printed booklet

Exciting day - I went to the print room on campus and picked up the first draft of the booklet that shares key messages drawn from the first phase of my teacherly thinking research!

There is something very special about seeing something that you have only seen on a small screen in front of you, finally printed on paper with pages that ACTUALLY turn in your hands.

A quick google search later (because I wonder about the wonder of this ALL the time, and don’t actually have any answers) and I came across the following idea:

“[Print reading] is kind of like meditation — focusing our attention on something still,” says Anne Mangen, a literacy professor at the University of Stavanger in Norway. “And it’s a whole different kind of immersion than responding to [digital] stimuli. I think it’s healthy for us as human beings to sit down with something that doesn’t move, ping, or call on our attention.”

(From a reference within BrainFacts.org: https://www.brainfacts.org/neuroscience-in-society/tech-and-the-brain/2020/reading-on-paper-versus-screens-whats-the-difference-072820) )

There is more - lots more - to learn about this, from a wide research base (moving beyond BrainFacts.org). I am keen to read more, and I am sure I will be drawn back to that one day.

But for now, I’m just going to sit down, with a cup of tea, and turn the pages of my art-research-book, wondering about the messages I have tried to share, and the stillness of mind needed to focus, respond … and enjoy.