she didn’t stop.

Would you be surprised to learn that she exercised her way to perfect health? Just a minute, “progress, not perfection,” right? Okay, she exercised her way to good and steady progress in health for the rest of her days. She says that she could never have done it without setting low goals.

And keeping them.

And not stopping.

Amen.

Doc Meek

South Jordan, USA; and Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, CANADA

“Dr. Meek brings a unique blend of warmth, intelligence and humor to everything he does.” – Calgary PROFILE Magazine

I glow when I see that comment about me and my work.

I also cringe.

What?

I cringe because I remember when I read this nice statement to myself once, my inner critic said:

“Always??? You bring these glorious attributes to everything???” Well, my inner critic had me there, didn’t he?

I have to confess that there is enough truth in this journalist’s statement about me and my work that it challenges me to live up to it. And I must confess also that I have trotted this statement out publicly on occasion when it seemed appropriate to do so. Thus,  I am faced, just as you are, with trying to “walk my talk” or “practice what I preach,” even when it is someone else commenting about my work in helping children to overcome learning difficulties.

So how does this apply to learning?

My last name, “Meek,” in English means approximately: humble, teachable, open to new learning, angerless.

Since I am a “knowledge sponge” those meanings appeal to me! I want to try to live up to my name.

I want to learn how to live up to my name and also live the journalist’s kind statement . . . all the time.

And not “blow up” and “yell” when I am challenged by circumstances . . . ever.

Then I remember that what I really want is not to set myself up for certain failure. I want to make progress, not strive for elusive perfection (and then fall into despair when I slip, even just a little, even just once).

That’s what I teach my clients.

So we simply eliminate the word “always” and “never” from our vocabularies.

Why?

Because if I say, “I will always be warm, intelligent and humorous,” I’m a complete failure the first minute I frown, growl or yell. Ditto if I say, “I will never get angry.”

So we all together learn to change slowly by telling ourselves, and each other, over and over again:

“Progress, not perfection.”

More in another posting about setting and keeping high goals. Or maybe about  setting and keeping low goals.

Doc Meek

South Jordan, Utah, USA; and Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, CANADA