Leading From The Heart

The Information Age we all prepared for is ending. Rising in its place is what I call the Conceptual Age, an era in which mastery of abilities that we’ve often overlooked and undervalued marks the fault line between who gets ahead and who falls behind. (Daniel Pink, Revenge of the Right Brain, Wired 13.02, 2005)

This is where we need to focus – right within that fault line.

I believe that it is where current reform, at least in Quebec, is trying to focus. But the fact that we are in a transitional space, the fact that we are trying to implement a reform that highlights right brain activity such as synthesis, emotional expression, and context within a left-brain structure that continues to emphasize the importance of literalness and sequencing through end of session exams…well…this is problematic. It’s problematic because the two notions are competitive. I hear teachers saying ALL THE TIME that they can not afford to focus on collaboration and knowledge management when they are working towards a traditional end of course exam.

We know that both hemispheres of the brain work in tandem for much of what we do. It would be interesting to extend this concept to educational organizations. Instead of working within a competitive structure we could teach and learn within structures that are whole.

Questions to ask are

• How can we create a ‘mashup’ of left and right brain tasks and environments that make sense to kids as learners and teachers as educators?
• How can we create professional development experiences that not only teach these ideas but model them as well?
• How can we manage the transitions?

technorati tags: brain, learning, education, schoolreform

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mind bending…for real ;)

I just discovered this new (to me, at least) blog On the Brain by Dr. Merzenich, a leader in neuroplasticity from UCSF.

I’m excited about this little discovery because brain plasticity – the ability my, your brain has to reorganize itself – supports my belief that I can find ways to help people learn, that learning can happen as long as it is consistent, appropriate, and timely. I’m looking forward to staying up to date with the latest research here.

Among the many resources here I was led to children of the code, a site based on learning to read and understand ‘the code’ – the techhnology of written language.

In a nutshell, taken from the site:

The Children of the Code project has four major components:

1. A three hour Public Television, DVD
   and Web documentary series;
2. A ten-hour college, university, and professional development DVD
   series;
3. A series of teacher and parent presentations and seminars;
4. A cross-indexed website/database containing audio, video and
   transcripts with the world’s leading experts on reading.

Each has five major themes:

1. The history of the code and its effects on the world around and
   within us;
2. The cognitive, emotional, academic, and social challenges involved
   in learning to read;
3. How the structure of the code effects learning to read it;
4. How the brain learns to read;
5. How teachers and parents can help children learn to read
   better.

neuroplasticity, brain, learning
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