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Join colleagues for a discussion centered around Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions (2022), by Temple Grandin. Our book group will meet virtually, in order to expand access. There will be 2 sessions: 

  • Friday, March 14th @ 1:30pm
  • Friday, April 4th @1:30pm


Grandin will be speaking on campus on Friday, March 28th, in a visit sponsored by the Office of Accessibility Services. This reading group is designed to meet once before her talk, and once after. 

Like all TLC Reading Groups, this is a "no guilt group." You do not need to have read the relevant portion of the book in order to join us in either meeting. 

A limited number of copies of this book are available for participants through the TLC. Please email Alexis (clifton@geneseo.edu) to request a copy. 

About the book: 

"A quarter of a century after her memoir, Thinking in Pictures, forever changed how the world understood autism, Temple Grandin— 'an anthropologist on Mars,' as Oliver Sacks dubbed her—transforms our awareness of the different ways our brains are wired. Do you have a keen sense of direction, a love of puzzles, the ability to assemble furniture without crying? You are likely a visual thinker.

With her genius for demystifying science, Grandin draws on cutting-edge research to take us inside visual thinking. Visual thinkers constitute a far greater proportion of the population than previously believed, she reveals, and a more varied one, from the photo-realistic 'object visualizers' like Grandin herself, with their intuitive knack for design and problem solving, to the abstract, mathematically inclined 'visual spatial' thinkers who excel in pattern recognition and systemic thinking. She also makes us understand how a world increasingly geared to the verbal tends to sideline visual thinkers, screening them out at school and passing over them in the workplace. Rather than continuing to waste their singular gifts, driving a collective loss in productivity and innovation, Grandin proposes new approaches to educating, parenting, employing, and collaborating with visual thinkers. In a highly competitive world, this important book helps us see, we need every mind on board."

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