ES: One of my favorite concepts from neuroscience is that the brain is "a work" that we both produce and embody over a lifetime. How do you define "mind building art" in your work?
DW: To me, a "mind building art" is an art whose goal is not performance or production, but strengthening the brain. While all arts inherently do this, the effect is usually limited to the specific set of skills that are necessary for producing the art. Practicing dance makes you better at dancing, practicing drawing makes you better at drawing, practicing debating makes you better at debating. Mind building, on the other hand, has no such allegiance to any specifics. It is the art of experimenting with combinations of physical and mental skills from a variety of disciplines. My favorite thing about it is that no one can own the idea - anyone can create mind building exercises, and everyone’s will be different. That’s why it’s art.
My approach to creating new exercises is similar to how scientists create new experiments: reduction and variation. Say I see someone performing a skill, like playing a song on the piano. I try to extract a simple version of it, perhaps playing two or three pleasant notes in sequence, over and over. Then I try to continue that in a steady rhythm while doing something else at the same time, like multiply 23 by 8 in my head. Note, I’m concerned neither with producing music, nor with getting the correct answer: I may achieve one, both, or neither. My goal is simply to stay with the process for a few minutes, i.e. to have faced this absurd challenge, regardless of the outcome. Now, if my mind is doing multiplication, and one hand is playing the piano notes, I might start throwing a ball up and down with the other hand, so I’m doing three things at once. Then I’d switch hands after a minute, so the left is on the piano and the right is throwing the ball. If I’m not near a piano, I might type on my computer instead, some 3-letter word with one hand, over and over. mopmopmopmopmopmopmopmoppmopmopmopp and...164? Correct? No? Let me try again. Can you feel my brain growing?
When I tell people about the exercises, sometimes they say, “Oh, that’s just like patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time,” while showing me with their hands. And yes, it is all the same principle, and a pretty deep one: performing disparate actions in an integrated way. It is a uniquely human ability, an ancient and futuristic art form, an inexpensive way to strengthen our brains.
The other key piece of “mind building art” is self-observation: sensing the edges of your current abilities, so you can find new combinations of physical and mental skills that lie just beyond the edges, in your growth zone. Sensitivity, especially to ourselves, accelerates growth.
DW: To me, a "mind building art" is an art whose goal is not performance or production, but strengthening the brain. While all arts inherently do this, the effect is usually limited to the specific set of skills that are necessary for producing the art. Practicing dance makes you better at dancing, practicing drawing makes you better at drawing, practicing debating makes you better at debating. Mind building, on the other hand, has no such allegiance to any specifics. It is the art of experimenting with combinations of physical and mental skills from a variety of disciplines. My favorite thing about it is that no one can own the idea - anyone can create mind building exercises, and everyone’s will be different. That’s why it’s art.
My approach to creating new exercises is similar to how scientists create new experiments: reduction and variation. Say I see someone performing a skill, like playing a song on the piano. I try to extract a simple version of it, perhaps playing two or three pleasant notes in sequence, over and over. Then I try to continue that in a steady rhythm while doing something else at the same time, like multiply 23 by 8 in my head. Note, I’m concerned neither with producing music, nor with getting the correct answer: I may achieve one, both, or neither. My goal is simply to stay with the process for a few minutes, i.e. to have faced this absurd challenge, regardless of the outcome. Now, if my mind is doing multiplication, and one hand is playing the piano notes, I might start throwing a ball up and down with the other hand, so I’m doing three things at once. Then I’d switch hands after a minute, so the left is on the piano and the right is throwing the ball. If I’m not near a piano, I might type on my computer instead, some 3-letter word with one hand, over and over. mopmopmopmopmopmopmopmoppmopmopmopp and...164? Correct? No? Let me try again. Can you feel my brain growing?
When I tell people about the exercises, sometimes they say, “Oh, that’s just like patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time,” while showing me with their hands. And yes, it is all the same principle, and a pretty deep one: performing disparate actions in an integrated way. It is a uniquely human ability, an ancient and futuristic art form, an inexpensive way to strengthen our brains.
The other key piece of “mind building art” is self-observation: sensing the edges of your current abilities, so you can find new combinations of physical and mental skills that lie just beyond the edges, in your growth zone. Sensitivity, especially to ourselves, accelerates growth.
ES: Could you describe one of your favorite mechanisms underlying the "Brain Body Mastery" that you teach?
DW: Meta-skills. Now, I’m not totally sure of the neuronal mechanisms involved, as I don’t think anyone is, but meta-skills are broad skills that make us better at learning more skills. Brain Body Mastery is my name for the endless quest to learn new physical and mental meta-skills.
Meta-skills are embedded in all skills. You might call them the second-order or acceleration components of skills. For example, learning any new skill requires going through the process of failing and failing and...failing and finally succeeding. The ability to tolerate and persevere through that painful process is a meta-skill that we can get better at, and it pays exponential dividends.
Another meta-skill is attention control, which is integral to most skills and more necessary as complexity goes up. In the example from above of playing the piano, doing math, and throwing a ball all at the same time, where exactly should my attention be? Perhaps mostly on the math, but how much is on the rhythm of the piano? How much is on the ball? Can I somehow combine my hand movements to make one bigger, integrated action rather than two separate ones? This is something each person would have to play around with to find the right balance for them to succeed. Playing around and adjusting attention levels to find the right balance? Meta-skill. Zooming out, taking in two or all three of the parts (ball, music, math) at once? Meta-skill.
Another meta-skill, which I mentioned above, is neutral self-observation. The more we can see ourselves as we actually are, rather than through the lens of self-judgment which contaminates our experiential data and biases our self-reflective theories, the faster we can learn anything. We don’t get stuck as much in should-land AKA frozen mind hell. When we can clearly see where we are, we can clearly see the next steps to take. And if we can’t see the next steps to take, then we have two options: 1) experiment and play, or 2) relax and observe.
DW: Meta-skills. Now, I’m not totally sure of the neuronal mechanisms involved, as I don’t think anyone is, but meta-skills are broad skills that make us better at learning more skills. Brain Body Mastery is my name for the endless quest to learn new physical and mental meta-skills.
Meta-skills are embedded in all skills. You might call them the second-order or acceleration components of skills. For example, learning any new skill requires going through the process of failing and failing and...failing and finally succeeding. The ability to tolerate and persevere through that painful process is a meta-skill that we can get better at, and it pays exponential dividends.
Another meta-skill is attention control, which is integral to most skills and more necessary as complexity goes up. In the example from above of playing the piano, doing math, and throwing a ball all at the same time, where exactly should my attention be? Perhaps mostly on the math, but how much is on the rhythm of the piano? How much is on the ball? Can I somehow combine my hand movements to make one bigger, integrated action rather than two separate ones? This is something each person would have to play around with to find the right balance for them to succeed. Playing around and adjusting attention levels to find the right balance? Meta-skill. Zooming out, taking in two or all three of the parts (ball, music, math) at once? Meta-skill.
Another meta-skill, which I mentioned above, is neutral self-observation. The more we can see ourselves as we actually are, rather than through the lens of self-judgment which contaminates our experiential data and biases our self-reflective theories, the faster we can learn anything. We don’t get stuck as much in should-land AKA frozen mind hell. When we can clearly see where we are, we can clearly see the next steps to take. And if we can’t see the next steps to take, then we have two options: 1) experiment and play, or 2) relax and observe.
ES: What got you interested in alternative pedagogical approaches to Math?
DW: I have been a math tutor and teacher for five years, and in that time, one main thing I’ve learned is that most people hate it. After wondering for a couple of years why this should be, I realized that we’re looking at math (and teaching it) all wrong. We see math as this mythical thing that people are meant to “understand,” and some of us are better at it than others. This creates the whole divide between “math people” and “not-math people.”
Rather than math being the primary entity, and we’re the ones trying to elevate ourselves to its beauty, we should focus on the brain as the primary entity. Math as an academic subject is essentially a tool for brain growth, similar to weights for muscle growth. Some people find it exciting, others not so much. There’s this huge anxiety in teachers around answering the question of “Why are we learning this? When are we ever going to use it?”
My answer, for most of the math we teach in high school is, “Likely never.” But “using it” is not the point. The point is that the process of practicing math changes the brain, and the more complex the math gets, the more your brain changes from practicing it.
It’s like poetry. Some people love it, some people are bored by it. Why study it? Because you think it’s beautiful. But should you study it even if you don’t think it’s beautiful? Yes, because it’s a growth opportunity. It changes how your mind interacts with language. It forces you into new thought processes you wouldn’t have had without it, and it influences how your mind sees everything else in the world. Notice that the emphasis here is not on poetry itself, but on the learner’s mind. Of course, the reason why it is hard to sell this idea to students is that we're over-grading them and pretending that it represents how well they will be able to function as adults in the real world.
DW: I have been a math tutor and teacher for five years, and in that time, one main thing I’ve learned is that most people hate it. After wondering for a couple of years why this should be, I realized that we’re looking at math (and teaching it) all wrong. We see math as this mythical thing that people are meant to “understand,” and some of us are better at it than others. This creates the whole divide between “math people” and “not-math people.”
Rather than math being the primary entity, and we’re the ones trying to elevate ourselves to its beauty, we should focus on the brain as the primary entity. Math as an academic subject is essentially a tool for brain growth, similar to weights for muscle growth. Some people find it exciting, others not so much. There’s this huge anxiety in teachers around answering the question of “Why are we learning this? When are we ever going to use it?”
My answer, for most of the math we teach in high school is, “Likely never.” But “using it” is not the point. The point is that the process of practicing math changes the brain, and the more complex the math gets, the more your brain changes from practicing it.
It’s like poetry. Some people love it, some people are bored by it. Why study it? Because you think it’s beautiful. But should you study it even if you don’t think it’s beautiful? Yes, because it’s a growth opportunity. It changes how your mind interacts with language. It forces you into new thought processes you wouldn’t have had without it, and it influences how your mind sees everything else in the world. Notice that the emphasis here is not on poetry itself, but on the learner’s mind. Of course, the reason why it is hard to sell this idea to students is that we're over-grading them and pretending that it represents how well they will be able to function as adults in the real world.
This gets to the truth of all challenges, which is: we can either see them as measurements of our current ability level or growth opportunities for our future ability levels. Many people are stuck thinking that performance now is a good predictor of performance in the future, when in fact it has been shown by many psychological researchers not to be. But what we can predict is the increase in the ability level of anyone who struggles through a challenge without giving up, regardless of the immediate result.
David teaches, researches, and coaches Brain-Body Mastery in Brooklyn, NY.
Learn more about his innovative work at www.effortwise.com and contact him at effortwise@gmail.com.
Learn more about his innovative work at www.effortwise.com and contact him at effortwise@gmail.com.