Professor Doggerall Says:

What label does society, and the educational system in particular, attach to a pupil who appears to have absolutely no aptitude for maths and science?  In the first instance we could refer them to Mr and Mrs Einstein and ask them about their school dropout son Albert.  Or your could refer them to Woody Norris:

'When Woody Norris won the Lemelson-MIT Prize in 2005, his official prize bio called him "a classic independent inventor ... self-educated, self-funded and self-motivated." His mind seems to race toward things the world needs, though we don't know it yet: a nonlethal acoustic weapon that has been used to ward off pirates, a bone-induction headset, radar that can scan the human body, a tapeless tape recorder ...

Norris' educational background is a key to his restless mind. He is not quite "self-educated" -- he's taken many classes, but always at his own speed and in his own style, studying the things he knew he wanted to know and working closely with professors. Ironically, it's a model that cutting-edge colleges are now embracing.'

ted Ideas worth spreading

The logic, linear brain hemisphere and the gestalt hemisphere always work together, however, as we know, there is always a degree of dominance.



 



Professor D Doggeral



"There is always Brain Coaching to guide us in balancing our profile so that we are able to improve our efficiency by up to 300%'.



What happens when you are a right brain and right hand dominant student?

Answer:  You drive you teacher or lecture dilly with your constant moving around.  However, if you do not fiddle and move around, because of your basal dominant profile, you do not take in and integrate the data being presented.

Depending on the rest of his/her dominance profile, there are variances especially when stressed, in how a person sees, hears, communicates predominantly verbally or kinaesthetically, and moves.

Below is a typical profile of a person who is gestalt brain hemisphere dominant, together with a dominant left eye, ear, hand and foot.  This incidentally, is Mr and Mrs Einstein’s little boy, Albert’s profile. However, Albert Einstein’s alternate profile might have been that he was left foot dominant and not right foot dominant, in which case he would have felt awkward and stuck when stressed.

Profile:  G1b:
Gestalt brain hemisphere, eye, ear, hand and foot dominant.

      Gestalt/right               Logic/left         
Profile G1b for normally organised
 right handed people.

All sensory modalities; eye, ear and kinaesthetic communication, are enabled, as is movement; foot.

Nothing is restricted when stressed.

Being fully enabled; having his dominant eye, ear hand and foot opposite his dominant gestalt brain hemisphere, the Profile G1b person learns and functions best by focusing on the whole picture, context, and emotional relevance to self, and through movement.  Also, these people rely very often on gut feelings and intuition; they often tend to fly by the seat of their pants.

These people must be able to see, hear, move and verbalise the whole context; the big picture, as they process from the whole to pieces, before learning the details.

The Profile G1b person appreciates metaphors and stories, examples and patterns when solving problems.  He looks and listens for the intention and emotion of the person he is interacting with, and of information.  Also, he interprets language primarily from its tone, pitch, and rhythm; dialect.

These people learn kinaesthetically; hands on, and they need to move, especially their hands, to process new in-put data.  Also, they are physically and emotionally expressive.

The Profile G1b person quickly grasps the big picture, however he may have difficulty seeing, hearing, and communicating the details in a linear way, especially when he is stressed.  He is often highly intuitive and he prefer to process information that way.

As his dominant eye tracks from right to left, the Profile G1b person will possible experience difficulty when reading or writing languages that move from left to right; English, Afrikaans, African languages.  As a result of this trait, he may transpose letters and numbers, which in turn, often results in his erroneously being labelled ‘dyslexic’ and ‘reading disabled’, and sometimes, both.

The Profile G1b person has difficulty following step-by-step instructions as his logic brain hemisphere is non-dominant.  When undertaking a task, he tends to start by imagining the end results, and then intuitively doing what seems appropriate to him at the time.

Being movement enabled, this gestalt dominant person’s movements tend to be spontaneous and fluid; free form.  However, his capability to exhibit good technique, e.g. a specific dance step, may deteriorate when he is under stress.  Also, you can virtually write off his following step-by-step instructions, especially when he is under stress.

Further, these people may have difficulty with fine motor skills such as penmanship.  They will benefit therefore, from Fine-motor and Hand-eye Coordination Play.

Because his dominant hand, eye, ear, and foot are all opposite his gestalt hemisphere, the Profile G1b person has no access to his logic hemisphere during new learning or when he is stressed.

This person’s biggest difficulty will be to access the pieces of information, and then be able to put them together in a linear, logical manner, and then communicate it.

In a seminar or the classroom, the Profile G1b person will benefit from sitting toward the front of room, but where he can move without disturbing other people.

To see the logic, linear, language dominant profile which is at the oppisite end to the G1b profile on the Dominant Profile scale, see http://braincoaching.blogspot.com/.

Inflation Is Not The Answer

Economic Inflation

In the world of economics, inflation is defined in simple lay terms as: ‘Too much money chasing too few goods.’  This translates into the reality that the answer to bringing the inflation rate down and therefore, ensuring a strong economy and raising standards, lies not in releasing more money into the system, but rather, increasing the production and efficiency factors in the country.  In other words, the nation needs to produce more goods and services (and of a higher level than previously), while foregoing a demand for unreasonably high salaries to a low production ratio.  To put it more simply still, people need to be more diligent and responsible, and work harder – Oooh!  Did I use a dirt word and say word harder?

Simply increasing salaries at the cost of low production results in prices rises, which results in turn, in demanding higher pay, which further results in pressure on the government to release more money into the economy, which means further still, minting more money, which means we are no further forward but are actually far worse off than before as we are now in a downward spiral of self destruction.

Education Inflation

The prevalent education challenge in the country relates to that of the economic quandary.  The latest; 15^th December 2010, information fed to the population by the radio media; SA FM 7:30 and 8:00 am news bulletins, is that teachers are being pressurised into inflating the marks of students: ‘’Learners must be passed.”  This applies especially to grades 10 and 11 students.  Nothing was said on the bulletin about how to improve the perennial dropping of the standard of students.  This equates to printing more money rather than improving the production level in an economy.  It was implied, but not directly stated on the news bulletin that this ‘policy’ emanates from the Department of Education.  I have tried in vain so far, to verify the facts which were presented in such a vague format by SA FM.

I suspect that possibly due to the devastating matric pass-rate history over the passed 10 years or so, someone possible has a glimpse of the chopping-block ahead and is getting nervous about another imminent, disastrous year-end result, and to blazes with the future of the country.  Is it possible a case of: ‘it is grand being a ‘head-honcho’ and the accompanying perks, but occasionally the heat gets to you?’

This blog site is intended to address situations as we find them and see them for what they really are.  Our Brain Coaching blog site offers remedial practical solutions, see: braincoaching.blogspot.com.

The labling game



A volunteer guiding homeless children through a process

 whereby they address and resolve deep emotional

 issues at the cellular level, in a completely comfortable,

enjoyable and unthreatening manner.

 Labels 

Presently if a child’s dominance profile shows that he needs to move in order to take in new learning for instance, the social tendency is to hang an ADD or ADHD label on him and tranquilise him with a self prescribed dose of Ritalin, and be dammed with the short and long term adverse side affects that are inevitable.  If a child battles to read writing that flows from left to right across a page, or inverts letters and numbers, more often than not they are erroneously labelled as ‘dyslexic’ – and out comes the Ritalin again.  If a child does not show an aptitude for maths and science, but has an artistic bent, how often is he erroneously ‘streamed’ or redirected into a class, or school even, for children who are diminished in capacity and who ‘require special attention’ – and once again reach for the Ritalin?  Such a child is unjustly stigmatised for life; he actually in time comes to believe that dark fiction.  Hellooooo, this is not a ’blonde’ joke, this is what is really happening!

A therapeutic drumming session at a school for children

 who had been streamed into a ‘special school’.

The least we can do for a pupil is afford him the best base from which to learn and grow.  Dominance Profiles do just that.  There are thirty two different learning and performance preferences as indicated by the thirty two different dominance profiles, yet most educational systems, if not all, cater for one dominance profile only; Profile L1a, which represents only fifteen percent (15%) of the learner population.  Dominance profiles show us how new information should be presented to learners in order to lock in new information, who needs to move, who needs to talk, who might have difficulty hearing what is being said, who might have difficulty seeing what is being illustrated, and even where learners should be seated in the classroom.  Further, dominance profiles also show us how to cope with and correct shortcomings or perceived weaknesses, and how to capitalise on strengths in both facilitators and learners.

 

Put the joy back into learning





Sir Ken Robinson



Learning is a basal fun and enjoyable growing experience for every child that is, before it is schooled out of them and becomes a dreary slog.

Since the industrial revolution, and Bismark so I am told, school learning focused virtually exclusively on one side of the brain only, and was homed-in on one objectively; to secure a personal space in the work place - very blue collar stuff.  This is noble in as far as it goes, but what about creativity and development of one's imagination?

People like Sir Ken Robinson, bless him,  have come to recognise that whereas in the past a matric certificate was the passport at the entry level to enter the work market place, this is no longer true as one now requires an university degree at the entry level.  Sir Ken has realised the vital role that a wider spectrum of skills encompassing creativity and artistic abilities play and promotes them accordingly. 

Brain Training is a programme of specifically designed enjoyable physical and mental exercises, whereby one can balance and integrate their logic and gestalt mental and physical programming when learning, and when under stress.

So, a invitation  to the boffs who are commissioned to be the custodians of developing the brain-power in the country;  smell the roses and broaden your scope of your brief by investigating what developments are being made in the rest of the world in this vital field.



An informal settlement in South Africa that can be seen
 near virtually every town ancity in the country 



This is a photo of one of the main challanges facing today's  heavies in Southern Africa; to bring education and socially acceptable ethetics and moral values to both the adults and the children living in such environments.  There is a simple solution as far as education is concerned, however, the real problem is to instil in the inhabitants a real sense of responsibility and the respect of the property of others.

Prof. Sagata Mitra of the Newcastle in the UK.  addressed the problem of bringing education to those parts of the world where for whatsoever reason, good teachers did not want to go.  The prof initiated a project which he called Hole in the Wall.  His pilot project was conducted in New Delhi, India.  The project involved embedding a computer which was hooked up to the internet, in the outside wall of a kiosk.  He then set the local children, who had never seen a computer before, a task without telling them how to go about it; they had to find out for themselves.

After two monthe the Prof came back and was amazed at what the children had learnt - by themselves.

When I told this story to some people I know, the comment which they unanimously threw back at me was:  "In South Africa, the computer would have been stolen within one day."

The Prof did in fact bring the project to South Africa, however, for whatsoever reason, he is relatively silent on this point.  One wonders why