A Whole New Mind – Essay

A totally in the raw Mind Alm arne L deliverdes EDL 546 Summer 2012 whitethorn 31, 2012 A whole parvenue capitulum is a mustiness subscribe for t emerge ensemble studyers, administrators, and other stakeholders. This take for has inspired me to severely sound off slightly my confess instruction practices as I assay to restore my scholars and I for professional success. After reflecting on the concepts in Daniel Pinks book I collect removeed myself if my inculcate District and I be effectively preparing my students for the future?With budget cuts, high up stakes testing, and pressure to raise student test scores consume we failed to entertain activities that enable students to implement their psyches honorable cerebral cerebral cerebral hemisphere supremely, leaving them unequipped for our future? We remove reduced the amount of succession straightforward students spend in Art, Music, and PE. In my conduct up Kindergarten schoolroom I frequently attempt with abideing my students to build their creativity beca design of the pressure of measure constraints and adhering to study schedules/pacing guides.In the introduction, Pink gives minimize knowledge on the wait ons of the leave and proficient hemispheres of the brain and clears up misconceptions that numerous pile hold. Pink tells us that the left(p) and sort out hemispheres of the brain work unitedly. However, the left hemisphere is sequential which gives it the capability to test lucubrate and the ripe hemisphere is simultaneous which support in synthesizing the bigger picture. This in melodic phraseation moxie tooth easily be colligate to belief. When didactics my kindergarten students concepts of print, ph geniusmic aw argonness, and phonics I am tapping into my students left hemisphere.For example, article of belief my kindergarteners that we read from left to right, instruction the alphabet, and decoding are activities that utilize their lef t hemisphere. The hire of lower to higher direct questioning requires students to utilize their left and right hemisphere as well. For example, after interlingual rendition a base to my class, we discuss and service questions almost the texts we pass read. When I ask my students to recall study from a bill the left hemisphere is more active. However, when I ask my students higher-level questions that require them to entail beyond the story their brains are eliciting sponsor form the right hemisphere.Examples, of these types of questions are how do you think the character flavours, what is the most important piece of music of the story, and what personal connections back end you make to the story? Even things much(prenominal) as speech, fluency, and beatnik of a story require students to utilize their brains right hemisphere. In a sprucely titled section called Fear and abomination in My Amygdales n Pink describes, the devil almond-shaped structures that serve as the brains Homeland Security. They are called amygdalas. The bidction of these structures is to process emotions particularly fear.He explained that the left hemisphere is more active in touch on this information. I demonstrate it interesting when he stated that the right amygdala is bear upon when processing faces. It is able to analyze the move of a face as a whole to come to a resultant about how iodine feels. Pink mentioned that this musical theme transcends to any culture. As an ESOL (side for Speakers of Other Languages) aware teacher, I most a lot attain students who do non speak the English language. unrivalled strategy that I use is facial expressions to convey marrow which I now know requires support from our brains right hemisphere. jibe to Pink our culture has al courses held L-Directed Thinkers such(prenominal) as lawyers and engineers in high esteem. He points out that now value is beingness placed on the R-Directed Thinkers such as artist, counselors, and inventors. While I would argue, that some(prenominal) types are thinkers are needed. In my own classroom I would wish well to make a conscious effort to hold dear both types of thinkers so that my students shadow successfully merge both focuss of purview into their lives. According to Pink teachers live R-Directed lives. However, in my administration I feel our direction of thinking is non supported in the way that the school system is currently structured.There are some key points that I feel our school system should adopt. Furthermore, these same themes posterior be used in my own classroom to produce learners who are L and R- Directed Thinkers. The themes that resonate with me the most are Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning. Symphony is the ability to put unneurotic the pieces. It is the capacity to synthesize quite than to analyze to see relationships between seemingly misrelated fields to detect broad patterns rather than to deliver specific answers and to invent something unexampled by combining elements nobody else thought to pair. Empathy is circumscribed as putting yourself in someone elses shoes. Play is the intellection that work is not just about being serious it is about defend as well. Meaning focuses on desire purpose and the greater good. I would like to think of myself as a kind teacher like Mr. Bomeisler. I am very encouraging as I touch every child term I am working. In my own classroom I strive to patron my students reach the highest level of learning, which is synthesizing. Conversely, I induct fallen short because while I service of process my students see relationships between related fields, I need to strive to help them see the relationships between unrelated fields.In numerous ways I have mixed-up those opportunities to help my students develop their powers of Symphony by saucer-eyed tasks like drawing, listening to neoclassic music, and celebrating amateurness. I feel that many K-12 teachers atte mpt with this in their teaching. An example of this is in chemical group teaching. In aggroup up teaching a group of teachers, working unneurotic, image, conduct, and evaluate the learning activities for the same group of students. In practice, team teaching has many varied formats hardly in general it is a kernel of organizing staff into groups to enhance teaching.Teams generally follow staff members who may represent different areas of accede expertise scarcely who region the same group of students and a putting green prep period to prepare for the teaching. To relieve this process a common teaching space is desirable. Team teachers and teachers alike must begin to see the connections between subject areas themselves in order to help students to slip away this. some often you will catch someone who teaches Science read, I do not teach Reading. This as you may of guessed is untrue since teaching Science is teaching the components of nonfiction text.I besides feel, that most schools codt allow teachers the opportunities to plan together and discuss the relationships between their fields. Many administrators are not sympathetic to the judgement that if we authentically want students to be successful they must allow us the epoch to pursue in conversations and planning with each other. Most often team teachers as is the eccentric at my school do not still have the same planning time. We can improve this at my school by allowing time for us to plan together not only as teammates exclusively as account levels. In our mailroom it would be cool if we had an inspiration board.This simple idea will help us to expand our minds. Lastly, I suggest that we read and discuss books as ordain levels such as Dialogue, Metaphors We Live By, and No Waste. We always are given professional developing books to read when we are given the time to get together. How powerful would it be for the R-Direct Thinkers in my organizations if we were allowed the opportunity to read and discuss these books? You would think that in my organization everyone is empathetic and in produce teaches students to empathize with one some other.I am very empathetic and must say that I do wonderful stage business of guiding my students as they develop relationships with one another. I model this as I develop relationships with not only my students but my parents as well. On the other hand it s matchens me to say that every teacher is not empathetic. My mom always told me that, students dont learn until they learn that you care. When you build worthy relationships with students and parents it summations students achievement. In my school milieu I feel that we should decease with being empathetic with each other.Very few principles show empathy for their employees, which make it hard to foster caring relationships with colleagues at work. Recently, school climates have shifted from working together to competing against each other. As odd as it may sound I would argue that many teachers do not even trust each other. For example, First manakin teachers do not trust that Kindergarten teachers have effectively taught their students. Second sexual conquest teachers do not trust that First grade teachers have through their jobs. This trend goes from grade to grade.As a result, teachers spend valuable instructional time re teaching information to students. Instructional time should be dramatic play to students. At times I often forget this simple concept. As a teacher I have found it my personal goal to find fictive ways to put the fun back into teaching and learning. On my quest to put to death this goal there are some(prenominal) suggestions from Pink that I will use to do this. One thing that my group members at JU and I are study is how can we use drama to increase students achievement? According to Pink, gaming plays a significant role in learning.James capital of Minnesota Gee argues that gamys can be the ultimat e learning machine. I might also add that games are fun and lovely for students. Next year, I plan to bring my Wii to school and allow students to play games such as Reading Rabbit and benny Street in my classroom. Another way that my organization and I can foster the idea of play is being Gilbertian with our students and us. The pressures of high stakes testing, time management, and shed light on bottom pressure exerted on teachers have caused us to become little and less humorous and wallowful.There are things that we can do to bring humor and rejoice into teaching. close to immediate ideas that come to mind are simply playing with our students. It is so fun to play on the playground with my students. non only does this bring me joy but also it brings my students an equal amount of joy and humor in watching me do things that are out of the box for adults. not only should we play with kids but we should also play with each other. I reckon one year some colleagues and I dec ided to form a kickball team to play on this kickball league one of us had heard about.Not only did allow me to forget about the pressures of teaching it allowed us to empathize with each other finished the simple act of playing. Which in turn make us more harming at work. Another idea that the educational organization should adopt is getting our game on. Not only should we utilize gaming in the classroom we should participate in gaming ourselves. Lastly, I feel that administrators and facilitators should start meetings by dissecting jokes. This is something that I can right off implement when I facilitate myself.I can also do this with my kindergarteners by development simple jokes starting with knock-knock jokes. Developing gaiety through play can add meaning to not only learning but our jobs as well. It is said, that we are natural for meaning and live for self-expression and an opportunity to overlap that which we feel is important. I believe that at some point in time e very teacher is passionate about his or her job and are often carriageing for the opportunity to share his or her expertise. Somehow this passion fades as we control looking inside ourselves to make meaning out of our jobs.Something that my grade level has done to build meaning is utilizing busts. Every teacher on my grade level purchased a small pail to place teardrops in. to each one of us was given paper made teardrops that we use to show our gratitude for things that we have done, or modeled, or shared with one another. For example, I was once given a teardrop for staying late to help the people who were smart to my grade level fill out student snapshots after I was already done. I gave a tear to another teacher for allowing me the gift of observing her teach a lesson to her students on connections.In my opinion this simple act can add a sense of purpose to our job. This can be implemented on all grade levels and adapted to our students. Pink states that Right-Brainers will ruler the future. As teachers we can equip our students for this new era. Administrators can help R-Directed thinkers such as ourselves by creating an environment that is conducive to the way that we think. By implementing simple strategies suggested in A Whole New Mind we can once again find joy in teaching as we strive to increase student achievement.There are many pearls that I have taken from this book. One of the pearls I have taken from this book is that the simple act of empathizing can help to increase student achievement. Another is the idea that play is essential to my classroom and environment as it brings happiness and joy. Also, it is important to look at things from the bigger picture and lastly, pursuance purpose and the greater good seems to define us uniquely as humans. university extension Pink, D. (2005). A Whole New Mind. New York The Penguin Group.