The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Betty Edwards [9]
A recent article in an educational journal summarizes neuroscientists’ objections to “brain-based education.”
“The fundamental problem with the right-brain versus left-brain claims that one finds in educational literature is that they rely on our intuitions and folk theories about the brain, rather than on what brain science is actually able to tell us. Our folk theories are too crude and imprecise to have any scientific predictive or instructional value. What modern brain science is telling us—and what brain-based educators fail to appreciate—is that it makes no scientific sense to map gross, unanalyzed behaviors and skills—reading, arithmetic, spatial reasoning—onto one brain hemisphere or another.”
But the author also states: “Whether or not [brain-based] educational practices should be adopted must be determined on the basis of the impact on student learning.”
—John T. Bruer
“In Search of . . .
Brain-Based Education,”
Phi Delta Kappan, May
1999, p. 603
What kept me working at my “folk” theory (see the margin excerpt) was that, when put into practice, the results were inspiring. Students of all ages made significant gains in drawing ability and, by extension, in perceptual abilities, since drawing well depends on seeing well. Drawing ability has always been regarded as difficult to acquire, and has nearly always been additionally burdened by the notion that it is an extraordinary, not an ordinary, skill. If my method of teaching enables people to gain a skill they previously thought closed off to them, is it the neurological explanation that makes the method work, or is it something else that I may not be aware of?
I know that it is not simply my style of teaching that causes the method to work, since the hundreds of teachers who have reported equal success using my methods obviously have widely differing teaching styles. Would the exercises work without the neurological rationale? It’s possible, but it would be very difficult to persuade people to accede to such unlikely exercises as upside-down drawing without some reasonable explanation. Is it, then, just the fact of giving people a rationale—that any rationale would do? Perhaps, but I have always been struck by the fact that my explanation seems to make sense to people at a subjective level. The theory seems to fit their experience, and certainly the ideas derive from my own subjective experience with drawing.
In each edition of this book I have made the following statement:
The theory and methods presented in my book have proven empirically successful. In short, the method works, regardless of the extent to which future science may eventually determine exact location and confirm the degree of separation of brain functions in the two hemispheres.
I hope that eventually scholars using traditional research methods will help answer the many questions I have myself about this work. It does appear that recent research tends to corroborate my basic ideas. For example, new findings on the function of the huge bundle of nerve fibers connecting the two hemispheres, the corpus callosum, indicate that the corpus callosum can inhibit the passage of information from hemisphere to hemisphere when the task requires noninterference from one or the other hemisphere.
Meanwhile, the work appears to bring a great deal of joy to my students, whether or not we fully understand the underlying process.
A further complication
One further complication of seeing needs mentioning. The eyes gather visual information by constantly scanning the environment. But visual data from “out there,” gathered by sight, is not the end of the story. At