A New Way Of Thinking

1.      L- directed thinking is an attitude to life that is characteristic of the left hemisphere of the brain—sequential, literal, textual etc…

R- directed thinking is an attitude to life that is characteristic to the right hemisphere of the brain—simultaneous, metaphorical, aesthetic, contextual etc…

My subject (History) requires both these ways of thinking to fully grasp the meaning and lesson of the subject. If forced to choose I would say R-directed thinking is more valuable, but L-directed thinking is needed to put events in sequential order to fully comprehend the spatial significance an event might have.

I can try and reach this balance by constantly intertwining R and L directed thinking in the lessons. Do not expect students to remember every single date of an event, but on which ones came after which and why. When this is learned, filling in dates will be easier to remember by the events already being grounded in their knowledge base.

2.      AAA (Abundance, Asia, Automation) greatly diminishes L-directed thinking in business and schools. True, in the United States’ past it was important to be able to produce a mass of goods at a quick pace. These two factors almost always guaranteed success. Presently, things are not as simple. With the flood of products and the competition of cheap labor across U.S. borders, new aspects are necessary to become successful in business. Abundance has caused a greater attention to the aesthetics of products. As machines once replaced the workforce in the early 20^th century, such is the case with computers and human knowledge, turning it into a kind of automated knowledge. In short, AAA is no longer just effecting the blue collar workforce, but the white collar as well. White collar workers are now faced with the decision to become masters in their field (with the help of R-directed thinking) or become outsourced. Schools find themselves thrown in the predicament because they are supposed to cultivate the next generation of workers and contributors. If the work force is changing, so must the curricula taught in schools.

3.      High Concept- Capacity to detect patterns and opportunities to create artistic and emotional beauty, to craft a satisfying narrative, and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into something new.

High Touch- The ability to empathize with others, to understand the subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one’s self and to elicit it in other, and to stretch beyond the seemingly mundane in pursuit of purpose and meaning.

Both these are extremely important in my teaching. It is a combination of being able to make sense of a subject to students in an interesting and genuine way. It is possible to teach with only having one or the other, but the combination of these two principles will not only make the learning experience memorable, but also enjoyable.

4.      The flaws in an education system that only values IQ are the same flaws in a business that only values L-directed thinking, they both create uncreative students or workers. The role of EQ in education is to teach students to be productive, motivated and valuable members of whichever community they are a part of (home, school, athletics).