Food for Thought

While en route to the gym yesterday (had an absolutely disastrous run on Wednesday, so I opted to finish what I didn't get to run yesterday), I caught an interesting piece on NPR about concentration, focus and doodling. Long story short: If you doodle, you're more likely to recall information that was given while you were doodling than if you allow yourself to completely space out during that time.

I'm not a doodler. I haven't an artistic bone in my body. Plus if I have a writing utensil and paper in hand, I'm more likely to start jotting down story ideas or, worse yet, lists for Wally World, HEB or crap I need to do around the house. I'll admit I tend to do more of the latter than the former because, hey, gotta make that "I'm not paying any attention to the idiot yammering on during this meeting" time productive!

I find this story kind of fascinating for a more pertinent reason: On Monday, the boy got in trouble at school for writing (with a pencil) on the carpet during group time. The boy gets in trouble frequently during group time because, quite frankly, I think he's bored. I'd be bored too if I had to sit with my classmates and go through a ritual of counting the number of days of school thus far, tallying up those days on a chart, charting classmates' birthdays and a bunch of other inane tasks that involve turning these 5- and 6-year-old kids into Excel lovers. I think on Monday the boy was doing what the brain wants to do to stay somewhat alert--doodle.

Man, my kid's doomed. His education is going to kill him.