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Bette Fetter

right brain learning

Sometimes You Just Have to Stop and Organize

This morning I woke up to my usual stream of new ideas and a long “to do’ list, excited to start my day. But as I moved through my morning routine I realized the residue of yesterday’s creative activity was driving me crazy. I paused, looked around and saw that there were literally piles of chaos all over the house. Some of it mine, some my husband and adult kids, some from an energetic grandchild. left Now there are days when the momentum of creativity and busyness sweep us along and the piles don’t matter – but there are also days when we all need to stop and tidy up. This is especially important for visual tactile people, who tend to leave signs of their creative thought process all around them, much like Hansel and Gretel’s trail of breadcrumbs.

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Young Rembrandts Drawing: Dramatic Skill Building

When I first created Young Rembrandts, I was teaching a lot of preschool classes. left We see huge academic and social benefits to getting young kids into art and drawing at an early age. But this story is about our elementary students. Elementary children are equally impacted by the arts. I have talked a lot about the relationship between art and learning styles but today I want to focus on artistic skill development.

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Bette Fetter: Writing for the Young and Old

Home office 1This is a picture of my home office. Notice the rows of notecards taped to my wall.

After writing several posts on making the process of writing, more visual for kids, I wanted to share some thoughts on using the same techniques – the slightly more adult version – as a visual adult.

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Creativity: Left and Right Brain Thinking

Creative thinking thought processWhile preparing for a speaking engagement about the nuances of left and right-brain thinking, I spoke with a friend of mine who is a software engineer. He identifys himself as a right-brain, visual-spatial thinker. He is also a musician — an excellent guitar player — so I asked how he thought that impacted his abilities as an engineer?

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Learning Styles: Reading Directions

bike assembly page1
Instructions to assemble an exercise bike

Ever wonder why people do the things they do? Why doesn’t your husband read the directions? Why can’t you find anything once you take the time to file the papers in your office? Why do you have to pinch and poke yourself to stay awake during language heavy presentations?

It’s all about wiring. The way our brains are wired has a direct affect on the way we organize or don’t organize; the way we see, think and do and the way we operate at home, school and work. There are three distinct learning styles: auditory, visual and tactile.

Auditory folks are good with words and logical, linear thinking. Visual learners are big picture, innovative thinkers that need to see things.  Tactile people take a very hands-on approach to life.

So what kind of thinker are you?  There are a variety of learning style tests on-line but here’s a quick question to get you started:
Imagine you just came back from the store with a new cabinet that needs to be assembled. How would you proceed?

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A Family Wedding: Collaboration or Collision?

Laurieandjeff

We recently had a wedding in the family – our first. While planning and executing such a grand and lovely event was thoroughly enjoyable, it was also a brilliant study on the way left and right-brain people approach a given task.

Our oldest daughter, the bride, is a visual-spatial thinker, full of ideas and vision; there’s a lot of that going on in our family.  The groom’s, a social, left -brain analytical thinker, prefers numbers, budgets and excel spreadsheets; there’s a lot of that going on in their family.  When it came time to plan the wedding, the right-brain, visual bride and bridesmaids immersed themselves in magazines, websites and social media, searching out ideas – visually. Pinterest became a family obsession, with everyone in the family searching out and sharing ideas. A few trips to stores, photographers, florists and wedding vendors, brought more options and ideas.

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Art and Academics: Creativity

Are you creative? Can you draw? Paint a picture? Do you hold a patent for a new invention that will change the way we live?

unleash-creativityCreativity is often defined in relation to artistic ability but creative thought reaches far beyond the arts and has profound implications in all parts of our lives. Creativity is about thinking outside the box, bringing fresh insight to established patterns of thought, rules and relationships. Creativity is a process of personal expression and playful pursuit, but creativity is also a highly sought after commodity, in business as well as the arts. Creative ideas may produce a work of art or music, it can lead to breakthroughs in science and engineering, increased personal satisfaction and career success, even solutions to highly complex social issues.

We are all capable of creative thought, but like other skills, it requires development. Countries all around the world have made the development of creativity a priority. However, while the United States has been a world leader of innovation in the past, increased emphasis on standardization, testing and cuts in arts programs, means we are no longer developing creativity and innovation in our students. Yong Zhao, author of

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