The Mind is a Turkish Bazaar

I liked the image Gross uses of the mind as a Turkish bazaar (page 27). After all, our minds are always taking things in, and just because we are studying psychology, for example, that doesn't mean that we're not making a million other connections.

I'm afraid that we don't always encourage our students to do anything with those connections, though. Sometimes we probably fear that these connections take our students (or our classes) off topic; but if the topic itself is "learning," and if the brain is about making connections, is anything really "off topic"?