The Experimenting Mind
Analogical Experiences
Analogical Experiences (EA) is a mode of teaching. Of understanding via an analogous experience. In this mode, one thinks of a principle, the basic idea which one wishes to teach. Next, devise a kind of an experiment, either a classical science-based experiment or a psychological experiment that demonstrates elegantly the core idea in an analogous way. After performing the experiment, you ask: what is the connection to the specifies subject/idea that you are about to teach? Students may infer the connection and then their understanding may prove deeper and the lesson may gain some joy. It's an experiential understanding. The same way goes with meditation, perhaps one may find a way with an analogy to trigger an experience in the mind and try and connect it to ideas like Metta or Karuna.
Example I: Say one wishes to teach about apparent conditioning in the brain: Put a drop of water on the top of your palm and let it find its way down. Then, repeat this experiment with another drop. Many times, the water will follow the pathway which the first drop made. in somewhat the same manner, parental conditioning works in the brain.
Example II: Say one wishes to teach that the source of most acquired mutations comes from fast duplication of DNA strands within cells. The lesson starts by asking students to write as fast as they can and SMS to the teacher the words: molecular biology. After the students finish texting as fast as they can to the teacher, she looks up at her phone and may find messages stating molalla biology, molecula bologi or some other misspelled words. Now, the teacher may show these misspelled messages to the students and ask why did it happen? they conclude that due to the fast pace of writing errors on spelling occurred. Next, the teacher may ask if the students have any idea what’s the lesson about? And afterwards: what do they think may be the connection to mutations? Finally, the teacher can describe that most acquired mutations in DNA comes from fast duplication which involves errors