Daniel Pink has written a wonderful book for the business sector entitled A Whole New Mind. In this book, he discusses how the world's leaders are changing. They are no longer the "linear" left-brained thinkers, but are the "think outside of the box" right-brainers.
I share this because America's schools are going to have to catch up with this as well. Other countries, such as Italy, have already begun to change how they teach children. We no longer want children to be "the sheep that follow the herd" sitting in nice, neat rows. Instead, we want them to be independent thinkers able to problem solve and question.
In our traditional schools, these wonderful right-brained thinkers are often thought to be "naughty" because they question and probe to find out the "why" and to have it make sense on a larger scale. They are able to look at a rule such as "you must show your work." and ask "Why, if it is so much easier to do in my head?" These kids are often accused of daydreaming because quite frankly, what is going on in their minds is far more interesting!
So, how do you teach these wonderful children? There are beginning to be books written on the subject. One of my favorite's is Jeffery Freed's book, Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World. In this book, he not only helps parents and teachers to understand these thinkers, but provides wonderful strategies to make learning easy and fun for them.
Some basics to follow with these children are:
1. Provide the "why" for each academic situation and connect it to real life.
2. Give these children time to process. They are deep thinkers and often times, when given enough "wait-time", they come up with the best answers.
3. Build relationships with them. "Connect before you correct."
4. Stay positive and believe that they will perform above and beyond your wildest expectation.
5. Keep things moving! These kids cannot focus on long lecture.
6. Projects vs. worksheets work best.
7. Help them to discover their strengths.
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