In this episode, podcaster Tracy Crow, an author, writing coach, and Marine Corps veteran, shares a personal teaching experience that reveals how the study of creative arts can sharpen one's critical thinking skills. Drawing from her academic experience, Tracy takes us through an icebreaker exercise she used often for a college course on persuasive writing with freshmen and even with her adult classes who included mostly active-duty military from the intelligence field. What we discover is how the outcomes with her traditional freshmen classes of 18 and 19-year olds significantly differed from those of her adult classes with a median age of 35. "How was this possible?" she asks. Tracy insists that this is not an indictment of military intelligence officers, because several of her closest friends are retired military intelligence officers and "...are brilliant, and would have easily aced this exercise." But, as Tracy ponders, this was also no anomaly. Each time she used this exercise with her adult classes, she witnessed the same results. So, she wonders, what does this mean? Could it be that as we age, she asks, we're so bombarded with distractions and stressors that we fall into "ruts of thinking and patterns about how we view, or should view, the world?" Are we sheep being led to slaughter, or are we living fully engaged -- awake to various messaging techniques of manipulation? Are we so deep in the ruts of patterned thinking, she muses, that "we can only see what's happening inside the ruts"? What are YOUR interpretations! And remember, Tracy reminds us, "interpretation is not fact."
EP #34: Navy veteran, author shares excerpts from new novel, No Salvation
EP #33: Who's fired up for (stained) glass?
EP #32: How to inspire creativity at the 9-to-5!
EP #31: Fear of gardening? What could possibly go wrong?
EP #30: Part 2 -- "Train's Comin'"! Military wife reads excerpt from PTSD memoir
EP #29: Part 1 -- Military wife uses writing as a pathway through PTSD
EP #28: Portrait artist redefines self-expression through abstract painting
EP #27: A celebration of poets and their poetry -- part 2!
EP #26: DISCLAIMER -- These poems may change you!
EP #25: Pulling paintings out of the fire -- nurse practioner finds meaning in the journey
EP #24: Part 1 -- Pediatric psychiatric nurse practioner blends science and art to refill her well
EP #23: Part 2 -- Novelist, Navy vet Jeffery Hess discusses value of writing workshops, personal process
EP #22: Part 1 -- Novelist, Navy vet crafts newest book from historic events
EP #21: Part 2: Discovering stillness, gifts through life-changing Vision Quest
EP #20: Part 1-- No phone, food, or shelter...she's answering the call for a Vision Quest in the NC wilderness
EPISODE 19: Part 2 -- How viewing life through the lens of a storyteller reveals truths & the true Self
EPISODE 18: Part 1-- Going viral...writer discovers surprising gifts amid storm of negativity
EPISODE 17: Part 2 -- Army veteran reads excerpt of compelling PTSD memoir
EPISODE 16: Part 1 -- Writing journey transforms Army vet from PTSD agoraphobia to "new normal-BIG life"
EPISODE 15: After trauma, she's sewing, quilting a new life -- "one stitch at a time"
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