Review of Cathy Davidson's new book Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn:
In what is perhaps the strongest section of this book, Davidson argues that what we’ve come to think of as being the “natural” structure for our schools— specialization in discrete subject areas, one-size-fits all standardized testing, and rigid hierarchies based on official expertise—is anything but natural. That approach was put into place to prepare students to enter the industrialized 20th century economy, where division of labor, efficiency, and clear-cut structures were most important. Now, though, many of those jobs no longer exist—or if they do, they’re in Bangalore or Beijing. Yet American schools continue to reinforce 20th-century values that prepare children for a 20th-century work force—and fail to prepare them for the one they’re actually entering.
And that’s true for the workplace as well. We’ve been trained to assume that working hard means focusing on a single task to completion, then doing it again. But, says Davidson, “the new workplace requires different forms of attention than the workplace we were trained for.”
The result is that we feel anxious and guilty, convinced we’re not getting enough done, not achieving an honest day’s work, failing to live up to the iconic model of our hard-working, brick-and-mortar grandparents. As Davidson puts it, “We’ve inherited a sense of efficiency modeled on attention that is never pulled off track. ”
In what is perhaps the strongest section of this book, Davidson argues that what we’ve come to think of as being the “natural” structure for our schools— specialization in discrete subject areas, one-size-fits all standardized testing, and rigid hierarchies based on official expertise—is anything but natural. That approach was put into place to prepare students to enter the industrialized 20th century economy, where division of labor, efficiency, and clear-cut structures were most important. Now, though, many of those jobs no longer exist—or if they do, they’re in Bangalore or Beijing. Yet American schools continue to reinforce 20th-century values that prepare children for a 20th-century work force—and fail to prepare them for the one they’re actually entering.
And that’s true for the workplace as well. We’ve been trained to assume that working hard means focusing on a single task to completion, then doing it again. But, says Davidson, “the new workplace requires different forms of attention than the workplace we were trained for.”
The result is that we feel anxious and guilty, convinced we’re not getting enough done, not achieving an honest day’s work, failing to live up to the iconic model of our hard-working, brick-and-mortar grandparents. As Davidson puts it, “We’ve inherited a sense of efficiency modeled on attention that is never pulled off track. ”
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