Rewiring Brains

I heard a story about this great ballet dancer from the early 20th century. As a child, she wouldn't sit still and performed very poorly in school. Distraught and not knowing what to do, her mother took her to see a doctor. The doctor tried various remedies at the time, including just strapping her down in a chair, none of which worked. The mother took her to see another doctor and he recommended putting her in dance classes as a way to "get it out of her system". Well it turns out that dancing was just the medicine. Dancing was just what this young girl needed. She didn't know how to communicate before she began dance. And she turned out to be this incredible dancer.

I just read this story in NYTimes about technology rewiring the brains of young people and how it is creating a population of easily distracted kids. Nothing we haven't heard before.

The main subject of the story was a high school student who is known around his school as one of the brightest, yet his grades beg to differ. He's received Ds and Fs in most of his classes except for his film classes. Sure enough, this kid loves nothing more than to make and discuss videos with his friends. He uses Facebook and YouTube religiously. I'd assume that he wants to be a filmmaker or some kind of multimedia producer.

Now the story uses this kid as an example of someone obsessed and distracted by technology, which is hindering his learning. It also posits that the brains of children are being rewired by technology and that they will literally think differently when using technology. I've actually read literature about this regarding cell phone use and the research is fascinating and convincing.

But I don't honestly see a problem with this kid. I mean, his story sounds a lot like the ballet dancer. His brain is probably being rewired, but is that a bad thing? He's obviously got a lot of passion about filmmaking and passion usually makes people not care about anything else. But it also makes people really good at the things that they are passionate about. If I were an educator, I would cultivate that passion, instead of strapping him down and forcing him to read Cat's Cradle (although that is a fabulous book, which he should probably read).

Moreover, why are the brain patterns of adults better? With all the problems in the world, you'd think someone would want to rewire the human brain. I say, make films Vashal Singh!