By Karla J. Donohue
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).
And teachers report more and more right-brain dominant kids in their classrooms. So how will these kids succeed in high school and college? And what if they want to go on to medical school, law school, maybe become engineers? How can we help them?Learning to use the whole brain solves the problem. Learning how to diminish right-brain or left-brain dominance so they're using both sides equally. So what does this mean? And how do you do it?
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).
And teachers report more and more right-brain dominant kids in their classrooms. So how will these kids succeed in high school and college? And what if they want to go on to medical school, law school, maybe become engineers? How can we help them?Learning to use the whole brain solves the problem. Learning how to diminish right-brain or left-brain dominance so they're using both sides equally. So what does this mean? And how do you do it?
