{"id":37102,"date":"2024-04-01T07:27:11","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T14:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=37102"},"modified":"2024-04-02T17:46:51","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T00:46:51","slug":"37102-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/37102-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Picture is worth a thousand words"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe kingdom of heaven is like . . .,\u201d so begins Jesus in telling his parables in Matthew 13; using visuals to help his audience understand his teachings, threshold concepts.[1]<\/a> David Rock in his book Your Brain At Work<\/em> says that if you can, use visuals in an effort to \u201creduce the energy required for processing information.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Rock explains that images contain large amounts of information.[3]<\/a>\u00a0 For example, in Jesus\u2019 parable about the weeds, the audience, living in an agrarian society, would have understood everything involved in the sowing seeds, tending a field and gathering the crops, he did not have to explain each step of the process to them.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 Rock also says that we should use visuals because they have been proven to be an effective tool for hundreds of years, helping people understand abstract principles.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

Rock uses visuals throughout his book to describe his threshold concepts.\u00a0 He first creates the visual of a person\u2019s brain, with the prefrontal cortex, where most of our decision making and problem solving is completed, as being like a small stage.\u00a0 He then states that the actors on the stage represent the information to which we are currently trying to attend.\u00a0 The audience, Rock describes as being previous information that our brain has attended.\u00a0 He describes this as our \u201cinner world,\u201d and it contains our \u201cthoughts, memories, and imaginings.\u201d[6]<\/a>\u00a0 Regarding the actors, Rock says that sometimes they \u201center the stage as a normal actor would, from the side of the stage,\u201d the \u201couter world.\u201d[7]<\/a>\u00a0 Other times the actors are audience members that are brought up on the stage to interact with the new actors.\u00a0 Rock says that our stage is responsible for five functions, \u201cunderstanding, deciding, recalling, memorizing, and inhibiting.\u201d[8]<\/strong><\/a><\/em> Rock completes his metaphor by stating that the stage is very small and that keeping actors on the stage, attending to information, requires a lot of the limited amount of available energy.[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

After Rock has set the stage, he then provides information for how best to direct the daily performances for which we are tasked and how to handle various hiccups we encounter in our script.\u00a0 Rock suggests that we enlist the help of the audience as often as we can.\u00a0 The audience for the most part, is Daniel Kahneman\u2019s System 1 and the actors on the stage is System 2.[10]<\/a>\u00a0 So it makes sense to engage in the energy efficient System 1 thinking as much as possible.<\/p>\n

As I sit down to write this blog, I have employed some of Rock\u2019s ideas.\u00a0 I have prioritized my day.\u00a0 I have avoided looking at my email this morning to not get distracted by time and energy consuming tasks that can wait until later in the day.\u00a0 Because of something that happened last week, I am also avoiding my email so that I do not get \u201cDerailed by Drama.\u201d[11]<\/a>\u00a0 I have a student who appears to be caught up in what Edwin Friedman terms chronic anxiety.[12]<\/a>\u00a0 The student wrote an email to me that could have easily pulled me into the anxiety. I chose to differentiate, settle my limbic system down and not view it as an attack on me as a person, rather I forwarded the information on to my supervisor so that together we can appropriately respond to the student.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed Rock\u2019s book, I feel that is a good supplement to what Kahneman wrote in Thinking, Fast and Slow<\/em>.\u00a0 It provides some good strategies to use, and Rock did a nice job writing the book as a story of a married couple going through their daily routines, showing the way we tend to operate, discussing the principle, and then showing how it could have played out differently using his principles.<\/p>\n

I would like to follow up more on Rock\u2019s Intermission section, where we meet the director.\u00a0 Rock writes \u201cThe director can watch the show that is your life, make decisions about how your brain will respond, and even sometimes alter the script.\u201d[13]<\/a>\u00a0 Amy Milton gave a Ted Talk about research that is currently being done to rewrite the memories of those who suffer from PTSD.[14]<\/a>\u00a0 I am interested in learning more about how professionals can help victims of PTSD use various techniques including mindfulness techniques to control how their brain responds to stimuli and even rewrite the scripts.<\/p>\n

The kingdom of heaven is like . . ., I wonder when the kingdom of heaven is firmly established, will we be able to look back and fully understand all that Jesus was trying to get us to visualize, will our stage be able to process everything at once, or will we still be like the disciples needing some help?[15]<\/a><\/p>\n

On a side note, I was talking with my daughter the other day and companies are starting to design and implement new technology that will allow robots pulled behind a tractor to identify and zap<\/em> weeds. For the next generation, the Parable of the Weeds may have absolutely no context.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Here is a link to an article about the new technology.[16]<\/a><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Matt. 13 (New International Version); Meyer and Land, eds.\u00a0 Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge<\/em> (New York: Routledge, 2006).<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> David Rock, Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long, <\/em>(New York, NY: Harper Collings, 2009), 14.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Rock, 14.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Matt. 13:24-30.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Rock 14.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Rock, 5,7.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Rock, 7.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Rock, 8.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Rock, 8, 20.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow<\/em>, (Canada: Anchor Canada, 2013), 20-21.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Rock, 102.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Edwin Friedman A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix.<\/em> (New York: Church Publishing, 2007), 61.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> Rock, 87.<\/p>\n

[14]<\/a> Amy Milton \u201cCan we Edit Memories?\u201d\u00a0 (Ted Talk given at TedX Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK, March 2019). https:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/amy_milton_can_we_edit_memories<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[15]<\/a> Matt. 13.<\/p>\n

[16]<\/a> Loukia Papadopoulos, \u201cThis new farming robot uses lasers to kill 200,000 weeds per hour,\u201d Innovation Engineering, accessed on April 1, 2024.\u00a0 https:\/\/interestingengineering.com\/innovation\/farming-robot-lasers-200000-weeds-per-hour<\/a>.<\/pre>\n
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