Eleventh Hour Rush

Monday, May 3, 2010

Eleventh Hour Rush
Well, here we are just a few weeks from the end of the 2009/2010 school year, and I am going to try to capsulate some of the things that I have been reading, doing, and thinking about pertaining to APS a.r.t.s. and life in general over the past several months. I must say that there has been one thought that has dominated my thinking since June of 2009. That one thought is that Mr. Mark Tomion, inventor of the Stardrive Device (a device or invention that may finally allow mankind to travel to and explore the stars) has tragically died. His Starship design, in essence, was/is something that any lay person could understand. Basically, the ship itself is surrounded in an electric "arc" discharge that is created and held in place by spinning magnets. This electric arc discharge takes the shape of a protective "bubble" around the ship thereby opening up a, "wormhole" and allowing the ship to travel faster than the speed of light. The ship itself is powered by a "reaction-less" drive as opposed to the law of motion we are all familiar with as established by Sir Isaac Newton. Mark labeled his invention, the “Electrodynamic Field Generator”. I had the good fortune of being able to speak to Mr. Tomion over the phone on several different occasions not long before his death. I must say that I was honored and impressed that he would take the time to talk with me. I was also fortunate enough to be able to purchase a copy of Mark's book entitled, "Stardrive Engineering", and I was able to digest a good portion of it, save for some of the more technologically complex aspects, but one of the things that I noticed in the book was that there were no references to Daniel Pink or Howard Gardner! I thought that this was especially telling since titles like, "A Whole New Mind", and "5 Minds for the Future" would seem to go hand-in-hand with a man who had just been awarded a patent for inventing the world's first Starship.As I pondered the possible implications and contradictions of this however, I wondered also how Mr. Pink's book, "A Whole New Mind", whose major assertion and subtitle is that "Right-Brained People will Rule the World" might apply to so brilliant a mind as that of Mr. Tomion's. But in pondering this question, I had to ask myself, "just what is a Right-Brained person?" In searching for the answer to this question I remembered back to my undergraduate Education and Psychology classes at Youngstown State University, where I learned about a concept known as Brain Dominance Theory. Brain Dominance Theory teaches that both right and left brained people are characterized by certain tendencies in their thought processes. Specifically, this theory says that right-brained people (also known as "Global" thinkers) are characterized by highly developed imaginations, creativity and visualization skills, a love for the use of bright colors, a high level of the use of pictures, photos, graphs and charts, a grasp of complex rhythms, an unusually sharp sense of intuition, a love of continual and extensive interactions with other people, and a tendency to express themselves verbally in broad generalizations rather than specifics. However, my limited observation of some of the scientific body of work of the brilliant mind of Mr. Tomion led me to believe that he did not display these major characteristics of a right-brained thinker, thus contradicting Pink's assertion of right-brained superiority. Conversely, I observed him to be much more of what the Theory of Brain Dominance refers to as left-brained, some of whose major characteristics are highly developed logic, structure, sequence, specific details, a highly developed grasp of the use of verbal language and enumeration, and a reliance on analysis and predictability at all times. Indeed, the attributes of left-brained (also known as "Linear" thinking) much more closely match my observations and impression of Mark Tomion, causing me to question even further Pink's assertion of right-brained "superiority".In attempting to reconcile this apparent contradiction, I also remembered that Brain Dominance Theory teaches us that none of us rely exclusively on one hemisphere of the brain only. But rather that the right and left sides of the brain are not only linked together neurologically, but that each hemisphere dominates specific kinds of mental activities and learning patterns. Moreover, the theory also tells us that not only do people tend to have a preference for initially processing information through the left or the right hemisphere, but that once information is received and processing begins in one hemisphere, the information is then shared with the other hemisphere for total processing.This basic understanding helped me to begin to "put the pieces together", somewhat validating Pink's theory of right-brained "superiority". I began to see that while such a scientific genius as Mark Tomion might be classified as predominantly classic left-brained, as discussed above, he must still have had to highly utilize his right-brained skills, i.e. imagination, creativity, intuition, etc. to bring such a great technological invention as the Stardrive Device (or Electrodynamic Field Generator) to full fruition.Moreover, an even greater understanding of the relevance of right-brained thinking is revealed in Chapter 9 of Pink's book, entitled, Meaning. In this section he uses several examples which clearly illustrate the attributes of right-brained thinking bringing great personal meaning to life even under the most challenging and difficult circumstances. For example, we learn of the case of Victor Frankl who, even while a prisoner in a World War Two concentration camp states that, "I now understand how a man who has nothing left in the world may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, when anticipating his Beloved", inferring that the use of right-brained attributes such as the Visualization of a loved one can bring great meaning to such a horrific situation. In the same chapter, Dr. Robert Firestone, author and psychotherapist tells us that, "you're not going to find meaning in life hidden under a rock or written by someone else, you'll only find it by giving meaning to life from inside yourself", again implying that right-brained attributes such as intuition and creativity play a strong role in gaining a "superior" grasp on life itself. Maybe then, I need to see Pink and Gardner in a whole new light!After some thought, I feel that perhaps I had only been peripherally aware of the ideas set forth in either of the books authored by Pink or Gardner. More importantly, however, as I have not seen the type of increasing success in my public school teaching that I would like to see, I began to wonder (and question) how these books (and APS a.r.t.s.) might help me to not only improve, but feel better and more secure in my delivery in the classroom. Might a greater expression of my right-brained skills help the situation to improve? Certainly there may be other factors at work here as I often feel that my upbringing and culture are not such a good "fit" for the current environment in which I find myself teaching. I also have noticed a tremendous difference in my comfort level between the students with whom I work with privately (teaching piano), and those that I teach in the music classroom. Perhaps I do better in a "smaller" educational setting which allows me to feel more at ease as a teacher. Or maybe it is because my private students and their parents are paying me good money to teach them and they want to get the most out of their hard-earned dollars.All of this aside, however, in perspective, some of the core concepts put forth in Pink and Gardner, specifically pertaining to right-brained thinking, have begun to show me that it may have practical applications when it comes to the classroom. For example, we know that many of today's children come to the classroom bearing the unfortunate burdens of neglect and abuse, which negatively affects their behavior and learning ability. These children often experience difficulty in even being able to focus their attention for any significant amount of time on the content of material being taught. This then often results in their inability to focus and manifests itself in behavior which is destructive, disrespectful, self-damaging and self-defeating. The end result of this cycle often leaves the child feeling so defeated that he or she refuses to even attempt to engage in the educational process any further or only gives it a half-hearted effort at best.Yet, as I draw my first blog to a close, I have begun to see that by applying some of the concepts of "superior" right-brained thinking and actions to the classroom; such as a greater use of color, more materials including pictures, charts, and graphs. Also, by using my own sense of intuition and perhaps, more focus on rhythms, I may be able to bring more "meaning" into the classroom and thereby the lives of some of my students. Who knows, one of the students sitting in my music class today may just be the next brilliant Mark Tomion.Mark Belloto, CAGO