• An article about the cognitive benefits of juggling.
“Juggling can induce neuroplasticity in the brain, resulting in structural changes and adaptations. It can act as a simple calibration system.”
“It’s essential to be ‘right on that edge where it’s not quite comfortable.’”
“Grappling with an unruly instrument and the infinite subjectivity of music is extremely hard work. This makes students susceptible to would-be gurus who purport to have all the answers and opens them up to several forms of mistreatment.”
• An essay on what is lost when we stop writing.
“Research shows that traditional, unassisted composition is valuable, not despite its difficulty, but because of it. Writing builds our working memory, executive planning skills and metacognition — the ability to think about our thinking, weigh alternate viewpoints and revise for clarity and style. It takes decades to develop writing skills, from toddlerhood into adulthood.”
“Writing is a technology for thinking.”
• An essay on tacit knowledge and “magic hands” in science research.
“Success can be just as mysterious as failure. Some researchers consistently get experiments to work, earning befuddled admiration from colleagues. Scientists even have a special term for this gift: magic hands.”
“The idea may come as a surprise to people who don’t spend their lives in labs. Science is not supposed to be magic.”
“When scientists carry out experiments, they keep careful records, both in lab notebooks and later in published scientific papers. Other researchers use that information to repeat the experiment.”
“But every scientist discovers sooner or later that essential knowledge is not necessarily written down.”
“The really good people sometimes don’t know why they’re that good. They don’t remember the 20 times they did something another way and it failed. They’ve blocked all that sadness out.”
(Harry Collins’ book on tacit knowledge. And speaking of tacit knowledge, you may be interested in my recent book.)
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