Brain scientists and education scientists don't get together very often, and we end up living in our own little silos. John Medina More Quotes by John Medina More Quotes From John Medina What's obvious to you is obvious to you. John Medina obvious Public speaking professionals say that you win or lose the battle to hold your audience in the first 30 seconds of a given presentation. John Medina battlewinningfirsts We must do a better job of encouraging lifelong curiosity. John Medina lifelongcuriosityjobs Though we have been stuffing them into classrooms and cubicles for decades, our brains actually were built to survive in jungles and grasslands. A lifetime of exercise can result in a sometimes astonishing elevation in cognitive performance, compared with those who are sedentary. John Medina cubiclesexercisebrain Here's why this matters: Studies show that a person who is interrupted takes 50 percent longer to accomplish a task. Not only that, he or she makes up to 50 percent more errors. John Medina errorstasksmatter The brain doesn't pay attention to boring things. John Medina brainpayattention To put it bluntly, research shows that we can’t multitask. We are biologically incapable of processing attention-rich inputs simultaneously. John Medina inputresearchattention If you wanted to create an education environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you would probably design something like a classroom. John Medina doing-youdesignbrain Our ability to adapt came from our East African birthplace, a meteorologically unstable place. If you couldn't adapt, you'd be dead. But once you've found a solution, there is no need to continue the adaptive behavioral parrying, which is bioenergetically very expensive to maintain. We are built to find answers, then hang on to them as long as we can. John Medina eastlongneeds The problem in today’s economy is that people are typically starting a family at the very time they are also supposed to be doing their best work. They are trying to be productive at some of the most stressful times of their lives. What if companies took this unhappy collision of life events seriously? They could offer Gottman’s intervention as a benefit for every newly married, or newly pregnant, employee. John Medina what-ifunhappypeople The distance between a gene and a behavior is of greatest interest to me. The relative contributions of nature and nurture, of nucleotide and nuclear family, are perpetually fascinating to me. John Medina nuclear-familiesdistancebehavior Babies learn through a series of increasingly self-corrected ideas. They use very sophisticated hypothesis testing strategies to find out about their world. John Medina selfbabyideas Human learning is a very aggressive style in its native state. I am not sure why, though it is a very useful trait in an unstable, unpredictable living environment. John Medina environmentstylestates If managers knew how deeply their behaviors could affect brain function - whether they are piling up too much work on someone or yelling at them for "motivational purposes", they would quit doing it. John Medina yellingpurposebrain Any education system that only memorizes things creates robots and will never produce Nobel laureates. Any education system that only emphasizes improvisation will get a bunch of people who may think they are creative, but they are functionally illiterate. John Medina creativepeoplethinking The brain doesn't care about change. As the world's most sophisticated survival organ, the brain cares about loss. John Medina survivallossbrain Americans have been good at improvising for a long time, but in the last few decades, we have gotten very sloppy about the rote memorization of facts. That's a discipline issue. You need the rote skill in order to have something to improvise off of, otherwise you are simply playing air guitar. John Medina air-guitarskillsorder I have great confidence in human curiosity - even though I don't know what curiosity is from a biological point of view. One of its characteristics has got to be the willingness to explore. John Medina characteristicscuriosityviews If you are curious, you won't be satisfied with the "tyranny of custom." People stuck in that rut might say "why?" and the first thing an exploratory person would say is "why not?" John Medina why-notmightpeople A factory worker at an assembly line, who can learn their job in 5 minutes, can get bored fairly easily, and disengage completely. John Medina boredlinesjobs
