_In_ing outside the box
Livin4d will share and explore some ideas with respect to two articles in this week's paper: school children benefiting from sand box play and high school children being able to perform recussitstion due to app training. The first article states that hands on activity is beneficial to the psyche while the second article encourages training through computer related simulations. Livin4d connects the advantages of both worlds in order to expand our conscious collective and enhance our interpersonal relationships.
Research shows that tactile hands on engagement and tactile stimulation neurologically and physiologically changes the structure of the brain in terms of how we relate to self, other(s), functioning, and the inner and outer worlds. Tactile utilization alters the neuronetwork connection with mind, soma (body) and with respect to neurological communal connections with surrounding people.
I don't know about all of you but if I am having surgery in the future with the future doctors of this world and they are not using robotic probes, I hope that they have had as much hands on stimulation and 3d ways of experiencing things and 4d ways of thinking about things as possible.
It is livin4d's opinion that experiential learnings would ideally span throughout a lifetime, not transitioning from sand box to app training across the span of k-12. In an ideal world, while the content of sand box training would change over the span of linear time, the hands on playing and building would not stoicize into apps or computer simulations.
This is not to say that anything is wrong with computer simulations and graphic design, or examining things through CAD drawings, various rotational blueprint structural representations and interactive software. These are all great technological advancements in which we have access. This stated, it is important to use the above referenced app related trainings as supplemental material to the actual hands on learning processes.
When I went to school as a child, I had the following experiences: Archeological digs, rock climbing, conceptual interactive experiences such as building apparatuses with 8 items in order to catch a free fall egg without it breaking, wood working with drill presses and saws, nature walks with bird viewing, field trips to construction sites where we actually wore yellow hard hats, looking at energetic fields in surrounding plants (Don Quixote and Celestine Prophesy) and much more.
In an ideal world, rather than sitting in a classroom reading text book material which can have a myriad of cognitive schematic representation overlay idiosyncrasies, it is suggested to increase dexterity opening exercises for children due many reasons. In terms of livin4d's focus, increased cognitive schematic attachment variances result in increased inter-relational friction.
At current time, children grades 1-12 sit in their seats almost all day long. They are lucky to have an art and PE class with limited supplies, a room and possibly a space to run and/or play. This seat sitting exacerbates the "Sleeping Brain Syndrome" (SBS) and the obesity level among children.
The different nuances among children and adults in terms of mental imagery attached to words is so vast from reading text books and or auditorily listening, that without the shared hands on experience between self neuro-soma and/or other neuro-soma, over the course of lifetimes, children and people begin to lose mental and verbal connection to their bodies and to others.
The disconnection of self neuro-soma manifests in depression, obesity, acting out etc. The disconnection of other neuro-soma manifests in divorce, fighting interpersonal friction. These outcomes are due to the fact that the SAME words people share (irregardless of spoken language) have such unique cognitive schematic imagery that interpersonal friction is often the result. Livin4d knows that the more somatic connections we create, the more we can expand on both individual and interpersonal levels.
As a teacher, I was fortunate enough to have been trained by a hands on supervising teacher, Mr. Rupert in Washington D.C. who had 29 years of teaching experience at School Without Walls SWW and taught me to use hands on techniques. SWW utilized the city as a resource so I was able to take my students to the zoo and botanical gardens in order to experience rather than watch simulated apps and/or exclusively read in textbooks.
Students could see how light passed through holes in large leaves, hence increasing photosynthetic ability of leaves below due to increased surface area for light hitting chloroplasts. One can read about this in a textbook but when one actually experiences it in person and examines life with a thinking eye, it changes how one views life.
With experiential activities, children can not only gain
4 dimensional understandings of concepts but they can extrapolate concepts and overlay them to other content areas as well. Text book reading narrows the mind's eye. Words and written text are great supplemental material just like computers are, for hands on learning.
I was also fortunate enough to be able to teach students using hands on body simulations to interactively demonstrate such thinks as Na K (3 students in, 2 students out etc) uptake channels, Krebs cycles, circulatory systems and more. We were able to perform hands on laboratory experiences using dissection animals in order to actually systemically understand functioning. We were able to feel and the vitreous humor and the lens, we were able to study the lateral lines of fish, understand the nervous systems of worms and the cardiac circuits of fetal pigs.
It is quite rare these days to find schools that incorporate hands on interactive modalities, and even if they do exist, the intervention and necessity to abide by academic "standards" and the necessity to cover content and testing within certain time parameters greatly limits available time for imagination and soma-connect whether it be on a self or other level.
I will speak for myself in saying that in my future, if I ever need surgery, I hope that my MD will have more than app and text book training (even when robotic surgery is the wave). I know currently MDs have more than app training. I'm just stating there is a big "GAP" between sand boxes and medical school. Text book learning is written for a certain personality type. The personality type that can read through them become doctors. There are many other marginalized doctors out there whom we will never know because they couldn't schematically visualize the words. Perhaps words are too limiting for some. Afterall, words are 2 dimensional, world's apart from livin4d.
Afterall, do doctors O-P-E-R-A-T-E with words? No. Don't they think about the quadratic formula or pathagorean theorem or balancing a stoichionetry equation while putting in a pace maker because the Bundle of His isn't sending out proper signals? No. It is due to this discrepancy in word to application that livin4d seeks to expand opportunities and life satisfaction by 4 dimensionalizing our current word.
Speaking again to app training as referenced in the article, even when we use surgical robotic tools (even when being guided from a source or force beyond this earth), the computerized tools still use the touch of a human hand as MDs operate them.
In terms of livin4d's focus with respect to expanding interpersonal relationships of both self and other, the neuro-soma connections are fundamental.
With respect to educational learning is important to mention that children are the "foundation to our future." These hands on learning and interactional experiences and "having fun" concepts are ideal to apply to adults. It is important for us to never stop playing. Furthermore, the more somatic "tie ins" and or sewn stitches we have between and among each other, keeping us connected, the closer our relationships will remain.
When one partner sits at a desk for 10 hours a day plus the commute and the other partner has gone grocery shopping and tended to driving and maintenance of kids, with one 2 week scheduled vacation per year if that, no wonder we have such high relational demise.
Sense of family is non existent and "project building" shared activities are non-existent. Going for a bike ride to count calories does not "count" for sharing.
In an ideal world "shared fun" would not have an end goal such as fixing the facades of houses and/or as mentioned above, checking the daily exercise routine off the list. A vision and/or goal may emanate out of a shared dexterous activities but the goal is not in and of itself the goal.
Outside of school settings, it would be helpful to have communal stations that couples and/or families could show up and partake in. This would eliminate the need to purchase expensive machinery and/or supplies. Nothing wrong with these purchases, but if you are going to purchase a tigg or mig welder, it is a pretty large commitment, not to mention adjusting voltage parameters of your electrical circuitry etc. This is assuming where you live even has the capability to do such a thing as many who live in cities and or buildings do not have this capability. Investing in welding is just one example of the commitment. If this commitment is even made, it is still limiting in that if one wants to build other projects, a mig won't cut wood. An entire other set of tools and machines would be needed for that. You get the "drift."
Livin4d imagines a world where the following stations would exist for everyone to partake in and individually and interpersonally expand in: welding, bike repair and building, graffiti art, paint and canvas, wood working with drill press, saws, ideas of things to build such as wind spinners and wood bowls, boxes and indoor plant containers, guitar playing, gardening, dancing shared cooking, and whatever else anyone else imagines to incorporate.
In an ideal world, the community would support these stations as Livin4d believes the return on the investment will far outweigh the money it would cost to incorporate these concepts.
Livin4d imagines that psychiatric care and medical costs will decrease and the amount of imaginative ideas re-entering the circulation will increase as these ideas ultimately manifest into productivity whether it they are tangible or conceptual in nature.
Livin4d took two articles of the times with respect to "thinking beyond" the sand box and app training and conceptually applied the content to expansion of children's potential and increasing neuro-soma connection of self and neuro-soma connection of self to other in order to enhance relationships. When these relationshipsships enhance, by default, societal interconnectivity will undoubtedly be more connected and expansion is the definitive result. It could be ascertained that anything but expansion would solely be the result of overt or covert fear.
