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Addressing the right brain in education |
 
The Psychology of Consciousness
Robert Ornstein
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977
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.
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
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.
Left Brain / Right Brain Theory:
Implications for Developmental Math Instruction
A. Kitchens
Review of Research in 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]."
-- A. Kitchens
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
Betty Edwards
Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, 1989
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.
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Scientific Findings 
