Brain Discrimination
(Right brain v/s Left brain .. Who’s the winner?)
Allan Ajifo https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Right_brain.jpg
“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” - Albert Einstein
The other night,while we were reading a book about different functions of human body organs,my 6 year old daughter Mahi asked me, “Mommy,do different parts of our brain have different jobs?”
“Yes,they sure do.” I answered.
“What kind of jobs?”
I opened the page with a picture of a brain and began explaining her. “So, brain is divided into two parts. Left Brain and Right Brain. The left brain controls the right side of our body and the right brain controls the left side.”
“No, what I want to know is”, she explained “which part helps you learn maths and stuff?”
“Great question” I said.
“Well ,the left side is apparently the logic side. It helps you learn maths,languages etc. The right side on the other hand is the creative side, it controls your feelings,your thoughts,it helps you learn the skills like singing, dancing or painting.”
“Oh!” She murmured softly. “So that means my right side is alright but my left side is weak.”
I was surprised to hear these words from her. “Why would you say that Mahi?” I asked.
She had tears in her eyes as she spoke, “You know because I love painting, singing and dancing. But I am not at all good at maths. Even in school I don’t understand somethings the teacher says. Many of my friends do, but I don’t. Mommy.. I promise I don’t do it on purpose. I really don’t understand it. May be because my left side of brain is not strong enough. I wish I was smart like other kids.”
It broke my heart to hear these words.
I said to her, “There is nothing wrong with any part of your brain Mahi. It’s just that, you are taking a bit longer to understand few things .That’s all. But look at so many other things you are good at. Drawing,painting, dancing, singing, story telling, writing. You always have so many interesting things to tell, so many great questions to ask. You are just as smart as any of the children in your class. So never think that you are not smart enough. Don’t worry, you’ll get these maths problems one day. But even if you don’t, that’s okay. No big deal. You don’t have to be perfect. Instead try to improve the qualities you already have. Cause you know what,nobody is perfect. I am a grown up and I still don’t know many things. Never allow anyone,not even me, to make you feel that you are not good enough. Cause that won’t be true.”
A faint smile appeared on her face.
She hugged me and went back to reading her book.
However I was worried. Her words were still echoing in my ears.
“My left brain is not strong enough.”
The thing that really surprised me was, how does a 6 year old come to a conclusion that she is not smart enough?
Like any mother would have in my situation, I began blaming myself. I thought to myself, maybe I have done something to make her feel this way.
But then I thought it’s not just me. It’s the way we all have been wired. It’s the way society perceives education.
One thing that baffles me is when people say,“We live in a competitive world. We must prepare our children to face this competition. Else they’ll be left behind.”
I don’t get it. Every time someone says this to me,I am confused.
I think to myself, “They’ll be left behind? Behind from what? Or rather from whom? Their peers? If so,then what? What is this competition all about? And if there is any, then where is the finish line?”
People say, “If you want to get ahead in life, you must get good education.”
Is good education really enough?
I am not against education, what I am against is the way education is defined.
I feel there is a discrimination in the education system all over the world.
By discrimination I don’t mean racial, cultural or financial discrimination.
I am talking about the brain discrimination.
Discriminating the left side of the brain against the right side of the brain.
The logical side v/s the creative side.
I might not be up-to-date with the latest research regarding the brain functions but what I mean is, we usually decide if a child is intelligent or not based on his or her academic performance.
Separating the gifted kids from smart kids. Separating the smart kids from not so smart kids. Separating the not so smart kids from the kids that have a learning disability.
If that is not discrimination then what is it?
On one hand we fight against racism, gender inequality, ageism etc while on the other hand we happily label our kids as genius, smart or that of average intelligence.
Every child is different. Every child is unique.
However there is one thing that all children have in common.
Imagination.
Have you ever played dress ups with a kid?
If you have, I am sure you’ll agree with me. They have such a vivid imagination. The ease with which they make up a character, create a situation, pretend as if the imaginary character is standing in front of them, it’s just amazing.
Although as they grow up, this imagination power begins to fade. Who is responsible for that?
There are many people who spend their entire life thinking that they are not good enough, they are not smart enough or they don’t have any special talent just because of such brain discrimination in early childhood.
This issue has been bothering me for years.
Now I can see that my kids are unknowingly becoming victims of such discrimination. The reason I say unknowingly is because, I am not blaming any one person or one institution for doing so. It’s the way we all have been programmed.
This has been going on for decades. Don’t you think it’s time to bring a change?
However as Mahatma Gandhi said,
“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
How can we bring a change?
Instead of focusing on the skills that our children lack, why can’t we just focus on the skills they have?
Instead of enrolling them in the classes for the subjects they are weak at, why don’t we help them find a way to develop their in built talent, their creativity?
Why don’t we encourage imagination and not perfection?
Why don’t we encourage cooperation instead of competition? The funny fact is ,when kids try to cooperate with each other, its labeled as cheating.
Education is not just literacy and numeracy.
However our educational system still distinguishes between different skills and talents. Many children these days are diagnosed with learning disability. What does that mean? It just means that the child has a difficult time learning certain things that other children can do with ease.
So what? Does that make that child any less smart or less talented than his/her peers?
It’s not like we don’t encourage our kids to join activities like singing, dancing ,sports etc. But at the same time,directly or indirectly we make sure they know that these things are of secondary importance.
Even in schools, activities like these are considered as extra curricular. Why this hierarchy?
Why are these things not considered as important as subjects like Maths and Science?
Why are these things not a part of the main curriculum?
The obsession about elite schools and colleges -
Psychologist Herbert Marsh says” A lot of people think that going to an academically selective school is going to be good. That’s just not true. The reality is that it is going to be mixed.”
My younger brother is a Stanford Graduate. He was hired by Apple immediately after his graduation.
One of my friends, was so impressed with his qualification and achievements that she insisted on getting his contact details. She said she wanted to take some guidance from him regarding her daughter’s admission in Stanford.
Her daughter was 3 years old at that time.
“You are so lucky!” she said to me. “Your dad is an engineer from Delhi IIT,your brother is a graduate from Stanford. You have family members who can guide your kids towards getting an admission in such institutions.”
“That is, if my kids want to.” I replied.
“They are 8 and 6, I don’t know what might interest them in the future. So why should I focus on these elite universities when the possibilities are endless?”
“But don’t you have any dreams for them? Don’t you want them to be successful?” she asked.
“I sure do.” I answered. “I want them to be successful doing what they love, not doing what I want them to do. Cause otherwise, even if they become successful , they’ll never be happy. And I want them to be happy.”
“But education is also important.” she argued.
“Of course it is.” I said. “But let me ask you a question. What is education?
Education means an ability to develop from with in. It means improving the knowledge and skills that you already possess. Education for me isn’t just going to universities and getting degrees. Education is also not a family heirloom that I can just pass forward. Education doesn’t end once you graduate. One should be a student for life,then only that person can be considered as truly educated.”
She looked at me as if I was speaking gibberish. But for me that message was absolutely clear.
As Napoleon Hill said ,
“Any person is educated who knows where to get knowledge when they need it and how to organize that knowledge into definite plan of action.”
I don’t intend to offend anyone who has studied in such elite institutions or achieved academic success. What bothers me is the obsession from such an early age that you cease to explore any other possibilities.
I am also not implying that we should let our kids quit at the first sign of failure.
Absolutely not.
We should encourage them to try hard, to make their best effort. We should teach them never to give up. We should help them understand and learn the subjects that they find difficult.
But at the same time we should accept the fact that every child is different. When children are weak at a particular subject, we enroll them to the tuition of that subject. We spend lot of time,money and efforts helping them to understand that subject. But at the same time we expect them to gulp everything within the time limit of that academic year.
We warn them,“ You better make an effort cause next year’s the curriculum is gonna be harder.”
However,what if they need 2 years to understand a particular concept? Are they given a choice? Nope. Instead they are burdened with more difficult concepts that confuse them even further.
So what can we do about this?
We can hope for an education system that’s designed in such a way that no child ever feels left out.
Where every child is given a freedom to take their own time to understand a concept but at the same time given an opportunity to explore their imagination.
Where there is more focus on improving and less focus on winning.
Where the students are not compared with everyone else just on the basis of grades,percentage and scores.
Instead they are encouraged and motivated towards utilizing their intrinsic potentials.
If every child is made to believe that their educational institution accepts them the way they are and celebrates their skills and talents, then may be there will be far less drop outs from schools and colleges.
Cause not every student who drops out becomes Zukerberg and Jobs. Many of them spend their life considering themselves as a failure.
Unfortunately this revolution might take many more decades, but until then we can do our part by changing our paradigms about education.
If you are a student reading this, I just want to tell you one thing. If you have ever thought that you are not good enough or smart enough just because you don’t get good grades, have been rejected from a particulate institution or are weak in a certain subject, I would say you are wrong.
Even though I don’t know you,still I would say this perception about yourself is not true. If you stop focusing on the things you are bad at and start focusing on the things you are good at you’ll soon unleash a potential you never knew you had.
You have every right to be successful and lead an extraordinary life just like anyone else. Develop the skills that you possess, educate yourself in improving those skills. Compete with yourself and not anybody else. Don’t discriminate with your own brain. Instead make both the sides of your brain work in harmony to achieve the things your heart desires.
Most importantly don’t aim for perfection.
Perfection is just an illusion.
……………………………………………………………………………
To communicate this point to my kids, I decided to do something that I had never done before.
That night when my daughter expressed that she thinks she is not smart enough, I decided to expose the person whom my kids believed to be extremely perfect.
That person was me.
I said to my kids, “ You know, when I was in the 3rd grade, one day my teacher called me to her desk. She was holding my class workbook. She talked in a voice loud enough to be heard by the entire class. She said, ‘Poonam can I take this page out from your notebook and put it on the school bulletin board?’ I was so proud of myself. I replied happily, ‘Of coarse mam,but why?’ ‘Because’, she said, ‘Your handwriting is so bad that it will be a great example for other kids to learn how the handwriting shouldn’t be!’ ”
“Mommy!!” they both exclaimed and began laughing.
I continued, “My maths was so bad that once I made my dad cry.”
“Seriously mommy!” They were rolling on the bed laughing out loud.
“Oh absolutely! Do you want to hear more? I used to get confused between left and right until the age of 10!”
“Oh my god mommy!” they screamed
“And mommy didn’t know what gullible means until she was 30.” My son shouted.
“What??” My daughter shrieked. “I am six and I know what gullible means. Mommy you are so funny!!”
There they were. My babies. Laughing at my expense. But you know what, I can totally live with that. It’s alright to be vulnerable in front of your kids, to let them know that you are not perfect and that they don’t have to worry about being perfect either. That night we all learned an important lesson: Imperfection is beautiful.
So whats the final verdict? Left brain v/s Right brain. Who is the winner? Both.
