Some kids are right-brain dominant. They're creative. They think out of the box. They dance and do art. They usually don't like math.Other kids are left-brain dominant. They take things apart to figure out how they work. They like order. They think about things and ask lots of questions. Math is often their favorite subject.Nothing wrong with this, except that school is generally a left-brain dominant institution, especially as kids progress on to high school and then college. Although we're getting better at teaching to individual differences in grade school, left-brain teaching remains the norm in high school.
But just in case you're asked that question about poetry any time soon, and you want to have something to say without spluttering in indignation, I thought I'd throw together a few little-know facts about the effect poetry has on children's brains (and ours, for that matter).
Left brain, right brain... Uh, what? We've all heard this division-of-the-brain theory many times. Personally, I can never remember which way around it goes, but then that probably means I'm a bit of a right-brainer! It all has to do with the way our brains process information, and which tasks get assigned to which parts of the brain, with the right brain supposedly being more 'artistic,' and the left being more of a computer.
Neuroscientists are now learning that, although some things can be fairly well localized, like motor function, our intellectual abilities are quite a bit more complex. For instance, did you know that your ability to speak is stored somewhere completely different from your ability to sing? There are documented cases of people who have become aphasic (unable to speak at all) but who can communicate well if they just SING the words out!
There are also specific treatment modalities that a clinician may utilize to increase function or activation of the right or left brain. One example is big letters made up of small letters. If you look at the small letters you will fire right cerebellum to left brain. If you look at the big letters you will fire left cerebellum to right brain.Auditory stimulation (listening to nature sounds, clicks of a metronome, or Mozart in a major key) in the left ear comes up through the brain stem over to the right brain and vice versa for the right ear.
he Nobel award winner of the year 1981, Roger W. Sperry revealed, we could lessen the effect of seizures by cutting the corpus, which is connects the two hemisphere. The right side of the brain is regarded as wonderful on creative tasks. Right brained people can very easily perform task like expressing emotions, playing musical instruments, recognizing images, faces, and colors, revealing strong intuitive, can read emotions and command on creativity. And the left brained are amazing in logical thinking, questioning, language and numerical subjects, and crucial thinking.
It would seem that our brains have been programmed for this kind of thinking since before anyone even thought of writing anything down. After all, how are you going to pass down the tribe's history to the next generation, unless you turn it into an epic song or poem that people can remember, one verse at a time? Entire moral codes and genealogies were passed on in this manner until came up with the written word, and though we can now access all kinds of words on the internet with a flick of a mouse button, our brains still crave the stimulus that poetry gives, especially when it's spoken out loud.
Visual stimulation from the left side in a checkerboard pattern using different colors comes up through the optic pathway to the brain stem and up to the right brain. The T.E.N.S. unit set at subthreshold stimulates large diameter nerves which fire up to the cerebellum and to the opposite brain.
But just in case you're asked that question about poetry any time soon, and you want to have something to say without spluttering in indignation, I thought I'd throw together a few little-know facts about the effect poetry has on children's brains (and ours, for that matter).
Left brain, right brain... Uh, what? We've all heard this division-of-the-brain theory many times. Personally, I can never remember which way around it goes, but then that probably means I'm a bit of a right-brainer! It all has to do with the way our brains process information, and which tasks get assigned to which parts of the brain, with the right brain supposedly being more 'artistic,' and the left being more of a computer.
Neuroscientists are now learning that, although some things can be fairly well localized, like motor function, our intellectual abilities are quite a bit more complex. For instance, did you know that your ability to speak is stored somewhere completely different from your ability to sing? There are documented cases of people who have become aphasic (unable to speak at all) but who can communicate well if they just SING the words out!
There are also specific treatment modalities that a clinician may utilize to increase function or activation of the right or left brain. One example is big letters made up of small letters. If you look at the small letters you will fire right cerebellum to left brain. If you look at the big letters you will fire left cerebellum to right brain.Auditory stimulation (listening to nature sounds, clicks of a metronome, or Mozart in a major key) in the left ear comes up through the brain stem over to the right brain and vice versa for the right ear.
he Nobel award winner of the year 1981, Roger W. Sperry revealed, we could lessen the effect of seizures by cutting the corpus, which is connects the two hemisphere. The right side of the brain is regarded as wonderful on creative tasks. Right brained people can very easily perform task like expressing emotions, playing musical instruments, recognizing images, faces, and colors, revealing strong intuitive, can read emotions and command on creativity. And the left brained are amazing in logical thinking, questioning, language and numerical subjects, and crucial thinking.
It would seem that our brains have been programmed for this kind of thinking since before anyone even thought of writing anything down. After all, how are you going to pass down the tribe's history to the next generation, unless you turn it into an epic song or poem that people can remember, one verse at a time? Entire moral codes and genealogies were passed on in this manner until came up with the written word, and though we can now access all kinds of words on the internet with a flick of a mouse button, our brains still crave the stimulus that poetry gives, especially when it's spoken out loud.
Visual stimulation from the left side in a checkerboard pattern using different colors comes up through the optic pathway to the brain stem and up to the right brain. The T.E.N.S. unit set at subthreshold stimulates large diameter nerves which fire up to the cerebellum and to the opposite brain.