A Whole New Mind (Chpts 1-3)

In the first part of Pink's book, the author describes the two parts of our brain and how they differ from each other: both at a low level--control of body parts--and a higher level--reasoning, pattern recognition. After that, the author takes us through an historical perspective describing the dominance of left brain thinking and the more recent rise of right brain thinking. He even offers several drivers for this rise of the right brain. The story is fascinating; but it makes me want to go back to learning for the 21st century. In learning for the 21st century, the authors describe a group of skills that are a 'must' for successful education. However, it is interesting to note that most of the skills/tasks described in that article were pretty much left brain thinking. There was not really an emphasis on the right brain skills that Pink talks about. Is this because we have don't yet know how to interject right brain learning exercises into our schools? To me, this seems like a critical point. I tend to agree with what Pink is saying about right brain skills and since these are so 'foreign' to our currrent culture, we have to make an even greater effort to exercise and develop these skills in our schools. I think this could be a major challenge for 21st century learning.

For a mind map of the first three chapters, see my wiki.