An unexpected benefit of having Covid recently was having the time to finish reading a wonderful book called “Your Brain on Art – How the Arts Transform Us.” It really cheered me up and made me think about all the fun I’ve had over the years working with our team of professional actors and how transformation it has been, for our clients and for me and the team. Yes humour is a learning juggernaut!
It details all the ways that we benefit from participating in some form of creative expression. From the positive impact on our mental and physical health to amplifying learning and creating community. I was particularly interested in the impact of the arts on learning as its such a strong alignment to our forum theatre work but all the chapters contain real nuggets of insight and wisdom.
An important lesson in the book is that many of the benefits come from ‘doing art’, or in other words something as simple as picking up that pencil and drawing something. The benefit is not related to how good we are at drawing but the act of drawing itself. So its essential to refrain from criticizing our own efforts or those of others (especially children) but simply allow the act of drawing to make us feel better. How often, as adults, do we allow negative self-talk to talk us out of doing something because we are not as good at it as we want to be or feel we should be?
I was particularly pleased to see the importance that the authors placed on play and humour and their positive impact on learning. I love the phrase they use: ‘humour is a learning juggernaut’. It’s something we have witnessed many times during our forum theatre workshops. Humour and being playful can release tension, make connection, catch attention through surprise and open us up to thinking differently. And being open to thinking differently is crucial. Our forum theatre workshops are an invitation to managers to think differently about how they handle difficult conversations with their team members. Once someone is willing to try a different approach they have made the first step to achieving a different outcome.
As we know the best learning is not dull or tedious. It’s immersive, expressive and experiential. Oh and its a lot of fun too.
An unexpected benefit of having Covid recently was having the time to finish reading a wonderful book called “Your Brain on Art – How the Arts Transform Us.” It really cheered me up and made me think about all the fun I’ve had over the years working with our team of professional actors and how transformation it has been, for our clients and for me and the team. Yes humour is a learning juggernaut!
It details all the ways that we benefit from participating in some form of creative expression. From the positive impact on our mental and physical health to amplifying learning and creating community. I was particularly interested in the impact of the arts on learning as its such a strong alignment to our forum theatre work but all the chapters contain real nuggets of insight and wisdom.
An important lesson in the book is that many of the benefits come from ‘doing art’, or in other words something as simple as picking up that pencil and drawing something. The benefit is not related to how good we are at drawing but the act of drawing itself. So its essential to refrain from criticizing our own efforts or those of others (especially children) but simply allow the act of drawing to make us feel better. How often, as adults, do we allow negative self-talk to talk us out of doing something because we are not as good at it as we want to be or feel we should be?
I was particularly pleased to see the importance that the authors placed on play and humour and their positive impact on learning. I love the phrase they use: ‘humour is a learning juggernaut’. It’s something we have witnessed many times during our forum theatre workshops. Humour and being playful can release tension, make connection, catch attention through surprise and open us up to thinking differently. And being open to thinking differently is crucial. Our forum theatre workshops are an invitation to managers to think differently about how they handle difficult conversations with their team members. Once someone is willing to try a different approach they have made the first step to achieving a different outcome.
As we know the best learning is not dull or tedious. It’s immersive, expressive and experiential. Oh and its a lot of fun too.