More on visualizing: when you make your own internal pictures, it helps you understand something better, which in turn helps you remember it better.
Here’s some advice from Robyn Shields's website about teaching kids to read. “Begin the lesson by explaining to the class the importance of constructing images while reading. Say: ‘When we draw pictures in our heads about what we read, we are more likely to remember what we read and understand it better.’”
Visual representation is one reason I prefer an analog watch to a digital watch. With an analog watch, I have the immediate image of 
time’s movement represented by the ever-moving second hand. Plus there are cultural images of clock hands sweeping around, or crawling slowly around that are quite evocative.
time’s movement represented by the ever-moving second hand. Plus there are cultural images of clock hands sweeping around, or crawling slowly around that are quite evocative. Perception has always been an intriguing topic to me. One of my favorite books is Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees, about the artist Robert Irwin. His aim is “to make you a little more aware than you were the day before of how beautiful the world is.”
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Lawrence Weschler's Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees is a splendid act of art writing, one of the finest examples of journalism I've read. It is "a life" of Robert Irwin, the artist (What does that mean, "a life"? Is that different from "a biography"?). Robert Irwin led a difficult career to capture, since he prohibited photographs during most of it, photographs can scarcely capture his mostly-white objects, and for about half of his career he didn't make discrete objects at all but only altered the character of given spaces. But Weschler makes it all pellucid with his clear writing and close research.
Posted by: Decorator | October 25, 2006 2:10 AM | Permalink to Comment