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It really disconcerts me that education kind of pushes us away from body knowledge and into the realm of "disembodied intelligence." I'm not trying to prioritize body over mind and, as someone who does not dance or perform, I can't say that I have a lot of knowledge in that area but it seems a shame to completely disregard the "thing that carries our heads."

The idea of disembodied intelligence reminds me a lot of the discussions that I had in a class on sociology and medicine last year. The idea of a body as a machine, as something that is fallible: if it breaks, you go to a mechanic (a doctor), and you replace the joint or change the oil. It can get sick. It can fail.

But consciousness always seemed to prevail, even when the organ system (the nervous system) that seems to provide consciousness failed or "broke." Pure knowledge, pure intelligence, pure thought. It is valued above kinesthetic ability, like dance and drama or art and music or sports.

But kinesthetic ability is very important and there's no reason that you can't combine body knowledge and "disembodied knowledge," aside from the fact that you would have to stop placing certain values between them. Like I said in class, a dancer might make a better chemist or surgeon than a mathematician who sits all day (which isn't to say that that is what all mathematicians do, but for the sake of argument)... But that is only if the dancer also has the knowledge and the know-how of chemistry or surgery.

Ken Robinson talked about needing to "move to think." I don't think we live (or should live) in such a world where one can only be a dancer OR a mathematician. Needing to move to think does not cancel out someone's desire to do something more "disembodied." Wouldn't it be more effective to be both? Especially, as we referenced in class, when there's some kind of cultural or socioeconomic shift and we need other professions than doctor, lawyer, engineer?