This painting of Pallas Athena is one of my favourite ...



WHOLE BRAIN TEACHING AND LEARNING :

THE COMING REVOLUTION

PAPER PRESENTED BY

PROFESSOR DR GUILLAUME DE MEUTER

GLOBAL EDUCATOR TEAM

1999

NEW FRONTIERS IN LEARNING

CONFERENCE

BRIGHTON, ENGLAND

OCTOBER 4 - 6 , 1999

Ladies and gentlemen, the Information Society in which we live is a knowledge-based society. No one will, I think, dispute this fact.

Now, knowledge is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, knowledge is power. Conversely, knowledge without wisdom is dangerous, if not deadly, as Goethe made abundantly clear in his little parable of the Sorcerer's Apprentice.

We have the knowledge, no doubt ... and it is growing at a prodigious rate. So we now need the wisdom to go with it if we do not want to destroy ourselves and this beautiful planet in the process.

Wisdom. What do we mean by that ? Where do we get it ? How do we attain it ?

I will answer these questions by turning to the Greek goddess of wisdom, Pallas Athena.

As you will soon see, she is an apt symbol for the subject of this presentation - Whole Brain Teaching and Learning.

Greek mythology informs us that Athena's parents were Zeus and Metis, the goddess of measure, mind and wisdom. Zeus - like his father, Kronos - was a violent and dangerous deity. He soon became envious of the prodigious powers of his spouse and devoured her to consume her attributes. Metis, however, was two months pregnant with their daughter, Athena, who carried on growing to term in his father's head.

It not surprising , then, that one morning Zeus developed a terrible headache which got worse as the day wore on. He ordered Hermes to find someone to relieve him of his agony and the messenger of the gods came back with Prometheus who placed a wedge against Zeus' forehead and split his head with a powerful blow of a hammer. Athena sprang out of this central fissure, fully grown and dressed in resplendent armor.

The meaning of the myth is clear enough:

• Firstly, Athena emerges from Zeus' head when his brain is still whole and both cerebral hemispheres are united. Wisdom - which Athena personifies - is, therefore, born by uniting the attributes of both halves of the brain, of the whole brain. This is the deeper purpose of education and the ultimate aim of life.

• Secondly, Athena is already an adult when she erupts from her father's skull. This is because wisdom is the result of a long learning process and only comes with maturity. (The only other deity in the Greek pantheon to be born as an adult is Aphrodite, the goddess of sexual love, which only manifests itself in young adulthood.)

The message implicit in the story of Athena's birth is underscored by the fact that Zeus sired two more gods after his brain was split : Apollo and Dionysus. Apollo, the sun god, symbolizes the left brain. He is the god of rational thinking, mathematics, law, philosophy, medicine and science. His brother, the moon god Dionysus, embodies the properties of the right hemisphere: intuition, emotion, sexuality, dance, music and art. Both Apollo and Dionysus are one-sided and the tales associated with them illustrate the danger and sterility of one-sided hemispheric domination. Pallas Athena, on the other hand, is a symbol of life lived with the 'whole brain' and for the wholeness and balance that generates wisdom.

If we take an objective look at our society, the predominance of the Apollonian traits is unmistakeable and has had severe consequences. It has distorted every aspect of our lives: our value systems, our institutions, our educational system, our concept of intelligence, our attitude towards the science and technology, our attitude towards nature, our interpersonal relationships and our self image.

To make matters worse, the Apollonian bias of Western culture has spread throughout the world because of the success and impact of science and technology. This has led to an undermining and collapse of the traditional values of other civilisations: ....we are all familiar with the consequences.

But the tide is turning. Resistance to the bias in Western society has been gathering momentum over the last century. The deeper significance of the emancipation movement, for instance, is an irresistible urge to reestablish psychological balance in our culture. Emancipation has not only to do with making sure that women have equal rights and career opportunities. This is just the first step. Emancipation has to do with according the left-brain, feminine qualities of feeling and intuition the respect and status which is their due. It has to do with integrating these qualities into every aspect of our social and private lives. It has to do with men consciously developing their female side, and not only with women developing their male side. Our global society will only attain a semblance of balance and stability when both the male and the female aspects of our psyche are respected and integrated into our daily lives. Pallas Athena is androgyne, uniting both all the essential male and female qualities in her person. She is, here again, the symbol for what we should all strive to achieve, the highest goal in life - wholeness, and the wisdom that results from it.

Whole brain living, then, is the secret to personal and societal balance, to wholeness and wisdom.

If our knowledge-based society is to survive and flourish, we must rediscover whole brain living. To achieve this we urgently need an educational system which implements whole brain teaching and learning. A didactic philosophy and methodology based on Whole Brain Psychology would not only be more effective and humane than the current system, it would optimize the transmission of knowledge, impart a sense of vision and meaning to life, and help our students grow into balanced and mature human beings.

Now that we understand this, how do we tackle this task ?

The Analytical Psychology of Carl Gustav Jung , especially the character typology outlined in his 'Psychological Types' (1920) and his concept of Individuation - will show us the way. Jung - a Swiss psychiatrist - was the first modern thinker to develop a whole brain psychology.

Jung claims that we orient ourselves toward the world in either of two basic ways which he termed introversion and extraversion ...... words which have since become part of our everyday vocabulary. As you know, introverts are most happy when they are by themselves, 'doing their own thing' as it were. They are 'loners', do not like socializing and often feel uncomfortable when forced into a situation where they have to interact socially with a group of people. Extraverts, on the other hand, are generally 'well adjusted', enjoy interacting with people and don't like living or working alone.

Jungian character typology teaches that we are not only either introverted or extraverted, but also that we relate to life and and process our experiences via four main functions: thinking, intuiting, feeling, sensing. One of these functions is predominant. That is to say, we all have a natural psychological bias.

If thinking is your main function, you will be strong on clear logical thinking. You will be methodical and able to analyse problems. If you have intuition as your main function will be good at ideas, creative and a "lateral thinker" - the imaginative approach. If you are a 'feeler' you will see things according to personal values and not from a dispassionate weighing up of pros and cons. 'Feelers' are warm, outgoing and thrive on social interaction. If you are the 'sensation type' you will be down-to-earth, energetic and practical, like detailed work and prefer action to words or ideas. You will like to get things done.

If, however, you do not make a conscious effort to develop all our functions, you will tend to have only one well-developed function, one or two that are semideveloped, and one that is underdeveloped. Professor Jung - echoing the warning of Pallas Athena - points out that each one-sided development of the personality generates its own particular constellation of disturbing habit patterns, problems and even illnesses and described them in detail in his work.

Ladies and gentlemen, a familiarity with Jungian character typology is extremely valuable on a personal and interpersonal level - this is especially true for professional educators.

• It permits us to identify which of the four functions is our strongest and which is our weakest. Our teaching style will tend to be biased accordingly.

• If we can sense the strong and weak functions of the people with whom we interact, whether colleagues or students, it enables us to communicate with them and understand them more effectively. We can adapt our language and teaching strategies to the character constellation of the person we are dealing with.

DIAGRAM 1: THE FOUR FUNCTIONS ACCORDING TO C.G. JUNG

Despite the fact that Jung's work was brilliant and subtle, it did not have the impact it should have had. The main reason for this was that, although his theories were considered highly interesting, there was hardly any neurological evidence to support them.

The situation today looks different. Brain research carried out in the last few decades supports the findings of Jungian character typology. Furthermore, although he never explicitly refers to to the Swiss physician and apparently developed his theories independently of him, Jung's theories have also been ratified by Ned Herrmann, the author of the 'The Creative Brain' and 'The Whole Brain Business Book: unlocking the power of whole brain thinking in organizations and individuals'.

Ned Herrmann is the founder of 'Whole Brain Technology' and is the holder of numerous awards and honorary doctorates. Although Herrmann writes primarily for the business community, much of what he says is directly relevant - and extremely valuable - to educators and instructors, and it is to him that I now turn.

In the early sixties Roger Sperry carried out his famous split brain experiments which revealed that the two hemispheres are specialized. This insight into the structure and working of the brain was enriched by Paul Maclean's model of the triune brain in the 1970's in which he analysed the evolution of the reptilian brain, limbic system and cerebrum (see Diagram 2). Herrmann combined the results of Sperry's and Maclean's research, developed a Whole Brain Model with four separate quadrants and carried out extensive research to prove that one quadrant tends to be dominant. Over the years Herrmann, while gathering an impressive body of empirical evidence, has refined his theory and developed a diagnostic method which he calls the HBDI or Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument. (This synergy is represented symbolically in diagrams 3.)

DIAGRAM 2: MACLEAN'S MODEL OF THE TRIUNE BRAIN

DIAGRAM 3: HERRMANN'S SYNERGY OF THE WORK OF SPERRY & MACLEAN

Like Jung, Herrmann distinguishes between four 'thinking types' which bear a very close resemblance to the the four Jungian functions as illustrated in diagram 4. Neither Jung nor Herrmann should be studied in isolation : Jung's detailed psychological analysis of the four types and his concept of Individuation complements the work of Herrmann and gives it greater depth.

DIAGRAM 4: THE FOUR THINKING STYLES ACCORDING TO NED HERRMANN

Even a swift glance at the above diagram of Herrmann's thinking styles, reveals the striking similarity to Jungian character typology: the logical/analytical, intuitive/creative, feeling/ interpersonal and sensory/practical aspects are all present.

Let us now examine the implications of Jung's and Herrmann's work from the perspective of the educator.

Western culture since Plato - who was an avowed devotee of Apollo - has traditionally defined intelligence as referring primarily to the logical and analytical faculties of the mind, and - to a lesser extent - to its organisatory and practical qualites. These are also the aspects which are deliberately trained in our educational systems, resulting in a strong 'Cartesian bias' in our curricula, teaching methods and evaluation techniques (see the 'spearhead' with its main focus in the upper left rational/ analytical quadrant in diagram 5).

On the other hand, Herrmann's research has revealed that any large group of people contains a balanced cross section of all four thinking styles, as illustrated by the thick black rectangle in the diagram.

DIAGRAM 5: THINKING / FUNCTION PROFILE OF LARGE GROUP

What does this - in practical terms - mean ?

• It means that our syllabuses, textbooks and teaching styles have a pronounced left-brain bias and that 50% or more of our students are being taught in a way which is not in accordance with their thinking styles and are at a clear disadvantage when it comes to competing with those students who have the desired intellectual constellation !

• It means that our examinations and evaluation methods are biased and that only those thinking styles which are located in the left hemisphere - the logical/analytical and practical/organisatory - are being suitably trained and tested.

• A third consequence is that a significant proportion of the students who attend our educational establishments - I am referring to all those whose main functions are in the right hemisphere - grow up with the conviction that they are stupid. This social stigma often has an extremely disruptive effect on their self image, their sense of self worth and, consequently, their personal destinies. This is nothing less than criminal !

• Fourthly, -as I have already pointed out - the right-brain bias is reflected in various characteristics of our society, ranging from our exaggerated reverence for science and technology, through our blind exploitation of the biosphere and our too-pronounced competitive ethic in business and sport to the orgies of senseless violence portrayed in the media.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are crossing the threshold to a new millenium and living through a period of rapid and profound transition at many levels. And there is no doubt in my mind that at a momentous paradigm shift is taking place - a radical reassessment of our Weltbild, of our image of humankind and of life. This presentation is a contribution to that paradigm shift.

The distorted conception of intelligence and of education that has held sway for so many years is collapsing around us and our generation is being presented with a unique opportunity to remould the education system. Educators around the globe are actively participating in the restructuring process and are making valuable contributions. I believe that Whole Brain Psychology offers us vital elements of the theoretical infrastructure we need and ask you please to examine it critically and to cooperate with me in testing how it can be applied with the greatest efficacity.

How do we go about testing and implementing Whole Brain Psychology ?

Both Herrmann and Jung point out that we all have a natural psychological bias in our thinking styles. When teaching, however, we should deliberately combine all four thinking styles so that we communicate with the different types in their own language.

Furthermore, we should be aware of :

• the differences in the way students learn

• the differences in what they respond to

• the differences in the language they use

An examination of the three diagrams shown below will reveal that recent trends and innovative initiatives taken in the last decade are already clearly moving in the right direction.

The introduction of active, multimodal learning environments, of flexible learning strategies, problem-oriented learning, project-based learning, teamwork, and the current integration of ICT have all done much to inject new life into education.

What has been missing to date, however, is a convincing platform from which educators can demonstrate the necessity for innovative teaching and learning strategies when confronting the various ministries, the media and the public. Whole Brain Pyschology provides us with such a platform. It is based on empirically tested neurological evidence. It is backed by copious research and sound psychological theories, and its deeper justification is rooted in the traditions of all the major cultures of the world.

DIAGRAM 7: LEARNING

DIAGRAM 8: RESPONDING

DIAGRAM 9: LANGUAGE

In the limited time at my disposal, I have not been able to convey the complexity, depth, subtlety of Whole Brain Psychology, nor was it my intention. This brief overview is the first part of the triad of discussions on the subject. I invite you to participate in the panel discussion which is scheduled immediately after this presentation where I shall be explaining how Herrmann's Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) works and how it can be used to test whether your teaching methods and course material reflect the general thinking style profile of your class . You will also have the opportunity to ask questions about the ideas which I have sketched here. Furthermore, 'Redefining Intelligence', a two-hour panel discussion, is scheduled tomorrow. It will deal with the questions raised here and the practical problems involving the development and implementation of adequate didactic strategies and evaluation methods as well as the integration of ICT into a Whole Brain Curriculum. For those of you who are interested in the subject, I also urge you to read Jung and Herrmann yourselves.

I would like to close on a 'global note'. Pallas Athena and her symbolic message that a 'whole brain' approach to life is the path to wisdom, happiness, wholeness and health has been referred to repeatedly. This is, however, not only a belief harboured by the Greeks. It is also the message of the myths and legends of all the major cultures of the world. It is reflected in the Hieros Gamos, the heavenly marriage, of the medieval alchemists; in the Yin Yang symbol of Taoism; in the Kundalini Yoga of India; in the sacred scarabeus of Egypt; in Quetzalcotl, the feathered serpent of the Aztecs, and in the Jewish Kabbalah, to name a few. So the validity of Whole Brain Psychology is not limited to the West, it is truly universal - transcultural. For us, citizens of a nascent Global Village and of a Webbed World, this is a primary significance.

Ladies and gentlemen, if we can find a way of actively and effectively applying the main principles of Whole Brain Psychology so that we not only develop a more effective, more humane and holistic way of teaching and learning, but also help our students to become balanced and mature individuals and grow into wisdom, we shall be doing future generations a great service.

This should be our vision and our ultimate aim. Nothing less is good enough.

APPENDIX 1: THE FOUR QUADRANTS IN GREATER DETAIL:

APPENDIX 2: JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES IN MORE DETAIL

Thinker

( Enjoys tackling problems with logic.

( Is strong on analysis but weak on implementing solutions.

( Is a methodical worker.

( Is sceptical of projects unless backed up with sound, rational arguments.

At work:

Good with facts and figures; researching; systems analysis; accounting; financial side of business.

Intuitor

( Enjoys playing with ideas and theories.

( Is good at linking ideas : synthesis

( Has a capacity for "overview" : seeing the whole picture.

( Is creative and has a strong imaginative sense.

( Will often get hunches which turn out correct.

At work:

Good at long-term planning; creative writing; lateral thinking; brainstorming.

Sensor

( Is good at getting things done.

( Feels at home with routine work.

( Has a lot of common sense and is practical.

( Works hard and is usually well organized.

( Is energetic and single-minded.

At work:

Good at initiating projects; setting up deals; negotiating; troubleshooting; converting ideas into action.

Feeler

( Enjoys human company.

( Assesses on personal values, not on technical merit.

( Is warm and sympathetic.

( Is perceptive about people's moods, feelings and reactions.

( May overlook blatant facts in favour of "gut feelings".

At work:

Good at cementing team relationships; counselling; arbitrating; public relations; will talk as easily with a clerk as with an executive.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Carl Gustav Jung Psychological Types 1920

Ned Herrmann The Whole Brain Business Book McGraw-Hill 1996

CONTACT:.

E-mail: demeuter@fh-sw.de

Tel: + 49 / 9721 940 702

Fax: + 49 / 9721 940 700

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PALLAS ATHENA: GREEK GODDESS OF WISDOM

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