[Xmca-l] Re: Call for papers on mind wandering and reading and writing

[Glassman, Michael]

David,

I agree completely with what you say.  The idea of the wandering mind is frowned upon in our educational-industrial complex.  Perhaps because they make a hash of the timed tests that have become such a large part of the educational mission.  We are pummeled with the need to focus over and over again.  But is focus itself a good thing, or even the natural way our mind works.  Or does it very often limit us in what we allow ourselves to think about.  I think you are right to bring up James and Dewey as well - I think much of what they have to say is a warning against focus, that human action is dispersed, non-linear, and often surprising, and so too should be human thinking.  We find the new roads and byways by wandering the world.  I think the Internet has made the need for focus less important, and even in many ways challenged assumptions about self-regulation and meta-cognition.  Why do we naturally keep so many windows open (come on be honest, how many do you have open right now) if focus were so important.  Why do we rush to our e-mail as soon as we hear a bing, or to Wikipedia the second an idea interests us.  Perhaps human thinking is a self-correcting process.

I don't know enough about mindfulness to say very much intelligent.  I seem to remember a few years ago speaking to some people who placed it closer to an almost Buddhist sense of self-awareness rather than a meta-cognitive self regulation.  Maybe I am remembering it wrong, or maybe the neo-liberal project has appropriated mindfulness just as they appropriate so many other things.

Michael
________________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] on behalf of David Preiss [daviddpreiss@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2014 11:46 AM
To: lchcmike@gmail.com; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Call for papers on mind wandering and reading and writing

I think the contrast is appropriate. But that does not mean that mindfulness is good and mind wandering bad. Indeed part of my interest in the topic is that the property to wander is one of the most attacked ones by contemporary schooling (e.g. the overdiagnosis of attention deficits). Certainly the academically focused mind is not the same than mindfulness but the impact is similar. I can't personally imagine a productive and generative life without the serendipity related to a wandering mind. It has also a link with the episodic nature of human memory.  And we can go back to James if we want to understand it better. The focus on schooling is relevant as we are educating the new generations without room to mind wander. Not only within school but also after school with the almost complete adult management of children's lives. That loss of freedom will haunt them

Enviado desde mi iPhone

El 30-01-2014, a las 0:56, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> escribió:

> David-- Mind wandering is the flip side of mindful meditation, right? There
> was an article, I believe in the NYTimes
> about the differential efficacy of mindful mediation on mental power that
> included a flip side of lack of creativity which mind wanderwind was
> supposed to take care of.
>
> Right?
>
> I believe this discussion bears an important relation to CHAT theory. But
> maybe I have the topic all wrong and its all in my, lets call it,
> imagination.
>
> mike
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 6:36 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
>> What a ....er fascinating topic .... um ... I was going to say ... er.
>> Interesting, David.
>> andy
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *Andy Blunden*
>> http://home.mira.net/~andy/
>>
>>
>>
>> David Preiss wrote:
>>
>>> Call for papers on mind wandering and reading and writing for a special
>>> section of Learning and Individual Differences
>>> The research on the impact of mind wandering on the learning process and
>>> education is mixed. Thus, some researchers have noted that mind wandering
>>> negatively impacts students' performance on school related abilities
>>> requiring high levels of concentration and metacognition, such as reading,
>>> attending lectures or, more specifically, performance on standardized
>>> measures of academic achievement. Yet, other researchers have noticed that
>>> mind wandering is a regular part of everyday normal functioning and have
>>> called attention to its positive impact on emotional processing, creativity
>>> and problem solving. Additionally, the research literature has reported
>>> that there are individual differences not only in people's tendency to
>>> engage in mind wandering but also in the content of this wandering. These
>>> differences have consequences for how adaptive mind wandering may be in
>>> everyday functioning and, specifically, within educational contexts. Here,
>>> we seek contributions that represent inno
>>> vative research on individual differences in mind wandering that: a)
>>> synthesize insights from multiple approaches and perspectives on individual
>>> differences in mind wandering; b) focus on the integration of research on
>>> mind wandering with research on school related cognitive abilities with
>>> special attention on those that are part and parcel of the core of the
>>> schooling process (reading, writing and mathematics); c) relate mind
>>> wandering with the development of abilities and processes that, although
>>> not specifically academic, play a relevant role in schooling and education
>>> such as creativity, divergent thinking, imagination, and problem solving,
>>> among others; d) and investigate the connection between mind wandering and
>>> school related performance at different stages of schooling, from
>>> elementary school through college. Special consideration will be given to
>>> articles that place mind wandering in the context of overall human
>>> development. Original research and review articles wil
>>> l be considered.  Submissions allow two formats: full-length articles
>>> (10,000 words) and short empirical reports or case studies (5,000 words);
>>> the page limits do not include the abstract, references, figures, or
>>> tables. Articles should reach the editorial office before June 30th 2014 to
>>> receive full consideration. When submitting articles, authors should
>>> indicate that their manuscript is intended for the special issue (mind
>>> wandering). Contact David Preiss (davidpreiss@uc.cl) if you have
>>> questions about the submission.
>>
>>
>>
>>