An MIT Professor Shaved Her Head To Get Students to Learn

via youtube

Sometimes you have to go to extremes in order to get students to pay attention in class. And apparently, it looks like even MIT kids could use a little motivation.

Nancy Kanwisher, a neuroscientist at MIT, was looking for a unique way to show her students where all the regions of the brain are located. But instead of taking out a poster or book, or even projecting an image to the wall, Kanwisher went a step (or 10) beyond what other professors may do.

She shaved her head. Right at her desk. Then, a grad student drew the parts of the brain on her freshly bald head.

“Scientists do lots of crazy things,” Kanwisher told Buzzfeed. “I see this as not just a way to find particular parts of the brain, it’s a way to discover basic components of the human mind. It’s a way of discovering who we are as thinkers. What kinds of minds do we have?”

Kanwisher begins the video talking about the different regions of the brain. But where are they? “It’s kind of hard to tell with all this damn hair in the way,” she says in the video, before beginning to cut, buzz, and Bic her way to a Mr. Clean-like noggin.

Best lecture, ever? If we were giving out grades, we say A+.

Watch the entire lesson below. (And don’t worry, it’s only a minute and a half. You aren’t going back to school.)