A couple of times in my past I’ve gotten hit on the head hard enough to see spots. One time, blindsided by two linesmen in a game of football who came at me from either side, I saw swirling spots. The experience of getting blindsided can leave us seeing spots, but, in the case of leadership, it would be more helpful if it resulted in our ability to see the triangle that spawened the anxiety that triggered the reaction that hit us with the equivalence of emotional blunt-force trauma. Can you see those triangles coming?

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I was able to make the last meeting of the GRACE group monthly meeting for the year (we’re on hiatus for the summer). Schedule conflicts have prevented me from attending this year. It’s ironic that now living in Richmond I’m having trouble making the meetings. When I lived two hours away in Northern Virginia I hardly ever missed a meeting over the course of six years. The friendship and rich discussion served only to remind me how much I’ve missed this monthly gathering with peers.

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After ten years of formal teaching at seminary, at the graduate level, it is becoming apparent that students will always be students—and despite references to “students these days,” teachers will gripe about the same things. The more things change. . . .

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A student from my January philosophy course recently came by the office to follow up on some lingering questions. It’s always a good sign when a student pursues learning after the conclusion a course. It hints that one has achieved a measure of retention, sustained interest, and perhaps tweeked at least a curiosity if not a thirst for learning. It seems to me that the nature of studying enduring subject matter (philosophy, history, etc.) tends to have that effect more so than the more entertaining “designer” courses teachers often foist on their undiscerning students.

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Some years ago I took a seminar with communication guru Edwin Tufte. He concluded his seminar on communication and design with a film of a magician’s performance. The short film was a clever and effective way to demonstrate some of the principles of how the brain “sees” and interprets “information.” More specifically, it demonstrated how understanding these principles of perception, and applying them for their purpose, magicians are able to fool the brain through intentional misdirection, deception, and obfuscation.

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Today’s brain and learning concept: the brain learns through conscious and unconscious processes. A great deal of the insights we acquire and the patterns that we grasp are a consequence of ongoing unconscious processing, perhaps more than we realize or care to admit. Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux (1996) wrote that he processes of the “cognitive unconscious span many levels of mental complexity, all the way from the routine analysis of the physical features of stimuli by our sensory systems to remembrance of past events to speaking grammatically to imagining things that are not present, to decision making, and beyond.”

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Today’s brain and learning concept: the brain perceives and creates parts and wholes. The brain has two separate but simultaneous tendencies for organizing information. One is to reduce information to parts. The other is to perceive and work with information as a whole or series of wholes. These simultaneous tendencies spring from the brain’s organization and have important implications for teaching and learning.

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