| Thinking Skills | | | | trained in the American educational system, we |
| An article written by Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland | | | | process it as data, that is, it represents dates, |
| for the Boston Globe in 2007 promotes creativity | | | | times, charts, factors, elements that regulate our |
| in learning: "There is, however, a very good | | | | lives in monetary, fiduciary, fact-oriented ways. |
| reason to teach arts in schools, and it's not the | | | | This is our perceptual reality. Indeed, the best |
| one that arts supporters tend to fall back on. In a | | | | trained to process this data have a good chance |
| recent study of several art classes in Boston-area | | | | of doing well in our culture. Could creativity make |
| schools, we found that arts programs teach a | | | | us better? Yes, because, with the emphasis on |
| specific set of thinking skills rarely addressed | | | | just one hemisphere of our brain, we don't really |
| elsewhere in the curriculum - and that far from | | | | have the whole picture. We are not cognitive to all |
| being irrelevant in a test-driven education system, | | | | of the options that our wonderful brains can |
| arts education is becoming even more important | | | | render. Therefore, we are severely limited: |
| as standardized tests like the MCAS exert a | | | | economically, culturally, politically and spiritually. |
| narrowing influence over what schools teach." | | | | The Total Brain |
| | | | Developing our total brains, more the cerebral |
| Space Race | | | | scenario of ancient Western culture, is still alive |
| Into the 1900's, those artful programs diminished. | | | | and well in many cultures today. But as the global |
| The "Space Race" and Sputnik, launched an all-out | | | | economy spreads the word, educational patterns |
| emphasis on Science and Math learning and | | | | lean towards left hemisphere education. Will we |
| changed school curriculums forever. With the | | | | ultimately inherit a global, lop-sided perspective, |
| realization that America, in the 1980's and 1990's | | | | severely limiting our brain capacities in favor of |
| was fast become a service and technology | | | | the left and retarding the use of the right? In the |
| oriented nation, our manufacturing industries | | | | future, will bear offspring that are limited that |
| diminished and a New Age of Technology changed | | | | way? |
| the future glow for school children. Again, in public | | | | Sci-Fi? |
| and private schools across the nation, the | | | | This prospect is dismal and hopefully, just science |
| importance of that left hemisphere, so amply | | | | fiction. If we chose to, via cultural choices, cut off |
| delineated by Dr. Betty Edwards as the | | | | the very rich resources of the right side, are |
| time-counter, the data finder, the logician, the | | | | children and future children will inherit a |
| number-cruncher, the financier, the worker of | | | | two-dimensional world which stifles creativity, |
| charts and graphs would again dictate what our | | | | shuns invention and creative research, blocks |
| schools taught our youth. | | | | poetry, the theatre, and artists endeavors and, |
| Rich Creative Thinking | | | | ultimately, cuts off a very powerful resource. It |
| What we haven't quite figured out yet is that | | | | could be that the world will suffer for our |
| most scientific, mathematical, legal, financial | | | | restrictions on creative thinking. |
| positions require creativity and that great | | | | Here is my challenge. Learn your right side! You |
| progress has been made in these areas by | | | | will become stronger, better equipped to deal with |
| "thinking outside the box." For that matter, | | | | what the world has to offer and, if at first, you |
| creative thinking enhances any part of our lives. | | | | are uncomfortable, well, go ahead, jump into to |
| How? | | | | the hot tub of creativity. |
| When we receive information, if we are basically | | | | |