The Big Fresh March 1, 2014 Sensing Spring

The calendar turns to March, and everyone longs for spring. Here in Maine, we expect to be buried in snow for at least another month. But the mind is powerful, and one thing more than almost anything else can instantly trick it into believing sunny days and fresh flowers abound.

That thing is a scent. Diane Ackerman says this about scent in A Natural History of the Senses:

Our cerebral hemispheres were originally buds from the olfactory stalks. We think because we smelled . . . Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines, hidden under the weedy mass of many years and experiences. Hit a tripwire of smell, and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth.

If the learning feels a little tired and stale in classrooms this time of year, could it possibly be that the scents surrounding kids and teachers are part of the problem? After months of being closed in and surviving the flu season, it’s likely time for a scent reset. Lewis Thomas explains the connections between smells and memories:

The act of smelling something, anything, is remarkably like the act of thinking. Immediately at the moment of perception, you can feel the mind going to work, sending the odor around from place to place, setting off complex repertories through the brain, polling one center after another for signs of recognition, for old memories and old connections.

What memories do you want to conjure up in your school today? Linens fluttering on a clothesline outdoors, cinnamon in hot cider, coconut oil on a tropical beach?  Spring may be a few weeks away (or more) from appearing outside your classroom windows, but bringing the freshness of spring inside is just a plug-in away.