However, if people try and use it as the basis to do something beyond just feeling good about already existing beliefs, it provides a weak foundation for meaningful action. That’s the basis of my issue with its widespread use by educators.

I’ll admit to loving DP’s book as I read it. Sure it is at times dichotomous and simplistic to make a point, but I did not read it as an either/or proposition. After all, he didn’t title the book The Right Mind, but rather A Whole New Mind.

I looked past the U.S.-centric view of the economics (common in the business “how-to” market and yes somewhat tasteless to me as a Canadian) to a learning and development focus and understanding. While not an academic journal (nor does it profess to be), DP’s book stirs food for thought and makes that thinking accessible to all. As educators it may help us in tuning the policy makers and parents into what can matter in our schools.

I agree that “drawing a hard line” is not appropriate, but sometimes we need to identify the line that needs to be crossed to develop, as the opening Coleridge quote in DP’s book suggests, great androgynous minds.

I also agree with what you wrote in comment to Nate. There is SO much, for lack of a better term, press about the importance of developing right-brain skills and thinking that a) you’d think there was a creativity drought, and b) left-brain thinking has almost become demonized (hmmm….modern version of left handed/right handed business?).

Kind of like what happened with boys in school (in particular in science and math). There was such a concern that girls were not getting the attention they needed that educators began to focus solely on their needs to the detriment of the boys in the class. As a result, 20 years later people began crying out about their concern with boys in school.

Balance. Balance. Balance, please.

I get very annoyed by “left brain”/”right brain” discourse. It is a limiting idea, and one which doesn’t contain any insights. I like the way you put it: to draw a hard line between sciences and creativity “shows a profound misunderstanding of both”.

As a chemical engineer with computer science training, I feel there’s a fairly widespread “profound misunderstanding” about technical professions (engineering in particular).

It seems that engineers are thought of as dull, introverted, grey-suited automatons, brainlessly following scripted routines with incontravertible rules. We are thought of as overpaid calculators, incapable of accessing the richness of human emotion. This is absolute rubbish, and can lead to a damaging mistrust of expert opinion (but that’s another argument).

Engineering is an art, that uses science as a tool. It involves bringing into existence that which wasn’t there before – it is by definition creative.

To practise it well, or to witness it practised well can bring the same visceral fulfillment, the same engulfing satisfaction, as can be provided by music or poetry.

Sure, the field has misanthropes. What sphere of human endeavour doesn’t? The thing is, none of those misanthropes are likely to be successful. If all you can do is sums and calculations (can’t communicate, can’t conceptualise, can’t access intuition) you are going to make, at best, a mediocre engineer. This was true ten years ago, it’s true now, and it will be true ten years in the future. Industry has recognised that this is true and has been willing to pay a premium for well-rounded, passionate, creative technical people for some time.

Dan is mistaken. There is no “trend” towards “right-brainness” from a historical preference for “left-brainness”. Defining yourself as either limits yourself, and makes you less valuable to any organisation.

- Greg

While I would fall into the right-brained preference category that Pink is lauding, I also know there is beauty in numbers – and the combination of raw numbers and visual elements can result in exciting and aesthetically pleasing results. Just for beginners, M. C. Escher ( http://www.mcescher.com/ ) and Edward Tufte ( http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/index and http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi ) each come from a science (left-brain) aspect to the visual/creative side . . . and they do it with delightful success.

I haven’t read Pink’s book, and I am not particularly interested in doing so. I think that any pendulum swing to the extreme isn’t going to improve education in any significant way. The problem I see (as a result of reading many comments about this book) is that it continues to push a status quo approach to education – just his own status quo. There doesn’t seem to be any effort to re-imagine the whole learning paradigm and put forth ideas that would drastically re-invent school and the approaches within.

Being a “right-brainer” I felt like so much was missing in school, so I do feel strongly about the fact that educational policy puts so little value in “the arts” and sees them as disposable. However, on the other hand, I watch my son, who loves and excels in math, and marvel at what he can do – the artistry of what he can do – with numbers. It’s a balance that needs a relevant architecture so that kids have the chance to see the beauty in the learning and express their understanding in unique and innovative ways.

- Greg

I’m a ‘left-brainer’ who swings both ways! LOL I find beauty and creativity in the sequential and linear, I nuture my ‘artisitic’ nature by creating works of art and masterpieces on the computer, dabbling in watercolor, photography, and beading.

I’ve not read Pink’s book, nor do I plan to (I’ve got at least 2,361 books on my list to read before I get to his!). I will, however, read ‘Brain Rules’ (this afternoon actually) which seems to me to be more relevant to looking at how we teach.

Why haven’t I picked up Pink’s book? I’m not a proponent of extremes. I truly don’t understand why an individual can’t be at one end of the spectrum, then swing to the other, and occasionally just hang in the middle.

Why am I glad that others have read Pink’s book? I think any time something sparks heated discussion and gets people to look at how things are being accomplished and what they believe is always a good thing.

P.S. I don’t think Pink hates you…