My initial gut reaction to the cover of Daniel H Pink’s book was negative. I have always considered myself a very left brained, logical brain. Throughout my life, I had been under the assumption that you are either left brained or right brained. That’s it. When I saw the cover, I initially thought to myself, “Oh here we go, Right brainers are sooo much better than people like me!” As I picked up the book, I was expecting ‘left brain’ people like me were going to get bashed. I was pleasantly surprised! As I read the assignments out of this book, I caught myself wanting to read more! I felt myself agreeing with Pink, and making lots of notes in the margins. Usually with classroom readings, I really have to concentrate to read it, because a lot of time, I am not all that interested or motivated to read it. This book however, was fantastic. I saw myself agreeing, and thinking to myself, “Oh wow, he’s right!!” I knew most of the information that he wrote about, but he organized it in a way that really made me understand what he meant by “Right brainers will rule the future.” I had a prejudice that you were either right or left brained. As Pink explained his reasoning, I completely understood AND related to it. Relating to it was the LAST thing I expected.
From Pink, I learned that we, as a society, are exiting the ‘Information Age,’ and entering the ‘Conceptual Age’ (Pink, 2006). This was all very new to me. Even if it was new to me, I understood it completely. I loved that he included the chart on page 49 that illustrated the different ages of man. Being a history teacher, this comparison between the ages really stood out to me. I also learned that the goal of every person to be to utilize both sides of their brains. Pink explained both sides of the brain and their functions so well. I really did ‘get it.’ I learned that in order to be successful in the conceptual age, one must learn to utilize both sides. If you are just L-Brained, you are great at analyzing information and logical thinking, but there is no ability to innovate. The ability to change, and adapt comes from the right side of the brain. In order to stand out in today’s society, you need both skills: The ability to gather information, and the ability to use that information to be innovative.
I have always seen myself strictly as a L-Brained individual. Change and anything artistic scares me. I have always been jealous of people that could sing and draw. Pink quoted Betty Edwards as saying, “Drawing is not really very difficult. Seeing is the problem” (Pink 2006, pg 15). This took me also by surprise. I can’t draw a straight line with a ruler. I don’t have an ounce of drawing skill in my repertoire. I always struggled in artistic classes. As I thought about Edward’s quote, I thought to myself, well I’ve tried drawing, I just can’t see like artistic people can. I have a hard time translating a subject, to a drawing on paper. I then I asked myself if I express my creativity in any other way. I do. I love taking photos. To me, they tell a story. I have to say, that being a teacher has helped me cope with the fear of change. In some ways, teaching has also helped me overcome it. You HAVE to have some level of creativity to be a teacher. Things rarely go as planned and a teacher has to have the ability to adapt. I appreciate art and find meaning in it. I encourage my students to think outside the box, and they always rise to the occasion. I find myself also being very creative in my lesson planning. As my knowledge of my subject reaches a mastery level, I find myself being more creative with how I present the information. This also aligns with Pink’s thoughts. We now have an abundance of information and knowledge. Knowledge and literacy are no longer scarce. Now, we focus on how to create something new from this knowledge I am much more creative than I thought.
I absolutely loved Pink’s inclusion of a designer toilet scrubber. I laughed out loud. Pink states that “in the age of abundance, appealing to the rational, logical and functional needs is woefully insufficient” (Pink 2006, pg 34). We no longer want a functional toilet scrubber; we also want one that is pretty. An abundance of products allows us to focus on our emotional and spiritual needs instead of a means to an end. Being a social studies teacher, the part of the book that talked about the effect of outsourcing has on our economy was really interesting. I always knew that there is cheaper labor overseas and that because communication is so easy (Pink 2006). These two things make outsourcing labor very easy to do for companies. Outsourcing jobs makes me nervous because it has such a negative impact on our economy. This made me think that it might be time for the US to innovate again. We need to create jobs that help foster the ‘conceptual age’ instead of clinging on to the ‘information age.’ All in all, I really enjoyed reading this book. I found myself also agreeing with a lot of what Pink had to say! I am interested to see how our country adapts to the new Conceptual Age.
Pink, D. H. (2006). A whole new mind: Why right brainers will rule the future. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.
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