Reflection

There were many interesting points in this book but I liked the Portfolio sections the most. I love the opportunity to make the book’s points come to life in my own life. From the Design Portfolio my all around favorites were “Put it on a Table” and “Be Choosy.” The “Riff on Opening Lines” and “Play Photo Finish” from the Story Portfolio would be a fun activity in my Drama Unit. As you can imagine being a Music teacher the Symphony section included a lot of activities that I was interested in. Two of my favorite activities from that section were “Do Some Real Brainstorming” and “Celebrate Your Amateurness.” The “Play the Cartoon Captions Game” is a great activity to play with the kids and myself. I will be incorporating “Say Thanks” and “But Out” in my class and in my life from the Meaning Portfolio.

As you may have noticed I left out the Empathy Portfolio. I saved this section for last because I spent a lot of time taking the online tests from the book and also from other online sites to determine where I stand. In my Systemizing and Empathy Quotient it was interesting to see that I scored exactly the same on the books sites as on the other online sites. In the end the tests showed my brain type was Balanced. (Some people would question that) My Empathy side was much stronger than the Systemizing though.

I picked 12 out of 20 correct expressions in the “Spot the Fake Smile” test. I scored a 24 in “The Mind is the Eye” test. That score was a typical score for the test.

When I was in my 30's I had tested out to be Integrated-right in the left/right dominant test. I took 3 online tests which 2 of them came up totally integrated and one was more Right Dominate. I then went to a site from Scholastic (http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3629) and read about teaching styles and being right and left dominant. The following was taken from the site.

“Those who are middle-brain dominant tend to be more flexible than either the left- or the right-brain folks; however, you often vacillate between the two hemispheres when you make decisions. You sometimes get confused when decisions need to be made because, neurologically speaking, you could do most tasks through either a left-brain or a right-brain method! Our neurological profile essentially guides the way we teach our classes, meaning that left-brain teachers tend to teach in a "left-brain style," right-brain teachers typically teach in a "right-brain style," and middle-brain teachers tend to vary their teaching between the two approaches.”
It helps to explain who I am and how I tick.

The book was good, but what I learned about myself was what I liked the best.