A
WHOLE
NEW
MIND
School Change
• Are buildings necessary?
• Are we hunting saber toothed tigers?
• Educational design for each student?
From the Agricultural Age to Today
?
Information Age
(knowledge workers)
Industrial Age
(factory workers)
Agricultural Age
(farmers)
18th century
19th century
20th century
21st century
From the Historical Perspective: Recognizing
‘Right’ Brained Thinking
• Carl Wernicke and Paul Broca’s discoveries about
language acquisition (Wernicke-spoken language;
Broca-understanding language) shaped people’s
thinking that the left side of the brain was
dominant---it makes us human
• Roger Sperry… ‘The right side of the brain was
superior at performing certain types of tasks…
There are two modes of thinking.’
* Overturned the notion that the left
hemisphere was the dominant part of the brain.
THE
INFORMATION AGE
The past decades have belonged to….A certain
kind of person… with a certain kind of mind
(Pink, 2006)
Left Brained
Narrowly logical, deeply analytical, linear, computer-like capabilities
The future belongs to……
Right Brained
individuals!
How do we know so much about the
brain, its parts and functions?
Cognitive Neuroscience
• Cognitive neuroscience is the study of the brain and nervous
systems, including structure, function, and disorders.
Neuroscience as a discipline emerged only in the last few
decades.
• Cognitive neuroscientists have learned more about the workings
of the brain in the past ten years than they had in the past
century…mostly due to ‘Pet Scans.’
• Pet Scans show what areas of the brain are being engaged
according to specific stimulus and what function it has– ie
executive function (frontal cortex) vs emotional arousal (limbic)
Neuroimaging(fMRI)
• Can transform a real brain hidden within a skull
into a virtual brain observable on a computer
• Allows scientists to observe how various brain
processing systems collaborate when they
develop a decision and then activate the
appropriate behavior– captures pictures of the
brain in action- as determined by blood flow
Current Findings on the Brain’s Two
Hemispheres
• Contralateral: The left hemisphere controls the
right side of the body; the right hemisphere
controls the left side of the body.
• The left hemisphere is sequential (controls serial
functions such as verbal activities such as talking,
understanding other’s speech, reading and
writing); the right hemisphere is simultaneous
(specializes in seeing many things at once; seeing
all the elements of a situation and understanding
what they mean).
Current Findings on the Brain’s Two
Hemispheres
• The left hemisphere specializes in text; the right
hemisphere specializes in context. The left
hemisphere focuses on ‘what’ is said; the right
hemisphere focuses on ‘how’ it is said (includes
facial expression, tone- non-verbal cues.
• The left hemisphere analyzes the details (break
down the whole into components) ; the right
hemisphere synthesizes the big picture (Weave
the components into a whole).
In essence….
Left Brain….
• Converges on a single
answer
• Focuses on categories
• Grasps details
Right Brain…
• Diverges into a Gestalt
• Focuses on relationships
• Sees the big picture
Although they function differently,
The two sides work in concert!
Why the Shift to R-Directed Thinking?
• Material ‘abundance’ that is deepening our non
material yearnings
• Globalization that is shipping white-collar work
overseas
• Powerful technologies that are eliminating certain
kinds of work
Abundance Elevates R-Directed
Thinking
• Abundance- the victory of L-Directed Thinking, has
lessened its significance….now ‘design, beauty, spirituality
and emotion’ are the premium!
• While abundance has brought wonderfully beautiful things
to our lives—prosperity, personal, family and life
satisfaction haven’t improved….People are searching for
meaning! There is a rise in spirituality in the workplace.
Globalization-Outsourcing
Elevates R-Directed Thinking
• Work that was almost done exclusively in the United Statesand that provided comfortable white-collar salaries of
$70,000 a year, is now outsourced for 2/3 less
• More than ½ of the Fortune 500 companies (HewlettPackard, Siemens, Oracle, Nokia, Home Depot, GE)
outsource to India.
“Any L-Directed work (financial analysis, IT, radiology) that is
English-based such in markets such as the U.S., the U.K.
and Australia can be done in India and instantly delivered
via fiber optic links.”
THE CONCEPTUAL AGE
A society and economy built on people who are
“high touch” and “high concept”….
Able to see
the ‘big
picture’
Inventors/
Creators
Empathizers
Caregivers
Intuitive
Story Tellers
High Concept
•
•
•
•
•
Detect patterns
Detect opportunities
Create artistic and emotional beauty
Craft a satisfying narrative
Combine unrelated ideas into something new
High Touch
• To empathize with others
• To understand the subtleties of human
interaction ; interpret emotions and
nonverbal expressions
• To find joy in one’s self
• To elicit joy in others
• To stretch in pursuit of purpose and meaning
How is High Touch/High Concept
Materialized?
• Yale and Harvard Schools of Medicine train doctors in the art of
‘narrative medicine.’
• Medical school curriculum now incorporates special programs to
develop medical students’ empathy for patients.
• While Japanese students lead the world in science and math scores,
they have redesigned their curriculum to foster creativity, play and
artistry.
• The Education Ministry in Japan has pushed students to reflect on
the meaning and mission of their lives…education of the heart.
• MBAs vs MFA (Master of Fine Arts)– MFA is now one of the hottest
credentials in the world—difficult to get accepted into programs
• Today, we are all in the art business!
What are the ‘Aptitudes’ for this
Conceptual Age?
“Designers are the alchemists of the future.”
 Design is interdisciplinary; people who design see the big picture….
View things holistically
 Design is the act of creating solutions.
 In an age of material abundance, design has become crucial for
modern businesses--- as a means of differentiation and as a way to
create new markets.
 As a result of rising prosperity and advancing technologies, good
design is more accessible than ever, which allows more people to
partake in its pleasures.
 As more people develop a design sensibility, we’ll increasingly be able
to deploy design for its ultimate purpose: changing the world.
Design is the only thing that differentiates one product from another.
WHAT DOES THE RESEARCH SAY?
Study at Georgetown University: Even if students, teachers and educational
approaches remained the same, improving a school’s physical environment
increases test scores by 11%.
Study at Pittsburgh’s Montefiore Hospital: Surgery patients with natural lighting
require less pain medication and their drug costs lower by 21%
 Study of two groups of people who suffered identical ailments: 1 group in a sun
lit, visually appealing ward, the other in a dreary conventional ward --- The group in
the visually appealing ward were released at least 2 days earlier than the other
group.
Keep a Design Notebook: When you see a great or even, flawed design, keep
note of it. You will soon be looking at graphics, interiors, and environments with
greater aquity.
Read Design Magazines: Reading design magazines will sharpen your eye and
inspire your mind: How, iD, O Magazine, Print, Real Simple, Metropolis, Dwell
Be Like Karim: go to www.karimrashid.com to view the 50 point guide to life
and design.
Be a Design Detective: Visit open houses and look at real estate ads in search of
homes likely to yield a mix of design ideas and insights
Design Something Yourself: Examples: Design your own font at
www.fontifier.com, Nike shoe at www.atnikeid.nike.com or Vans skate shoe at
www.vans.com
C-R-A-P ify Your Graphic Design: Read about and learn the four basics of effective
graphic design by reading The Non-Designer’s Design Book: Design and
Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice (Contrast, Repetition, Alignment,
Proximity)
Be Choosy: Choose things in your life that will endure, that are a pleasure to use.
Never let things be more important than your family, friends, and your own spirit!
 Content enriched by Emotion: As facts become so easily and widely available, they
become less valuable. What matters more is the ability to place these facts in context and to
deliver them with emotional impact!
 In an age of abundance, storytelling differentiates organizations, businesses,etc.
 “Stories are important cognitive events, for they encapsulate, into one compact package,
information, knowledge, context and emotion.”
 The tendency to see and explain the world in common narratives is very deeply ingrained
that we often do not notice it.
Storytelling does not replace analytical thinking, but it supplements it be enabling us to
imagine new perspectives and new worlds.
An organization’s knowledge is contained in its stories… Organizational Storytelling
Write a Mini-Sage: Write a mini-saga– just 50 words long—Yet, it must have a beginning,
middle and end.
Whip Out the Tape Recorder: Find a friend or relative, sit him down, turn on a tape recorder,
and ask questions about his life.
Visit a Storytelling Festival: National Storytelling Festival; Yukon International Storytelling
Festival; Bay Area Storytelling Festival; Digital Storytelling Festival; Sharing the Fire-New England
Storytelling Conference
Get One Story: Read short stories by Maribeth Batcha and Hannah Tinti.
Play Photo Finish: Select a photo and fashion a tale about what is happening in the picture.
Experiment with Digital Storytelling: Enhance storytelling by using modern technology–
Digital cameras, Photoshop, video editing programsAsk Yourself…”Who Are These People?” When in public place, make up a story about two
people you see. This activity can help one challenge assumptions, bypass stereotypes and
broaden the stories you create in your interactions with family.
The ability to put together the pieces simultaneously
To synthesize rather than analyze
To link unconnected elements to create something new
Being able to understand the connections between diverse and seemingly separate
disciplines
To detect broad patterns rather than to deliver specific answers
To invent something new by combining elements noone else thought to pair
 With increases in automation and outsourcing to Asia, professionals must be equipped
to do what technology can’t do….recognizing patters, crossing boundaries to uncover
hidden connections, and making leaps of imagination.
…..In the Conceptual Age, there are three kinds of people needed: the boundary
crosser, the inventor and the metaphor maker. “In the next 10 years, people will be
required to think and work across boundaries into new zones that are totally different
from their areas of expertise. They will not only have to cross these boundaries, but
they will also have to identify opportunities and make connections between them.”
Listen to Great Symphonies: Listening to symphonies is an wonderful way to develop your
powers of symphony.
Draw: Learn how to draw– Read the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Try
drawing yourself using only five lines.
Hit the Newsstand: Spend 20 minutes at the newsstand reviewing magazines you’ve never
looked at. Then look for connections to your own work or life.
Look for Solutions in Search of Problems: Read the book Why Not?: How to Use Everyday
Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small. Smart solutions need a few more problems–
Examine existing solutions and ask two questions: Where else would it work? Would flipping it
work?
 Follow the Links: Choose a topic you find interesting, type it into Google and follow the
links. Repeat the process, always clicking on a new link from the site you’re working on. At the
end, reflect on your journey and what you have learned.
Create an Inspiration Board: When your working on a project, empty your bulletin board and
turn it into an inspiration board Each time you see something that you find compelling- a photo,
a piece of fabric, the page of a magazine, pin it to the board- You will start seeing connections
between the images that will enliven and expand your work.
Look for Negative Spaces: Train your eyes to look for negative space in pictures. Being
aware of negative space will change how you look at your surroundings.
…..feeling with someone, sensing what it would be like to be that
person----virtual reality-climbing into another’s mind to experience
the world from that person’s perspective
Emotions generally aren’t revealed in L-Directed ways—they are mainly not put into words,
but rather in non-verbal means--- Reading into expression is a R-brained speciality.
 Because our brains are contralateral, when caretakers cradle babies who can’t talk, they
look at their emotions and solicit the right hemisphere to do it. (People who have damage in
their right hemispheres or who have Autism, have difficulty translating facial expression and
emotions. By contrast, people who damage to the right hemisphere, have difficulty
processing language and are very good at reading facial expression.)
 Cheap and widespread online access, combined with outsourced knowledge workers, are
making the attributes measured easily by IQ more easily replaced--- what is far more difficult
to reproduce is empathy.
 Scientists in the field of ‘affecting computing’ haven’t made much progress– some can
detect the ‘existence’ of emotions but can’t take it apart to understand it
REMEMBER……..In the
Conceptual Age….
Any work that be reduced to rules using computers or can be outsourced to low-wage
workers overseas, will be eliminated.
The work that will remain will be require a deep understanding of the subtleties of human
interaction.
New university course in business and medical schools are being developed called
‘Interpersonal Dynamics’….otherwise known as ‘touchy-feely.’
Empathy is needed to live a life of ‘meaning.’ It is connected to Design, Story and
Symphony…HOW?
Test yourself: Empathy Quotient (www.tinyurl.com/dbsd8),Spot the Fake Smile
(www.tinyurl.com/2u7sh ), Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test
(www.emotionalintelligencembs.com/MSCEIT.htm
 Study Ekman’s books…. Emotions Revealed, Telling Lies, visit his website
www.paulekman.com to learn about the expression training tools available
Eavesdrop: Listen to the conversations of those nearby. Then imagine yourself in their
situation. What are you thinking and feeling at that moment? What emotions are coursing
through your body? How did you end up in this particular place a this particular time?
Play…”Whose Life?” Ask someone to loan you a purse and take out identification of person.
Then in small groups, review the contents– and determine what sort of life– personal,
professional, emotional– the person lives—Determine from the artifacts in the purse.
Empathize on the Job? A Day in the Life: Do you really know what work is like for a
colleague? Write participants’ names on flipchart. List 4 categories: my highs, my lows, my
frustrations, my rewards. Post sheets on walls. Participants walk around and write what the
answers are from their colleagues.
….”Moving away from sober seriousness as a measure of ability and the elevation of the
next essential high-concept, high-touch aptitude: PLAY! When you are playful, you
are activating the right side of your brain. The logical brain is limited. The right
hemisphere is unlimited.”
Madan Kataria– Physician in Mumbai, India---believes that laughter is contagious and
a very integral component of improving health, increasing profits and brining world
peace---- ‘laughter clubs’ are popular in India– Laughter reduces stress hormones
 It was once believed that ‘work and play’ were toxic combinations- “The opposite of
play IS NOT work…rather, it is depression.
 People succeed when they have fun doing their work!
As abundance increases, work and play will become more common and necessary.
Games (including virtual sports) have become a larger business than the motion
picture industry– Field of education, the medical fields and the military have also
embraced them as powerful learning tools– Video games increase visual perception and
the capacity to process information simultaneously
“Changes in the ways games are build indicate less of a future demand for coders, but
more for artists, designers, producers, and story-tellers.”
….”Humor embodies many of the right hemisphere’s most powerful attributes– the ability
to place situations in context, to glimpse the big picture, and to combine differing
perspectives into new alignments…And that makes play increasingly valuable in the
world of work. “
Humor reduces hostility, deflects criticism, relieves tension, improves morale and helps
communicate difficult messages.
Find a laughter club: www.laughteryoga.org or read the book, view the video, or
listen to the DVD Laugh for No Reason
Play the Cartoon Captions Game: Get cartoons but white out the captions- Develop
captions of your own
 Play at Inventing: Check out the ‘Invention at Play’ website at
www.inventionatplay.org This focuses on the similarities between the way children and
adults play and the creative processes used by innovators in science and technology
Get Your Game On: Learn about and play all kinds of games! Yahoo! Games
www.games.yahoo.com, Game Spot www.gamespot.com, Game Talk
www.gametalk.com , Game Zone www.gamezone.com and Newsgaming,
www.newsgaming.com
 Go Back to the Playground! Have fun at your neighborhood park!
 Play Right-Brain Games– Two new wireless games designed to test and enhance RDirected abilities---- www.bluelavawireless.com
… “The search for meaning is a drive that exists in all of us– There is a
growing recognition that spirituality– not religion necessarily, but the more
broadly defined concern for the meaning and purpose of life– is a
fundamental part of human condition.”
While taking spirituality seriously is commonplace in Asia, because of the success of
the L-Directed Thinking which has led to ‘abundance,’ more and more people in the
US are in search for their life meaning
Our capacity for faith (not religion) but the belief in something larger than ourselvesmay be wired into our brains
There is a need for a ‘whole-minded’ approach to medical healing– L-Directed
reason combined with R-Directed spirit
 There is a need to take ‘happiness’ more seriously
 There is a growing number of ‘labyrinths’ ~ People walk into them, and they shift
consciousness from the linear to the non-linear- they begin to see their whole life–
David Tolzman (designed and built the John Hopkins labyrinth) stated, “As the left
brain engages in the logical progression of walking the path, the right brain is free to
think creatively
 Say Thanks: Gratitude enhances well-being and deepens one’s sense of meaning
Write a letter of gratitude and then read it to the person.
 Take the 20-10 Test: Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, asks…. If you inherited $20
million or you knew you had 10 years to live, would you continue to do what you are doing
now? Would you stick with your current job? How would you spend your days?
 Measure Your Spirit: Spiritual Transcendence Scale– If you score high, you believe
that there is a larger plan and meaning to life Index of Core Spiritual Existence- It will let
you now how much spirituality plays a role in your overall happiness Visit:
www.tinyurl.com/5sz7u
 But Out: Break through your obstacles– Compile a list of some of the importance changes
you’d like to make happen in your life and what’s keeping you from actualizing them.
Then… exchange the ‘ands’ for the ‘buts.’ Example: I like to spend an hour a day on
exercising, but I always have other things to do. Take the ‘excuse’ out of your reason–
and make the change!
 Visit a Labyrinth: Go to the Worldwide Labyrinth Locator:
wwll.veriditas.labyrinthsociety.org
Creating the 21st. C.
Curriculum
The Generative Question: What curriculum will prepare
students for the 21st Century? What skills & values will
be required?
• creativity and innovation
• facility with the use of ideas and
abstractions
• self-discipline and organization to
manage one’s own work and drive it
through to successful conclusion
• leadership
• ability to function well as a member
of a team
Creating the 21st. C.
Curriculum
The Generative Question: What curriculum will prepare
students for the 21st Century? What skills & values will be
required?
Do we believe the following?
• “Imagination is more important than knowledge?”
~Albert Einstein. If so why so little of it in school from
grade 4 on?
• Note: “Fourth-grade slump," Newsweek, 2/19/07.
40% of 5-8 year olds read each day. "Kids lose their
mojo when they get to 4th grade. Declining interest in
reading (by 4th grade it drops to 29%) and gradual
disengagement from school.”
Creating the 21st. C.
Curriculum
The Generative Question: What curriculum will prepare
students for the 21st Century? What skills & values will
be required?
Do we believe the following?
• “There’s too much pressure on our overscheduled kids.”
If so, why does research say the most engaged and
healthy kids are heavily involved in extracurriculars?
• Cf: Yale Professor Joseph Mahoney’s study: the more
activities the better ~Newsweek 10/2/06. Also, Douglas
Heath’s research in Schools of Hope and Lives of Hope on
successful independent school graduates: success tracks
best not with grades or SAT scores but with
extracurricular involvement.
Creating the 21st. C.
Curriculum
The Generative Question: What curriculum will prepare students
for the 21st Century? What skills & values will be required?
Do We Need More of …or Less of
• Teaming in class not just out?
• Math, Science, & Technology?
• Critical Thinking Skills? What exactly are they? Can
you measure them?
• Ethical grounding?
• Communications Skills?
• Creativity?
In the new Conceptual Era…
Ask Yourself…
• Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
• Can a computer do it faster?
• Am I offering something that satisfies the
nonmaterial, transcendent desires of an
abundant age?
And Remember…. The ‘Age of the Art’
world will be in your hands if you are….
•
•
•
•
Inventors
Artists
Entrepreneurs
Imaginative
• Right-brain
professionals
•Emotionally intelligent
•Storytellers
•Effective, empathetic
communicators