| In his influential book The
Psychology of Consciousness, psychologist
Robert Ornstein has argued
that Western men and women have been using
only half of their brains and, hence, only
half of their mental capacity.
He noted that the emphasis on language
and logical thinking in Western societies
has ensured that the left hemisphere is
well exercised. He went on to argue that
the functions of the right hemisphere are
a neglected part of human abilities and
intellect in the West and that such functions
are more developed in the cultures, mysticism,
and religions of the East.
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977
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Joseph Bogen, known in
neuroscience as one of the pioneers of the
"commissurotomy procedure," has
been an especially avid proponent of developing
what he calls appositional thinking in school.
The word propositional ("pro-positional")
was adopted by neurobiologist John Hughlings
Jackson in the nineteenth century to describe
the left hemisphere's dominance for speaking,
writing calculation, and related tasks.
In contrast, Bogen coined the term appositional
to refer to the information processing of
the right hemisphere.
In Bogen's view, society has overemphasized
propositionality at the expense of appositionality.
Intelligence tests, for example, are aimed
at propositional left-hemisphere abilities.
Their use is justified by the claim that
they predict success in a society that most
often measures success monetarily and in
terms of productivity.
Bogen argued that such measures are very
narrow and do not take into account artistic
creativity and other right-hemisphere skills
that are not easily quantifiable.
The Other Side of the Brain --
VII: Some Educational Aspects of Hemispheric
Specialization
Joseph E. Bogen
U.C.L.A. Educator 17, pp. 24-32, 1975
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Review of Research in the chapter, “Developmental
Education 8”, pp. 20-23, 1991
"The different functions of the
right and left hemispheres of the brain
require different approaches to education.
"Due to their emphasis on language
and verbal processing, schools have failed
to give adequate stimulation to the right
side of the brain and thus tend to discriminate
against right brain dominant students.
"Many students show a preferred right
brain (intuitive) thinking style and consequently
have struggled in school because their thinking
style did not conform to typical left brain
or logic-based [education]."
Extracts are taken from Left Brain / Right
Brain Theory: Implications for Developmental
Math Instruction by A. Kitchens
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Betty Edwards, a California
art teacher, has presented her method of
teaching people to draw in a popular book
entitled Drawing on the Right Side of the
Brain.
Her basic premise is straightforward: under
ordinary conditions, it is the right hemisphere
of the brain that has the ability to draw.
When left alone, the right hemisphere will
produce very respectable drawings, even
in untrained adults.
The catch is that for most of us, the right
brain is not given the opportunity to display
its talents. The verbal, analytic, left
hemisphere (lacking in artistic ability)
becomes involved and interferes. The natural
tendency to label and analyze a picture
or a scene before drawing it, in Edwards'
view, is the source of this interference.
Edwards' method of instruction is designed
to reduce the amount of left-hemisphere
involvement in the drawing process. One
of her first exercises involves having students
copy a fairly detailed pencil drawing of
a person with the picture held upside down.
The reasoning is simple. Held upside down,
the picture is no longer easily recognizable.
In fact, it is difficult to label any part
of it. Thus, Edwards proposed, the upside-down
copying task is one in which the right hemisphere
may proceed without interference from the
left.
According to Edwards, most adults will be
pleasantly surprised when they finish their
drawings and rotate them 180 degrees.
Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, 1989
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