Man’s mind stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions. Every bit of new truth discovered is revolutionary to what we believed before. A brand new template is encoded – a paradigm is shifted. (Our brains are quite capable of accommodating contradictory truths for long periods of time.)ġ) we become more receptive to, less defended against or denying of, the new learning from new perceptions from new experiences Ģ) because we’ve cultivated a sense of open-mindedness, curiosity and receptivity ģ) because we’re in a safe enough, positive enough emotional state to activate the innate motivations of play and exploration so that we can take the learning in (encode it) directly from the experience of the moment Ĥ) that allows the new learning from new perceptions from new experiences to gain enough critical momentum, a tidal wave of energy in the brain, that old templates are “lit up” and dramatically re-wired. (When we’re present, open-minded, engaged not defended, shut down, numbed out, dissociated, or in denial, which simply slots data from a new experience into an old pattern, reinforcing but not changing anything.) The new learning that gets catalyzed by new experiences can stretch us far beyond either accumulating more facts and assimilating them into already established mental boxes or parking newly encoded learning side by side previously encoded learning. Any new experience causes neurons in the brain to fire in new patterns that can become encoded as new learning. What’s happening in the brain during an aha! moment?Īny experience causes neurons in the brain to fire. REFLECTIONS on Aha! Moments Re-Wire The BrainĪn aha! moment is a new perception that triggers a new comprehension of how things work, how things fit together, how things make sense, that leads to a new understanding of ourselves and our world – a paradigm shift. May these reflections and tools be inspiring and useful to you and yours. (See Resources below for links to internships and volunteer programs).Įven my 10 year old godson Elijah came home last week from his 4-hour/week volunteer job at Playland-not-at-the-Beach (he leads tours, demonstrates games, runs movies, sets up scavenger hunts) saying he’s learning to be responsible, to have stamina doing his jobs, to have patience in dealing with difficult kids (and adults!) and – aha! – that when hard things happen he can talk with the adults about it and work it out.Īs Elijah and 49 million other children return to school in the coming weeks, and millions of college students take a break from academia to dig wells, repair homes, or work in orphanages, I want to explore how the aha! moments gained from experiential learning re-wire the brain to support even more aha! moments, leading to genuine healing and awakening. Whether people understand the recent neuroscience that illuminates why experiential learning is such a potent tool for creating aha! moments and re-wiring the brain, or not, this past summer, I’ve seen so many friends and grown children of friends seeking to catalyze those aha! moments by going to Nicaragua to build a school, or to Kenya to teach in a school, or to Peru to perform as clowns where there isn’t yet a building for a school, learning in the direct engagement with other people of shared, lived experiences.
The new “normal” became experiential learning, where our own experience, engaging with life directly, became the vehicle for the aha! moments that would transform our understanding of our selves and our world.
The old “normal” mode of learning by quietly taking notes from a professor’s lecture (even the very, very good ones) and regurgitating info unchanged on a test or essay, wasn’t going to cut it anymore. A revolution occurred in learning as students poured out of the classrooms into the streets, into poor communities, into developing countries. When I was an undergraduate in the late 1960’s, student protests against the Vietnam War or apartheid or discrimination against minorities, women, gays, were disrupting classes, if not shutting down entire universities.
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