FBI and NYPD Officers Sent On Museum Field Trip 70
In an attempt to "refresh their sense of inquiry" FBI agents, and NYPD officers are being sent to a course at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Art of Perception hopes to improve an officers' ability to accurately describe what they see during an investigation by studying art. From the article: "Amy Herman, the course leader, said: 'We're getting them off the streets and out of the precincts, and it refreshes their sense of inquiry. They're thinking, "Oh, how am I doing my job," and it forces them to think about how they communicate, and how they see the world around them.' Ms Herman, an art historian, originally developed the course for medical students, but successfully pitched it as a training course to the New York Police Academy."
Re:Meditation (Score:3, Interesting)
I generally agree with all the points you made. But something stuck out to me:
I have to ask: why is Go superior to Chess? Easier to pick up? More possible permutations? It was created in China as opposed to Chess which is a Western game?
I don't see how any of these reasons make Go inherently superior to Chess. Hell, even Checkers is a pretty damn good game and there are a million other good ones out there.
If you prefer Go, that's great, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's better than anything else.
Re:Meditation (Score:3, Interesting)
I have to ask: why is Go superior to Chess?
You get more meditative observation of symmetry and pattern matching out of the simple rules of Go, than the relatively much more complicated rules of Chess.
Go is more about the patterns of pieces whereas Chess is more about the interactions between the different rulesets for pieces.
The board for checkers is way too small to develop exciting patterns to watch.
Re:Meditation (Score:3, Interesting)
Excellent idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Observation is a learned skill, and anything that makes police better observers is great in my book.
I train my fellow officers in some simple observation exercises. My favorite takes place during meal breaks.
When sitting down at a restaurant, I instruct them to maintain eye contact with me, but describe every article of clothing the person at the table next to us is wearing. By forcing them to use their peripheral vision to gather details, they slowly learn to better use their unfocused vision and not get easily distracted. It's also a lot of fun.
For the less-than-willing male officers, I tell them it means they can check out women without actually looking at them...
Probably even more effective... (Score:3, Interesting)
Would be teaching them to DRAW.
Which is also about learning to see.