What we experience versus what we remember …. The two ‘Selfs’

I have Blogged often on reflection, but one aspect continually intrigued me … the relationship between the experiences we have, and the account or story we construct that explains the experience. This is a question about the ‘memory’ that we hold of the experience that then informs our choices and understanding of the world.

We ‘know’ that we have experiences, and we are pretty sure that we process and use those experiences to learn about the world. For example, early in our lives, we learn what is hot and therefore dangerous, and later, more sophisticated self-constructed understanding of more complex knowledge.

But how does experience relate to the memory we construct through the process of reflection?

Nobel laureate and founder of behavioural economics Daniel Kahneman tackles this question in The Riddle of Experience versus Memory.

Google Reader - using feeds to have content sent to you

Found something interesting you want to follow? For example a student Blog? Then use an Aggregator like Google Reader. If you Bookmark Google Reader, then you can simply click on it to open Google Reader and view all the sites you have told Google Reader you want to follow (called feeds). This can include Student Blogs but also any site that produces content that you are intersted in keeping up to date with (e.g. BBC news).

This is one of a good number of helpful video clips that will help you be effective in the use of this powerful tool:

Google Reader YouTube Clip

Not what is, but what else?

A dominant perspective on practice is that of the discipline. The discipline establishes the conventional ways in which particular practices operate. For example, the discipline of dance delineates both what dance practice ’is’ and ‘is not’. For example, dance is not Quantum Physics … 

.... or is it?

What if dance was accepted as many things? If you like a ‘non-disciplinary’ recognition of its power and value?

For me this idea opens up new opportunities for practitioners and the latent capabilities of any practice, not last, dance. The opportunities exist to reconsider ‘what is’ the immutable qualities of the discipline, and to explore ‘what else’ could the disciplinary qualities could be applied to; for learning, to foster understanding, to gain new insights and to do many other things.

Take a look at John Bohannon: Dance vs. PowerPoint, a modest proposal and let me know what you think.