Today I was listening to the audio book of Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind.
Left-brain Outsourced:
The premise of the book is that left-brain thinking, predominate in Western history (as is evident in our left to right reading), is on its way to being outsourced permanently in developed countries. Logical, sequential, knowledge that is emphasized in schools is left brain. Folks who are left-brain dominant are what Peter Drucker called “knowledge workers.” They have the ability to acquire and apply information.
Right-brain, the Brain of Tomorrow:
The right-brain thinking, which includes taking the long view, is more intuitive and non-linear, looks at things simultaneously, and concentrates on context, is going to be, according to Pink, the thinking which is successful in developed countries.
Right-brain thinking is all about:
forging relationships
synthesizing the big picture
invention
Despite the idea that work will be outsourced at an increasing level, and my disagreement with his understanding of the computer science field (My husband is a programmer.), Pink’s ideas about right-brain thinking are actually encouraging to me.
Why?
If Pink is right, then my teaching freshman composition is actually MORE important now than it was in the “information age.” And the graduate students in our English program, despite the lack of tenure-track positions for MAs, is actually preparing our graduates for the workplace of the future.
Pink declares that we are in or going into the Conceptual Age. He argues that there are six elements needed for this new time in history.
The six elements of the Conceptual Age:
design (and the engagement of the senses)
symphony (the big picture, not just a focus on the details)
empathy (the engagement of emotions)
narrative/story (not just argument)
play (humor and light-heartedness)
meaning (purpose and meaning, transcendence, spirituality)
These are things I can teach my students. These are things that they can learn, integrate, and use in their college careers and afterwards. These are things which will make them better people and more enjoyable friends.
What does this mean for my classroom?
For one thing, I am going to reframe the essay as “communicative works of art.” If the students think of what they are doing as art, hopefully the design elements will more readily be integrated. Also, if they think of them as communicative, that foregrounds the purpose. And, hopefully, describing them as works will indicate that effort is required to produce them.
Many of our students have been stifled in creativity through the rote memorization, excessive regurgitation, and emphasis on objective multiple-choice exams. That doesn’t even include the students whose creativity has been squashed by teacher attitudes, the need for practice, or because of comparison with some (known or unknown) “better” artist.
Sir Ken Robinson speaks at TED. “Schools kill creativity.
For another, it means I am going to concentrate on document design in my freshman composition classes in focused ways that I have not previously used outside of my own scholarship and my business and professional writing courses.
I have already begun to focus on document design in my own work. When I presented at a writer’s conference this summer, I worked very hard on the design aspects of my PowerPoint. Colors, images, and words were all carefully balanced.
I also focused on design in the QEP I handed in to my CC this spring. I knew that the dean was not interested in my topic, despite faculty support. So I decided that I would do something with my QEP that could be used even if my topic were not. The first thing I did was make my QEP beautiful. I chose colors, images, and graphics that spoke for what I was trying to say, representing and presenting it in an artistic way. Thus, my QEP, though originally about critical thinking, was really about design.
A third thing, I believe, is the focus on invention–a focus which was indicated to me as a higher priority eighteen months ago when Parlor Press’ call for papers brought out so many invention papers that the second CFP specifically delimited invention. I need to help my students begin to think of themselves as not just repositories or receptors of knowledge, but as folks involved in the creation of knowledge. That may be a bit harder than I envision.