The Uses of Absurdity

photo credit: Dr Case

A recent New York Times article details a study at the University of California, Santa Barbara, that suggests unique approaches to stimulating critical thinking in the classroom.  Researchers have observed that when the brain is confronted with “absurdity” (that is, problems and patterns outside the bounds of normal, predictable experience), it struggles to make the new information “fit” within an understandable framework.  This process, they argue, helps develop the brain’s capacity for creative problem-solving:

…Dr. [Travis] Proulx and Steven J. Heine, a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, argue that these findings are variations on the same process: maintaining meaning, or coherence. The brain evolved to predict, and it does so by identifying patterns.

When those patterns break down — as when a hiker stumbles across an easy chair sitting deep in the woods, as if dropped from the sky — the brain gropes for something, anything that makes sense. It may retreat to a familiar ritual, like checking equipment. But it may also turn its attention outward, the researchers argue, and notice, say, a pattern in animal tracks that was previously hidden. The urge to find a coherent pattern makes it more likely that the brain will find one.

While the researchers say that it is too early to draw concrete conclusions from this theory, I’m wondering what role absurdity, or the shaking up of students’ expectations, can play in the college classroom.  As the article suggests, it may be a little too absurd to begin screening David Lynch shorts as a regular feature of your pedagogy; however, there are certainly ways to try the concept out without losing your class to utter confusion.

One idea for developing this notion might be a “puzzle”-type exercise in which students are asked to effectively figure their way out of a particularly tricky, and curriculum-driven, set of problems.  Since I teach American history, I’m thinking about role-playing exercises in which students take on the mindset of a historical character and navigate a specific (unexpected) problem in that person’s life.  The exercise would, ideally, seek to develop the “problem-solving” aspects of the brain as detailed in the article, without veering too far off course.  I wonder, though, what other ideas are out there?

How can we effectively guide students through an absurd text or problem without dictating the solution? What kinds of exercises might “confuse” students in a good way, challenging their perceptions and helping them see alternative modes of thinking?