A PERSONAL TRIBUTE TO BROTHER JOSEPH MCNALLY & BOB LEWIS: "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds..."

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."

The foregoing quotation is attributed to The First Lady of the United States (1933-1945) Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962).

For Dilip & me, it serves aptly as our personal tribute to two great minds, Brother Joseph McNally & Bob Lewis when they met at the former Mountbatten Campus (at Goodman Road) of the Lasalle College of the Arts around the very late nineties or early 21st century to discuss one of Bob's pet projects, 'The Museum of the Brain'.

[In the foregoing group snapshot: Immediately on Dilip's right was Bob Lewis, followed by Brother Joseph McNally. The guy in a white vest is yours truly. On my immediate left was my late wife Catherine. The remaining guy was a senior staff member of LASALLE.]

The late Brother Joe (1923-2002) came to Singapore in 1946 as a teacher with the De La Salle Order of Brothers.

In 1984, he set up a small arts education center, with his own personal funds, at a time when Singapore was not ready at all for the creative arts industry.

As an educator & an artist for most of his life, he saw his baby as a place to nurture creative excellence in painting, ceramics, sculpture & music.

The arts education center eventually became today's LASALLE College of the Arts.

Today, LASALLE College of the Arts stands proudly at its swanky new city campus on McNally Street.

More information about the LASALLE College of the Arts &/or Brother Joe can be found at this link.

The late Bob Lewis (1921-2005) hailed from Aspen, Colorado in the United States. He was a hands-on nature-based science teacher, program designer, environmental education innovator, landscape ecologist, international consultant on biology curricula, idea man & dreamer, all rolled into one.

One of his pet projects which didn't take off was a museum about the human brain, actually shaped like a structure of the human brain, that would illustrate its inner workings. He called it 'The Museum of the Brain'.

Dilip has illustrated several pictorial aspects of 'The Museum of the Brain' in his wonderful book, 'Surfing the Intellect'.

More information about Bob Lewis can be found at these two links:

- Aspen Times;

- Aspen Field Biology Laboratory (Bob Lewis was its founder);

I first met the colourful Bob Lewis in the nineties. Dilip met him later through Brother Joe. Details of my initial encounter with him can be found at my 'Optimum Performance Technologies' weblog.

Both Dilip & I had picked up some interesting & unique perspectives from these two gentlemen, especially in terms of creating a learning ecosystem (including learning safaris) as well as designing the proposed curriculum for the Brainaissance University, one of Dilip's newest pet projects.

Suffice to say, the foregoing group snapshot brings back sweet memories of our meeting with two great minds!

THE MUSEUM OF THE BRAIN: Dedicated to the Memory of Robert "Bob" Lewis

Humans often suffer from kainophobia, the fear of new things. Of course, this is a fear that most children do not experience. It is adults, be they policy makers, administrators, educators, who are beset by this fear. They prefer to stay quivering in their cocoons, or should I say, fossilised in their mausoleums.

We must move on from enclosing ourselves within bricks and mortar to liberating ourselves with brains and wits.

To this end, the time has come for humankind to become humane and kind. To ourselves, to our co-inhabitants of this planet. We have a primal need to address our spirituality. All of this comes from life, governed by the functions of the human brain.

Robert "Bob" Lewis, visionary extraordinaire, from Aspen, Colorado, is a dreamer of the highest order. His conception of a Museum of the Brain is shown on the following pages.

We worked together over several months, endeavouring to transform vision into reality. Our focus has been Singapore, a country with the ideal infrastructure and leadership to build such a Museum.

The structure and functions of the museum would be dynamic, as a constantly evolving medium where people can interact and learn about the brain and its extended functions.

Children and adults would see it as a stimulus to learning ~ when they see how the brain thinks, and where it all happens, they will be prompted to think about thinking. The result is enhanced awareness, and the emergence of creativity from the wellspring of the most phenomenal product on the planet ~ the human brain.

As we have often witnessed, schools teach us what to think. The Museum of the Brain can teach us how to think. The idea is that multitudes of children and adults will tour the Museum each year and learn a new appreciation of their wonderful brain, and how to cultivate it and protect it.

The Museum can be the core structure around which satellites are located. These could be

■ a centre for brain research (infants, adolescents, adults, the elderly)

■ a centre for research into the mind of humankind

■ a centre dedicated to the study of human behaviour

■ a centre for the preservation and growth of our precious ecosystem

All of this would be an enduring tribute to an unprecedented partnership between government and private industry.

The Museum of the Brain would be an enthralling and exciting project. Planning and building the Museum will take the combined skills of five disciplines: neuroscience, education and psychology, architecture, computer technology and finance.

Such a Museum is not designed to store mere artifacts of the past. It will be a ‘living museum’ that is updated in real time. Multimedia technology would be ideal for enhancing and expediting processes.

The evolution of the cerebral cortex provides what brain researcher Dr. Richard Restak describes as “the only example in existence where a species was provided with an organ that it still has not learned how to use.”

Visionary philosopher and mathematician J.G. Bennet has identified two distinctive attitudes towards change.

One is dominated by atavistic, repto-mammalian tendencies. The other, thankfully, by our evolving consciousness. He categorises these tendencies as psycho-static and psycho-kinetic respectively. The former views change as a threat; the latter, psycho-kinetic mind, sees change as a promise. What do YOU see?

Robert "Bob" Lewis and I did not team up for personal glory. If our names are not remembered, it matters not. What is of importance and value is that the children of today and tomorrow, and generations after that, have enhanced themselves. This can only happen if the present generation of adults does something worthwhile so that a tangible legacy can be left to peoples all across the globe.

We must do something: NOW!






"A new society will arise from the ashes of the old in which even larger numbers of the human race will move forward into the exhilarating discovery of new dimensions of reality and experience. This truly Creative Society will seek to produce not the superman, but the Supersane Humanity, moving into new and higher dimensions of moral, mental and spiritual perception and purpose."

~ S. Karagulla (1967);

[Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea.]

Say Keng's personal comments:

Obviously, the Museum of the Brain project is a gargantuan task, even in conceptual terms.

Building it not only requires bold visionary perspectives & strong financial muscle, but more importantly, strong political will, as I see it.

Nevertheless, Dilip & I are working relentlessly to introduce many of Robert "Bob" Lewis' original ideas in several small projects which we like to call "learning ecosystems" as well as "learning safaris" in this part of the world.

On a larger or rather geo-political scale, & fueled by his vast repertoire of continually evolving intellectual thoughtwares, & his firm conviction in the philosophy that "The First Wonder of the World is the Mind of a Child", Dilip has set his medium-to-long-term vision of creating a learning planet, country by country. India now falls within his sightscope.

It is our ardent desire to see that our mentor's original ideals, now channelled through our own dream visions, can be realised, probably in varied configurations, in the not-too-distant future.