Embodied Thinking
“Before painting a bamboo, you must make it grow inside of you…” (Root-Bernstein, 197).
This quote shows what I think about embodied thinking, specifically the important connection between body thinking and empathizing illustrated by the process of using the entire body to feel bamboo, experiencing what bamboo experiences, in order to comprehend it fully.
Within my topic of using sports to teach science and social studies, science is more easily and commonly associated with embodied thinking, so I chose to focus on social studies. My class has just started an economics unit, which has many natural connections to sports. The specific connection I chose is the economics of LeBron James’s contract signing with the Cleveland Cavaliers. One connection between third grade economics and LeBron is the concept of scarcity because LeBron’s rare talent makes him valuable. A second concept is human capital, because his basketball skills exemplify it, and a third is the difference between production of a team done by coaches and players and consumption of the game purchased by fans.
Thinking about how my students could experience this topic with their bodies, I remembered an embodied thinking activity I have seen before. As I read a story about LeBron deciding to sign his new contract to my students, I would ask them to act out specific words related to economic concepts in any way they thought showed the concept. This would help them learn the economics by giving them an ingrained bodily feeling to associate with each concept, almost like how a pianist can feel the notes on a sheet of music in their hands. Then, when we discuss the economics terms more, the students will have a reference point to think about how that concept felt to LeBron, the Cavaliers team, or their fans.
This body thinking my students would do is what I chose to display in my pictures. Each picture is meant to illustrate what students might come up with as ways to embody some of the keywords I would put in the story about LeBron’s economics.
This picture is a way my students might embody LeBron’s nickname, “The King.” By bowing down to someone else (or being bowed down to), the students will feel the value associated with LeBron’s nickname and the special status awarded to someone with such scarce talents.
This picture is a way my students might embody the key word “talent” in the story, by dribbling a basketball. This would help them understand human capital by experiencing the skill that LeBron sells to the Cavaliers.
This picture is a way my students might embody the world “salary,” referring to LeBron’s salary in the story. This embodiment would help them understand how his skills are sold to the team in exchange for money.
One thing this possible embodied thinking activity helped me realize about my topic is the importance of feeling emotions, both for economics and for student learning. In economics, I realized how crucial our deep desires and wants affect our participation in economic markets, as either fans (consumers) or players (employees). Also, for students learning about these topics, having an emotional connection expressed kinesthetically gives them a strong starting point.
One additional activity I would do with my students during this economics lesson would be an advanced version of the Marshmallow experiment designed to help them understand what LeBron’s decision actually means. In my classroom, for behavior management I have a clip system. Although my consistency with rewards would definitely influence their decision, I would give the students at the highest level (pink) a choice: 2 pieces of candy now and 2 pieces of candy later or 1 piece of candy now and 5 pieces of candy later if they are still on pink. This would be similar to LeBron’s choice between taking a larger deal now or, risking that he will still be the most talented player and stay healthy in 2 years, taking a smaller deal now and then getting an even bigger possible deal when the maximum salary increases in 2 years.
The videos below demonstrate examples of the "marshmallow experiment" and the economic concept of instant gratification.