Story and Symphony

Story

The aptitude of Story is defined by our author with a quote from Mark Turner who wrote The Literary Mind, Turner writes "Narrative imagining - story - is the fundamental instrument of thought.....Most of our experience, our knowledge and our thinking is organized as stories." Our author continues by stating that minds remember stories better than facts because it is the natural tendency to remember in that fashion, making stories integral to the human experiences of leaning and sharing.

People had utilized this aptitude for centuries, but during the Information Age there was an opposing sentiment which devalued narrative skills and chose to work with strictly factual information and presentations instead, ignoring the concept that gathering facts in isolation is opposite to how minds naturally work. With the dilemma created by the three A's (Abundance, Asia, Automation), though, facts are readily available hence they have less value and impact, but place them within a rich context and tie them into emotions (the essence of Story), emtional impact and the value of knowledge increases.

The Hero Story, considered a basic story structure, was compared to this book in that the reader will move from consideration of exclusively Left Brain capabilities to the realization of the importance, followed by the acceptance and appreciation, of Right Brain thinking; that Right and Left are complements and both are necessary to a successful life in the near future. This was one of my favorite parts of this chapter because of the connection I felt to the Hero Story in relation to our class of on-line tools. I was comfortable as was, but realizing I was on a low tech level for an educator, pushed myself into this foreign arena, encountered challenges and difficulties which led to struggles requiring new skills to succeed, but with the aid of our Friends in TIE and their magic modems, I will land in comfort as a "hero with a whole new mind".

Hollywood great Robert McKee gives seminars on the importance of storytelling skills and wrote a book entitled Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and The Principles of Screenwriting that is very popular with the Hollywood crowd. Even more surprising is the number and type of advocates who come to his presentations and read his book; they are businesspeople who have determined that Story is important to the economics and happiness of their lives and careers in the Conceptual Age.

There are various examples of how the people of the business world are successfully applying the skills of storytelling. One example is how in 2001, Dr. Rita Charon started a movement focusing on the awareness of the benefits of the aptitude of Story to the medical profession. Since then, many hospitals and medical schools throughout the nation are recognizing and including the skills of Story in their practice and training. They've found untilizing narrative competence promotes the diagnosis and treatment of patients in addition to building stronger patient/doctor relationships, although we are reminded that the skills of Story expand a doctor's abilities, but certainly cannot stand alone.

Story, long neglected, has been brought back into the forefront of the arts, business, and personal arenas. Because many Americans now reside in a time of abundance, we have the time to delve deeper into ourselves, our work, our families, and our world in an attempt to understand our place in the big picture. The outsourcing of white collar jobs to Asia and the capabilities of automation force us to gain a new perspective and develop new skills. Our author believes that the aptitude of Story will be a critical factor for American success in the Conceptual Age.

Symphony

Our author defines Symphony as "the ability to put together the pieces.....to synthesize rather than to analyze." Symphony is likened to the ability to draw and refers to the book by Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Our author takes a class in drawing, with an instructor who uses this book, to aid the reader understand symphonic thinking. After reading this chapter, I've purchased Edward's book and am excited to first learn from it using myself and my son, then to apply its principles with elementary students in their literature illustrations.

There is a reminder of information from Chapter 2 about how the left and right brain's hemispheres work in a 'simultaneous, contextual, and symphonic manner." Also from that same chapter is the reference to the three A's pushing Americans toward a new approach to, and creation of new, careers, with Symphony being a major asset in the endeavor.

The drawing class demonstrates to our author that he is drawing remembered symbols instead of observing what is actually there. Drawing requires genuine observations of features including their relationships to each other, much as what we must do to become symphonic in our choices of application. The art teacher himself, Bomeisler, emphasizes that 'drawing is largely about relationships, that when combined create the whole,' another point of similarity between the abilities to draw and symphonize. The analogy defines cleaarly what the aptitude of Symphony is and how to apply it.

In the discussion of relationships, the author identifies three types of people as those who will most likely succeed in the Conceptual Age. The boundary crosser, who is able to find success and joy applying their talents and skills regardless of how circumstances my vary from their first choice of application. An interesting point was that gender role stereotypes don't apply to those who can cross boundaries, which makes sense since our societal expectations of gender do create boundaries. The inventor is the second type of person because many inventions combine older ideas into a single new one; again, the approach of utilizing what is with its relationship to the big picture. The metaphor maker, with metaphor being defined as 'understanding one thing in terms of something else", is the final type of person determined by this author to be successful. George Lakoff writes, "Human thought processes are largely metaphorical," and our author points out that while computers can sift and organize information, they cannot recognize relationships as the human mind can. An once again, due to the abundance in American's lives, be it in material goods or the capabilities of technology, understanding and relationships are whatr people are searching for and metaphors expand both.

An interesting piece of data the author shares while citing examples of successful businesspeople is that studies show "self-made millionaires are four times more likely than the rest of the population to be dyslexic." A comparison is made between dyslexia and blindness. People who are unable to use their sight generally have developed their other senses to higher levels of function to increase independence. Dyslexia, which creates difficulties with left brain tasks, pushes the dyslexic to hone their abilities to see the big picture, to problem solve, and to recognize patterns, which are right brain functions and beneficial to today's economic success.

Among the many examples given to support the Aptitude of Symphony is a perspective very different from the past decades; a multimillionaire who prefers poets rather than persons with an MBA to be his managers. His reasoning is that poets have a holistic view as well as the compunction to share their observations and interpretations while striving for understanding makes them "true digital thinkers......tomorrow's new business leaders."

The overall definition of the aptitude of Symphony is "the ability to grasp the relationships between relationships", or the ability to see the big picture. Symphony, by it's very nature of seeing the big picture versus all its parts in isolation, can ease the stress caused by the overwhelming amount of information and choices we have, and the lack of time to deal with them all, by helping us distinguish what in our lives is important and what is trivial.

The author oened this chapter with a self-portrait he drew on the first day of his drawing class; he completes the chapter with another self-portrait from his last day of class. The difference was impressive. He had relinquished his former view of drawing with symbols and had learned to truly see the whole picture as well as the relationships that created it. The drawing metaphor made the aptitude of Symphony very clear and real for the reader.

"A Whole New Mind" Makes a New Day Dawn!

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Go Out & Get It!

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Summary of A Whole New Mind!

Here's to the right brain coming out in all of us! The six senses: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning give us the opportunity for personal and professional growth. The task is mastering the senses. "The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind - creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers."

If a person has the desire to succeed in this Conceptual Age then, the six senses lead the way. The first is design. The design needs to incorporate all the essentials to make it functional, but also incorporate beyond the essentials. The design needs to entice all senses. As an educator, I find this to be very true. We are required to teach the standards, but also add spice to the design.

Then, we have the story. Persuasion, communication, and self-understanding are all part of the story. Educators are the masters of the story. Our job revolves around the story. We are always educating ourselves and working on improving the story at all times.

Symphony is the next sense and it is the BIG picture. The symphony pulls it all together. The senses fit so well into an educator's world. We control the symphony to a certain extent. Our students are the symphony and we need to be the conductor. As the conductor, we guide our symphony in the right direction making the education process successful.

Next, there is empathy which is essential in understanding our students. We as educators need to remember, we need empathy with our students. We are not just teaching a particular subject or a particular grade level; we are teaching students! Can all teachers say they care more about the students or teaching the content?

The fun one of course is play! We all love to play! I always say if I'm not having fun I'm not doing my job. Enjoying our jobs can be play. Who says we can't teach our students and play as we? Play includes, "laughter, lightheartedness, games, and humor." I love play!

Lastly is meaning. It has to have a purpose. There is nothing else to say. If what we teach our students has purpose, our students are more apt to learn it.

Grasping and believing in the six senses can change the way we think. We as educators need to seize the opportunity to jump on board the Conceptual Age with our students. The time to say we are artists has come, we can never lose the excitement of calling ourselves artists!

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.

Reflection on “A Whole New Mind: The Six Conceptual Senses and Education”.

I found the title of this book to be intriguing and wanted to read how the idea that using the right brain would increase a person’s chance of success in the future. I teach science so using the left brain has been the norm. Yet, personally and as a teacher I didn’t think that using only half of your brain or the main focus on the left brain was ideal. Every teacher knows that students all have their own learning styles and different types of intelligences. I found many of the ideas in this book to apply to education and teaching styles.

I enjoyed the first part of the book where the author discusses being able to read or judge people’s reactions to different pictures. Knowing how to read body language is an important skill for an educator. I find myself watching to see if a person’s smile is joyful or just a put on smile. I know that some of my students do not understand how to read a person’s body language very well and it may be the cause of conflict with others at times. Maybe we should spend some time teaching how to read body language? It made me wonder what type of body language I use with my student’s. I’m going to be more aware of my body language especially when dealing with student discipline issues.

I think the main idea or concept of this book was that we need to become aware of and use all of our senses. For true success and well being both sides of the brain have importance. The author encourages the reader to start focusing on the attributes of the right side of the brain and even gives examples of how to develop those senses. He wants us to become more insightful humans. This is a trend that I think we have been striving for in education. The idea of the teacher just standing up in front of the class and talking has given away to the teacher as a guide, a facilitator, not just learn these facts. This is where telling stories to your students will help them to get involved in learning the required material. According to the book’s author, telling stories help people to remember the information better if it’s linked to a story. I like to use stories in my teaching to make the concept more real world for my students. It helps the students to make sense of the concept and to give it meaning. Students have a hard time finding meaning in much of the material that teachers are told they have to teach. After reading this book I find that it’s okay to spend some time on right brain skills instead of just the left brain focus of the past. I can have my students spend more time using their creative side in order to make meaning of a topic.

Teacher student relationships have become the key. A teacher needs to have empathy with his or her students. Students have a lot of things to deal with and it helps if the teacher has empathy. The students will be more willing to learn from a teacher that they feel understands them. I think that playing with your students will also help as well as give them a safe, relaxing atmosphere to learn and develop who they are. Playing and teaching science go well together. There are all types of new ideas to wonder about, to discover. I try to use humor whenever possible when teaching; it makes students more willing to take risks when learning new skills. As a teacher I find that a class I can laugh with gets more accomplished and is more willing to try new things. I’m going to try and play more with my students. One of the ideas I’m going to try and do next semester is have my students develop learning games for a difficult topic or chapter. I’m especially interested in seeing how using these right brain skills with my tougher classes will work. I think it will greatly improve the classroom atmosphere.

I did not have a great deal of input into the design of the school or even the classrooms that I teach in. However, I have tried to improve on the classroom design to make it a friendlier more welcoming learning environment. A design area that I can improve on is my teaching materials. I am taking a look at how I design power points, and handouts. I am trying to use my right brain to analyze how I arrange the text, or add a picture to improve on the design of these materials. I have begun asking some of my students how they create the designs they have used on their projects in hopes that I can borrow some of their techniques.

Symphony is taking all the parts and putting it together to create the whole picture. I think it comes down to attitude, the book talks about the difference between a maze and a labyrinth. If the teacher looks at learning as a maze that just has to be gotten through then the students will just hurry up to do the assignment and learning will be short changed. However, if the teacher encourages the students to see learning as a journey (a labyrinth) they will be happier and more willing to look in-depth into a topic. Learning will improve and both the teacher and students will find more meaning in the process if care is taken to use both sides of the brain, especially using the many skills and attitudes from the right side. I hope to use these right brain skills to improve my teaching as well as my personal life.