Learning with the whole brain

Have you caught your child daydreaming instead of doing important homework assignments?  Is your child musical or an excellent dancer?  Is your child “busy” to the point that you wonder if he/she has ADD/ADHD?  Or does your child retreat into a “fog” instead of staying tuned in to discussions?

Chances are that your child is right-brain dominant, which seems to be a curse these days.  Most schools judge student performance through left-brain skills like math, phonics, step-by-step thinking, and logic.  The poor right brain-dominant student loves pictures, creativity, colour, music, movement, rhythm, and learns through the whole picture – not bit-by-bit. This isn’t new information!  But most educators are frustrated with right-brain dominant learners because they are expected to teach these kids left-brain skills.  Often a clash occurs.

If you have a right-brain learner, it is possible to make the student “whole-brained”.  The brain has plasticity, and new neural pathways can be formed.  If a student is “whole-brained”, then information can easily be sent back and forth between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. This makes learning easy and fun.  Some students just naturally have this, but others need a little help.