I LOVE being able to blog!!!!! This post began as an email to a prof that I admire. I had started some research during the month between semesters and found some exciting stuff that I soooo wanted to share. After I wrote the email, I felt it looked too much like a stalker. This is why I love blogs: I can vent/reflect/post and seem normal (not seem like a stalker).
I know I'm a geek. With that said, in anticipation of my Classroom Management class, I started googling classroom discipline. That led to the concept of student motivation and discovering a RSA animation of Dan Pink (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc). I checked-out two of his books, A Whole New Mind and Drive, from the Sternes Library. I started reading A Whole New Mind (this is my official summary) and saw parallels to the Methods class I had last fall. The theories in A Whole New Mind and the 4MAT method of teaching presented by Bernice McCarthy in my Methods class are based on right and left brain modality. For so long the left brain thinking has been the star of the classroom; if you could memorize and regurgitate, you were considered brilliant and got scholarships. Creative thinkers take longer to formulate approaches because they are drawing from a larger pool of information and don't do as well on timed, standardized tests.
I know I'm a geek. With that said, in anticipation of my Classroom Management class, I started googling classroom discipline. That led to the concept of student motivation and discovering a RSA animation of Dan Pink (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc). I checked-out two of his books, A Whole New Mind and Drive, from the Sternes Library. I started reading A Whole New Mind (this is my official summary) and saw parallels to the Methods class I had last fall. The theories in A Whole New Mind and the 4MAT method of teaching presented by Bernice McCarthy in my Methods class are based on right and left brain modality. For so long the left brain thinking has been the star of the classroom; if you could memorize and regurgitate, you were considered brilliant and got scholarships. Creative thinkers take longer to formulate approaches because they are drawing from a larger pool of information and don't do as well on timed, standardized tests.
Left brain thinking has information compartmentalized. If it's a math problem, you go to the math room and pull out the formula(s) that go with the problem and use them. Right brain thinkers have all the information in one room, maybe in separate piles, but not labeled math, science, or English. So when they have a math problem, they have to evaluate what kind of math. If it's a geometry problem involving angles, then you go to the pile that has formulas involving angles. But that pile also has soccer plays in it, racquetball shots, photo/lighting theories, crochet designs, force vectors: information not directly related to math. So filtering through the pile to find the right information can take a little time. All the testing to get into grad school felt like swimming against a flood. They don't want to know what I know, but how fast I can process it. Why the time limits? I know what I know at the beginning and the end. It's not like I'll magically learn something while I'm sitting in that sterile, empty environment.
From the 19th century to the 20th century we moved from an Industrial Age to an Information Age. We are now transitioning into a Conceptual Age, and the aptitudes of the left-brain will no longer be sufficient for success. Any job that can be outsourced or automated must be re-shaped to satisfy the aesthetic, emotional, or spiritual demands of a prosperous era. There are six essential right-brain aptitudes that can be re-developed (we had them as kids) to complement the functions of the left-brain, creating a whole new mind. These aptitudes are design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning.
From the 19th century to the 20th century we moved from an Industrial Age to an Information Age. We are now transitioning into a Conceptual Age, and the aptitudes of the left-brain will no longer be sufficient for success. Any job that can be outsourced or automated must be re-shaped to satisfy the aesthetic, emotional, or spiritual demands of a prosperous era. There are six essential right-brain aptitudes that can be re-developed (we had them as kids) to complement the functions of the left-brain, creating a whole new mind. These aptitudes are design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning.
On to reading Drive, and reflecting on it. Understanding motivation is the key to engagement and discipline in the classroom. I've always known that the stick and carrot philosophy were weak (pseudo) motivators and yet were simple to implement (mindlessly, without having to have any knowledge or insight into the individual). When you implement it you know it's not changing anything inside the child, but now you have done your duty and can say, "Its not my fault, I tried!"
A teachers job is kind of like parenting teens: not controlling, but influencing.
