Attending a professional conference with colleagues has always struck me as a highly productive and mind-expanding experience—a learning experience that produces positive and long-lasting results far beyond anything I would have expected. And returning from the American Library Association (ALA) 2011 Annual Conference in New Orleans last week, then diving into Norman Doidge’s book The Brain That Changes Itself, may have finally helped me understand the physiology behind that feeling.
Doidge, in exploring the physiological plasticity of brains—the brain’s ability to rewire itself in response to new situations and challenges—documents how much we do to strengthen our brains when we “engage in tasks in which we must focus our attention as closely as we did when we were younger, trying to learn a new vocabulary or master new skills…That’s why learning a new language in old age is so good for improving the maintain the memory generally. Because it requires intense focus, studying a new language turns on the control system for plasticity and keeps it in good shape for laying down sharp memories of all kinds.”
Any of us who have traveled to places where our native tongue is not spoken can attest to the sense of revitalization that comes from immersion in those unfamiliar settings. It’s as if we are, once again, children, with that child’s sense of wonder and curiosity that so often leads to intellectual growth and creative endeavors. Which is exactly what happens for those of us lucky enough to even temporarily be in an unfamiliar setting like New Orleans, or Chicago, or Washington, DC, or any of the other conference sites in which I’ve been immersed over the past few years.
There is that palpable sense of excitement and stimulation that comes from having to be much more aware of everything around us—temporarily learning a new public transit system, quickly learning the layout of some of the immense conference centers we have to learn to navigate in extremely short periods of time, even something as simple as figuring out where we can find a comfortable place to dine and have conversations with our colleagues. It reawakens the sense of plasticity that comes from something as complex as learning a new language or something as simple as finding our way around in unfamiliar settings. And if we spend a little time afterward reflecting on what we have encountered and acquired—particularly by writing about it—we seem to increase the possibility of rewiring our brains in ways that produce changes no classroom or online learning experience can possibly hope to match.
It’s not as if there’s any one thing to which we can point to document this process. My own experiences in New Orleans were tremendously varied, stimulating, and rewarding. The chance encounter with a colleague over lunch that turned into a two-hour exchange of ideas about marketing and training in a way that left us both eager to build upon the thoughts that lovely conversation produced. The opportunity to help orient and work with conference volunteers and paid staff who were providing information to their 20,000 colleagues who were attending the conference. The spur of the moment opportunity to turn a routine book-signing into a memorable event for all involved. The inspiration provided by hearing colleagues discuss how they were matching technology with library users in innovative ways to produce notable results. The chance to explore something as dynamic as social learning centers through a joint presentation with a couple of cherished colleagues and a receptive and enthusiastic audience under the auspices of the ALA Learning Round Table. And the ongoing stimulation provided by reading, absorbing, and reacting to reports that came to my attention while I was onsite in New Orleans and continuing to reflect on the experience a week after returning home.
It doesn’t take a brain scan or a careful reading of Doidge’s book to provide an understanding of the value of seeing and treating conferences and all that they produce as part of our essential ongoing learning process. As Doidge says toward the end of The Brain That Changes, the brain needs oxygen…and stimulation…and exercise. And full engagement in continual learning certainly goes a long way in filling those needs.
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