Hidden Brain - How Our Brains Learn

Have you ever fallen asleep in school or during a work meeting? Maybe you felt your eyes glaze over as your boss or a teacher droned on and on about a topic that had no relevance to you. What's missing from these classrooms and conference rooms is engagement: A state of being absorbed, alert, and eager to learn. This week, psychologist and neuroscientist Mary Helen Immordino-Yang explores why so many of us feel apathetic at school and at work, and how to cultivate the magic of engagement.

Duration: 1h 29m
Broadcast on: 18 Aug 2025
Audio Format: other

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This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. There's a scene in the 1986 movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off that has become iconic. It's a spot-on portrayal of what it feels like to be disengaged and disaffected. In the film, actor Ben Stein plays an economics teacher who is not about to win any teaching awards. He speaks in a deathly monotone. In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in an effort to alleviate the effects of the anyone, anyone, the Great Depression, past the anyone, anyone, a tariff bill. The students in the classroom are suffering from a boredom that verges on the catatonic. On and on the teacher goes, asking for responses, but barely expecting any, and indeed no one ventures a word. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer curve. Anyone know what this says? It says... There is no spark of interest or curiosity. The movie goer can hardly blame Ferris for skipping out on school to spend a day of fun with his friends. For many of us, there is a reason the scene may be resonant. Our own time in school might have resembled this. Students currently enrolled may experience a shiver of recognition. It's not just in educational settings. Have you ever attended a meeting where leaders of your organization drone on about some new initiative or corporate mumbo jumbo? As your eyelids grow heavy with sleep, you fear your head is going to fall through your interlaced fingers and crash onto the conference table. What is missing from these classrooms and conference rooms is engagement, a state of being absorbed and alert where you are eager to learn and know more. This week on Hidden Brain, why so many of us feel apathetic at school and at work and how to cultivate the magic of engagement.

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