Chapter 1: Know Yourself — Socrates Lesson 5: Left-Brain/Right-Brain
Unit 3: Foundations for Success 25
with injuries to the left side of the head lostthe ability to speak, but they could still sing.Persons with right-brain damage lost memoryof faces and an orientation to their sur-roundings, even their home (referred to asspatial orientation). These early findingsillustrated that speech and language functionsare on the left side of the brain and facialrecognition, spatial orientation, and musicfunctions are on the right side. Both hemi-spheres of the brain are involved in higher
cognitive
functioning; with each half of thebrain
specialized
in
complimentary
fashion.
HEMISPHERIC SPECIALIZATION
The expression — left-brain/right-brain — refers to specialized functions of thetwo hemispheres. Scientific research withhealthy human subjects used a new brain scantechnique called Positron Emission Tomog-raphy (PET) scan to confirm these findings.Individuals were connected to amachine that mapped brain activity bylighting up to show which part of the brainwas active. In a typical experiment, theresearcher gave each subject a series of tasksto perform, and then recorded which side of the brain was most active. Results indicatedthat activities involving numbers, logic, wordpuzzles, sequential tasks and
analysis
weremore active on the left side of the brain;whereas activities involving music, imagin-ation, colors, or creative expression weremore active in the right hemisphere. Evidencesuggests that the right-brain has a
global
biaswhile the left-brain has a
local
bias. In otherwords, the right hemisphere sees the pictureand the left hemisphere sees the componentsof the picture.The distinctiveness of the left andright-brain functions has led to the notion thathumans have two brains. Although researchshows that each hemisphere may be in chargeof a specific set of functions, neither side hasexclusive control of those functions. Bothsides can interchange roles.The illustration on the next pagegraphically displays a summary of thosefunctions for both sides of the brain.
BRAIN HEMISPHERE LEARNING
Research identifies the left-brain asthe Academic Brain because educators gen-erally emphasize its processes in the tradi-tional classroom, resulting in certain groupsusing hemisphere specialization to explainlimitations of traditional learning. On theother hand, research identifies the right-brainas the Artistic Brain because it is in charge of creative talents.Although fields such as science andmedicine now pay more attention to thesebrain processes, education has traditionallyneglected the right side, leaving half of astudent’s brain potential undereducated.However, more and more school systems areusing whole-brain learning techniques.Recently, educational researchers haveshown that a balanced involvement of bothsides of the brain in the classroom can createsurprising learning gains in many types of students: children, adult learners, the so-called“mentally dull,” and the genius. Thus, thesestudies conclude that learning can proceed atastounding rates when teachers have studentsintegrate both sides of their brain in a lesson.For example, kindergarten teachers who usemusic, dance, storytelling, drama, or numer-ous other right-brain activities as part of theirroutine teaching strategy not only aid the left-brain learning of their students, those alsolearn at incredible rates. After third grade,when the use of these aids typicallydiminishes, learning rates drop significantlyas well.
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