Where to begin? September turned out to be a grant-filled month!
On September 9, I gave a Phineas Gage presentation to all 7th grade students. The 7th grade language arts teachers brought their classes to the auditorium each period, and I spoke about my grant experiences. During my talks, I showed a PowerPoint that included important pictures from my travels in regards to Gage. After the 20-minute presentation, students were given the opportunity to ask questions.
The presentation went extremely well; it was wonderful to interact with all of the students! They did a fantastic job listening, responding to the presentation when applicable, and asking questions at the end. It felt wonderful to share my travels with such knowledgeable individuals; after all, each student had just finished reading the book, Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story about Brain Science and many shared my enthusiasm for Gage.
Shortly after my presentation, I received a surprise email from John Fleishman, author of Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story about Brain Science. Mr. Fleishman’s book is the reason I wrote the grant, and the reason I was even introduced to Gage in the first place. I was thrilled when I saw his email. He had stumbled across my grant while reading the Countway Library of Medicine blog (https://cms.www.countway.harvard.edu/wp/?p=3813)
He graciously emailed me to tell me a little about himself and why he wrote the book, as well as to discuss the places we had mutually visited. In his last, Mr. Fleishman agreed to answer questions for my blog as well as potentially visit Creekside to talk with our 7th grade students about his book. I feel blessed to have such a contact, and I look forward to meeting Mr. Fleishman in the future.
Then, this past Monday night, Malcolm Macmillan, author of An Odd Kind of Fame: Stories of Phineas Gage emailed me. Mr. Macmillan is a professor at the University of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia and is widely known (at least within the Phineas Gage circles) as a Gage expert. He maintains a blog about Phineas and any new findings about Gage's life. (http://www.deakin.edu.au/hmnbs/psychology/gagepage/)
Mr. Macmillan had been notified of my grant from a colleague and was kind enough to email me to discuss the traveling he had done for his Gage research. Needless to say, when I received Mr. Macmillan’s email, I was ecstatic to hear from such a famous (to me) person.
This past month has been wonderful with my grant. Speaking with Creekside’s 7th grade students and “meeting” two wonderful Gage authors is a lot more than I would have imagined seven months ago when I found out I had received this grant. It makes me wonder what will happen in the months to follow…I’ll keep you posted!
