ISEA 2012 Workshop: Kenneth Wesson: Brain-sight; seeing through the minds eye
(lecture notes from isea2012)
- For most conversations on education we bypass the way the brain works.
- Hard wired learning can be an obstacle to new learning. Shown by a hands-on experiment writing and drawing in mirror.
- When growing the brain separates and the other half becomes the skin, thats why touch is so deeply wired.
- Humunculi of the motor-cortex and visual-cortex show the dominance of the hands for learning.
- Babies learn by touching everything.
- After the corpus-collosum is mature, the brain can learn fractions, morality, etc. So don't try to teach them before then..
- Drawing does for the brain during the day, what dreaming does during the night.
- To develop images in the minds eye, develop this skill by drawing in the air of by using touch only (hands in box, maths)
- Brain sight box, doing 3+2= by touching objects in a box.
- Drawing by touch gives much more accurate results than by sight (for relative novice drawers) We do the experiment during the workshop.
- By touch abstract concepts can be learned straight to the brain, not passed the visual system.
- The illiterates of the future are not those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, un-learn, re-learn.
Ken applies many wonderful hands-on experiments in his lectures and workshops and you work with your neighbour in the audience. So he practices what he preaches. This makes it accessible to all ages too.