I've been undergoing contract-renewal review, including some pretty intense scrutiny and criticism of studio-based teaching. Much of the criticism swirled around the fact that I often have music playing in the studio while we're working. I responded to this criticism initially with research on studio-based teachers which found that, without exception, such teachers took on a "DJ" role as part of their work. The interesting part was that this selecting of music was not found to be random or willy-nilly in the least. Rather it was a carefully considered part of the environment, done with sensitivity and intentionality. In some ways, this seems to me to support the notion that emotional indicators are much more important in teaching than is usually recognized. I see things like music as contributing to the affective domain or side of the classroom, and I think we are just in the beginning phases of getting some good research on the importance of affect and its role in how the brain works.
Anyway, re: the criticism of my playing of music was pointed towards the idea that it would be distracting to the students. First of all I do ask folks to let me know if if is giving them problems. Second of all it's likely a stretch to think that young people will be distracted by it. Third of all I am not even asking students to read or pay attention to a lecture while they are in class. They are working on media projects. They are doing studio-based and studio-type work while in class. I ask them to read on their own for homework. Whether they do this to music or not is up to them. I certainly can't control it.
But this flagging of music as distracting connects also to a more serious line of criticism now being broadly directed against the use of digital media. This is the line now being developed by folks like Nicholas Carr, and popularized in books including The Shallows. It's out there, and it's the latest in a line of critique that is, well, pretty shallow.
So I was glad to see a program on NPR reporting on a study done in France that took a different tack on the whole issue of multi-tasking and distraction. In my view, as is the case with much science, it provides a start at interjecting common sense into this debate.
The researchers found the brain actually is set up much like a parallel processor, with what the author calls "two frontal lobes" which I assume means two distinct sides, since most pictures and verbal descriptions refer to the frontal lobe as a singular structure. Anyway, according to the researchers the brain has two frontal lobes (or one frontal lobe with two distinct sides), which makes it possible for humans to pursue up to two things at once by assigning a different task to each lobe or side. Subject to interpretation is whether or not this is a good thing.
My general approach is to stay with the descriptive part of the science. The study, in my interpretation, just seem to say that the brain has two lobes or sides that in fact work together --either separately or 'in parallel', or as a team or 'serially'-- in carrying out the complex work of the brain. This would seem to be the news the scientific study put out there for interpretation.
Two lobes are better than one, it would seem, based on the French study: the dual structure of the brain enables it to assign resources selectively and proportionally to working on one or two tasks at a time. Presumably, if a given task, goal, or situation is perceived by the brain as having an extremely high reward associated with it, it allocates a preponderance of its resources --drawing on the available resources of both of its frontal lobes, even-- to that task. Conversely, if a situation is perceived by the brain as having two complementary goals, perhaps with complementary/synergistic and mutually inclusive high rewards (i.e., one affect-oriented goal and one cognitive-oriented goal), then it works on both tasks and goals at once, and should.
If the brain had only one frontal lobe, or a one-sided one, it would presumably have to process everything serially, one single task after another single task, or first an affect-oriented goal, then a cognitive-oriented goal, and so forth. The result would be a less complex brain, a less efficient brain, and ultimately, I guess, a brain that would be different from a human brain.
Along this line of interpretation, education structured around the exclusive use of serial-processing might be thought of as inhumane (arguably the Puritans tried this), as might education structured around exclusive parallel-processing (the possible tyranny of the open classroom comes to mind in this regard). It would seem to me that 'brain based education' would involve learning how to apply and/or blend parallel and serial processing, just as flexibly and intelligently as the brain itself seems to do. Humans seem to be learning all the time, sometimes one thing at a time, sometimes two things at a time. So, some activities or courses might appropriately feature serial processing, other activities might appropriately feature parallel processing.
However, the study reports, the brain is simply overloaded by three tasks or three goals at once, because it only has two frontal lobes (or two sides to its one frontal lobe) to work with. In many instances the brain does well to divide its resources to make progress on two goals at once; in other instances the brain does well to combine its resources to focus on one task. Not an either-or, in other words, in my interpretation.
My hope would be the more research along the lines of the French study will be done. It seems to me that it's very rare that the human brain is doing only one thing at a time. In the laboratory setting described in the study, a second task was "introduced" to subjects. But outside of the laboratory, it seems likely to me that much of the time the brain is doing two things, and the article I think suggests that's usually fine, and self-regulated by the brain itself. I do think we need to be more complex and nuanced in discussing things like multi-tasking and distraction. What if multi-tasking and distractability turn out to be adaptive and important? I think it's more a matter of finding a balance between doing one thing at a time, and doing two.
In the DMA course I think I put into effect a good balance. I combine activities of singular focus with activities of dual focus, and I think I do a good job of creating a good mix for learning.
