"When I was an undergraduate, the college library was more important to my education than anything except for my relationships with professors.
"I was discovering how much there was to learn beyond the received knowledge of textbooks and the banalities of popular culture, . . . that there was a continuing conversation on almost any subject that I could listen in on through books and . . . journals."
Thomas H. Benton*, Chronicle of Higher Education online edition, August 7, 2009. *Pen name of William Pannapacker, Associate Professor of English, Hope College Read the entire article: A Laboratory for Collaborative Learning
Scholars at a Lecture, by William Hogarth
From NGA Images
Why Do Our Best Ideas Come To Us In the Shower? From Mental Floss, based on research!
"Research shows you’re more likely to have a creative epiphany when you’re doing something monotonous, like fishing, exercising, or showering. Since these routines don’t require much thought, you flip to autopilot. This frees up your unconscious to work on something else. Your mind goes wandering, leaving your brain to quietly play a no-holds-barred game of free association.
"This kind of daydreaming relaxes the prefrontal cortex—the brain’s command center for decisions, goals, and behavior. It also switches on the rest of your brain’s “default mode network” (DMN) clearing the pathways that connect different regions of your noggin. With your cortex loosened up and your DMN switched on, you can make new, creative connections that your conscious mind would have dismissed.
"That’s why the ideas you have in the shower are so different from the ideas you have at work—you’re a pinch more close-minded at the office. Thinking hard about a problem deactivates your default network. It boosts your prefrontal cortex’s control. This isn’t a bad thing—it tightens your focus and gives you the power to stop gawking at cat pictures and hit that deadline. But it can also dig you into a creative rut. Because when you’re deeply focused on a task, your brain is more likely to censor unconventional—and creative—solutions.
"Strange as it sounds, your brain is not most active when you’re focused on a task. Rather, research shows it’s more active when you let go of the leash and allow it to wander. Shelley Carson at Harvard found that highly creative people share one amazing trait—they’re easily distracted. And that’s the beauty of a warm shower. It distracts you. It makes you defocus. It lets your brain roam. It activates your DMN and encourages wacky ideas to bounce around. So when the lather rinses off, your light bulb switches on."
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