I really haven't spent a lot of time here lately. Heck, it's been almost a year. I've been writing some songs and poems since my wife passed, but those tend to start out with pen and paper rather than with a blank computer screen.
What prompted me to come back here was a Facebook post based on one of those cutesy online quizzes that supposedly reveal your personality based on seemingly innocuous questions. This particular quiz is meant to determine which brain hemisphere I use more, left or right.
One must remember that there is a connection between the two hemispheres, the name of which escapes me at the moment. The point is that a physical, interdependent link exists between the two. They discovered the supposed differences between the two hemispheres on a man who was missing that connection in his brain. This led to the leap in left brain/right brain theories in psychology which eventually filtered down to pop psychology theories and books and exercises supposedly designed to help build up human abilities in one hemisphere or the other. More watering down of the discovery of a left and right hemisphere sadly occurred in education. Thus prospective teachers are trained in the mantra of brain-based education.
What is forgotten is that all these theories and practices developed from examination of a man with brain damage. Allow me to reiterate: A MAN WITH BRAIN DAMAGE!
This is why whenever presented with the idea of brain based educational practices my response was always, "I am not concerned with what side of the brain my students may use. I just want to know if they have any brains at all."
Maybe that's where the idea for zombies came from. Maybe zombies are just teachers looking to see if their students have any brains.
I am not denying that some students are more creative than others or that some are more analytical than others, which is supposedly the real focus of left brain/right brain studies. Emphasizing this as a focus of educational reform, however, is another misguided attempt to turn classrooms into experimental labs.
Students need to use their brains to create and to analyze. Music classes, art classes, literature classes help them. So do math, science, and grammar classes. We don't need to determine which side of the brain students use, and we don't need to focus on teaching to one side or the other. Instead, we need to develop curriculum and methods that help students use their whole brain.
