Brain Rules

A rather interesting book was released last week by Pear Press entitled Brain Rules. It was written by the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University, John J. Medina, and he writes in the introduction:

If you wanted to create an education environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a classroom. If you wanted to create a business environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a cubicle. And if you wanted to change things, you might have to tear down both and start over.

And while this book doesn't actually give you the tools to tear down the whole system (and what would those be anyway?) it does lay out the basic principles of how the brain really works and gives us some tips that can help us start working more efficiently and holistically. The book also comes with a DVD, and you can find samples from that and a trove of other information on this great site devoted to the book.