Does 1+1 always equal 2?

I was reading the book A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink this morning. In it, he was discussing how there is a real shift happening in the way that people are thinking and approaching life. He discussed that people are moving from strictly linear, sequential thought to adding intuition and problem solving.

In the 70’s when I was a young girl, we were taught to do as we were told in school. We were taught that the teacher was always right and if she said that 1+1=2, well, it did! No questions asked. The teacher would demonstrate what Pink refers to as a left-brained point of view—very linear and very logical.

Today, we have a whole new crowd emerging. These are the right-brained thinkers. They ask questions like “Why?,” “How come?,” and “What if we did it this way?” They say things like, “If I had ½ of an apple and added another ½ of an apple, that would equal one—not two. They dare to look outside the box and really question each perspective that is placed before them. Taking things at face value “just because”, just isn’t an option for these kiddos. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like we haven’t had real right brained thinkers before…Albert Einstein, Ben Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln to name a few. But now it seems that more and more we are finding people who are less satisfied with just “following the herd.” We want to know why.

Jeffery Freed has written the book, Right Brained Children in a Left Brained World. In it, he provides strategies to help parents coach their more right brained children. He also has some suggestions for teachers. Here are some of his suggestions for creating right brained classrooms and schools:

1. Require all teachers to take classes on differing learning styles.
2. Test all children for their learning style a the start of second grade.
3. Provide a stimulating, experiential environment.
4. Employ longer lessons that integrate a variety of subjects.
5. Make homework meaningful.
6. Reform testing.

Schools across the nation are looking at equalizing right and left brained thoughts. How does your child learn? If your child is a linguistic or mathematical-logical thinker, he/she predominately feels most comfortable utilizing the left-side of the brain. If your child is a visual-spatial, kinesthetic, or musical learner; he/she feels most comfortable utilizing the right-side of the brain. To find out more about various learning styles, feel free to visit our website at www.excelachievement.com.