1. COLLABORATIVE WORK [CRITICAL THINKING SECTION]
Step 1a
As a team, talk about your Journal Entry #1. Discuss your answers to 1Q1-1Q5 of Reading Assignment:
Your Brain – The Right and Left of It by Betty Edwards, The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
 1Q1: Do you agree with neuroscientist J.Z. Young that the right hemisphere of your brain isn’t really
important? Why or why not?
 1Q2: Each of our hemispheres gathers in the same sensory information, but each half may handle the
information in different ways. Which hemisphere do you default to or rely upon the most? Why?
 1Q3: If students who learn how to draw become more “artistic” and therefore creative, do you see
any use in you becoming more creative? Why or why not?
 1Q4: What was your education most like: (a) concerned with the importance of intuitive and creative
thought or (b) structured in the left-hemisphere mode? Why?
 1Q5: Read the chart on page 44, using the 9 characteristics, which mode sounds like you, left-mode
or right-mode? Why?
Step 1b
As a team, discuss your Journal Entry #5, your Course Reflection:
 How does this class build on your previous education?
 How do you think this class will prepare you for your future?
Step 2
As a team, watch and read through Sir Ken Robinson’sChanging Paradigms. The link is
:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U and the speech is transcribed below.Then answer
questions 2Q1-2Q10 together as a team (Journal Entry #2).
 2Q1: The arts are victims of what mentality?
 2Q2: How can the arts wake students up to what’s inside themselves?
 2Q3: How do you think we should educate our children to take their place in the economies of the
21st Century?
 2Q4: How do you think we should educate our children so they have a sense of cultural identity and
so that we can pass on the cultural genes of our communities while being part of the process of
globalization?
 2Q5: Do you believe this story: “If you work hard, do well, and get a college degree, you will have a
job.” Why or why not?
 2Q6: What’s important about yourself? Do you feel as though on your journey to get a diploma
you’ve marginalized what is important about yourself?
 2Q7: Do you feel as though today’s situation is similar to or different from the intellectual culture of
the Enlightenment and the economic circumstances of the Industrial Revolution? How so?
 2Q8: Do you agree with the intellectual model of the mind (deductive reasoning and knowledge of
the classics=Academic Ability) as the definition of smart and non-smart people? Why or why not?
 2Q9: Have you ever been penalized for being distracted in the classroom? Give an example.
 2Q10: Have you ever felt “fully alive” in the classroom? Give an example.
Step 3
As a team, discuss each team member’s answers to 4Q3 and 4Q5 of Journal Entry #4. Collaborate on a
group answer to 4Q5, “What is your team’s solution to the article’s problem?”
Step 4
Submit your answers to the Critical Thinking section in your group paper.
TRANSCRIBED SPEECH
Sir Ken Robinson-Changing Paradigms
EVERY COUNTRY ON EARTH at the moment is economies of the 21st century. How do we do
reforming public education. There are two that? Even though we can't anticipate what the
reasons for it. The first of them is economic. economy will look like at the end of next week, as
People are trying to work out, how do we the recent turmoil has demonstrated. How do
educate our children to take their place in the you do that? The second though is cultural. Every

2. country on earth on earth is trying to figure out people. Academic and non academic. Smart
how do we educate our children so they have a people and non smart people. And the
sense of cultural identity, so that we can pass on consequence of that is that many brilliant people
the cultural genes of our communities while think they are not, because they've been judged
being part of the process globalization? How do against by this particular view of the mind. So we
you square that circle? have twin pillars, economic and intellectual.
The problem is they are trying to meet the And my view is that this model has caused
future by doing what they did in the past. And on chaos in many people's lives. And it's been great
the way they are alienating millions of kids who for some - there've been people who benefited
don't see any purpose in going to school. When wonderfully from it, but most people have
we went to school we were kept there with the not. [MOST people] Instead they suffer this. This
story, which is if you worked hard and did well is the modern epidemic, and it's as misplaced as it
and got a college degree you'd have a job. Our is fictitious. This is the plague of ADHD. Now, this
kids don't believe that, and they are right not to is a map of the instance of ADHD in America, or
by the way. You are better having a degree than prescriptions for ADHD. Don't mistake me I don't
not, but it's not a guarantee anymore. And mean to say there is no such thing as attention
particularly not if the route to it marginalizes deficit disorder. I'm not qualified to say if there
most of the things that you think are important isn't such a thing. I know that a great majority of
about yourself. Some people say we have to raise psychologists and pediatricians think there's such
standards if this is a breakthrough. You know... a thing–but it's still a matter of debate. What I do
really. Yes, we should. Why would you lower know for a fact is it's not an epidemic. These kids
them? You know...I haven't come across an of being medicated as routinely as we have our
argument that persuades me of lowering them. tonsils taken out. And on the same whimsical
But raising them, of course we should raise them. basis and for the same reason medical fashion.
The problem is that the current system of Our children are living in the most intensely
education was designed and conceived and stimulating period in the history of the earth.
structured for a different age. It was conceived in They are being besieged with information that
the intellectual culture of the Enlightenment, and pulls their attention from every platform,
in the economic circumstances of the Industrial computers, from iPhones, from advertising
Revolution. Before the middle of the nineteenth holdings from hundreds of television
century there were no systems of public channels. And we are penalizing them for getting
education. Not really, you'd get educated by distracted. From what? Boring stuff. At school for
Jesuits if you had the money. But public the most part.It seems to me not a conscience
education paid for from taxation, compulsory to totally that the instance of ADHD has risen in
everybody and free at the point of delivery, that parallel with the growth of standardized testing.
was a revolutionary idea. And many people And these kids are being given Ritalin and
objected to it. They said, “It's not possible for Adderall and all manner of things, often quite
many street kids working class children to benefit dangerous drugs, to get them focused and calm
from public education. They are incapable of them down. But according to this attention
learning to read and write,” and, “Why are we deficit disorder increases as you travel east
spending time on this?” across the country. People start losing interest in
So there was also built into the whole series of Oklahoma. (laughs) They can hardly think straight
assumptions about social structuring capacity. It in Arkansas. And by the time they get to
was driven by an economic imperative of the Washington they've lost it completely. (laughs)
time, but running right through it, was an And there are separate reasons for that, I believe.
intellectual model of the mind, which was It's a fictitious epidemic.
essentially the Enlightenment view of If you think of it, the Arts - and I don't say this is
intelligence. The real intelligence consisted in exclusively the Arts, I think it's also true of
this capacity for certain type of deductive Science and of Maths. I say about the Arts
reasoning, and a knowledge of the Classics particularly because they are the victims of this
originally, what we've come to think of as mentality currently. Particularly. The Arts
academic ability. And this is deep in the gene pool especially address the idea of Aesthetic
of public education. There are really two types of experience. An aesthetic experience is one in

3. which your senses are operating at their peak. of those routine questions. Most people might
When you're present in the current moment. come up with 10 or 15. People who are good at
When you are resonating with the excitement of this might come with 200. And they do that by
this thing that you're experiencing. When you are saying,“Well, could the paper clip be 200 foot tall
fully alive. An anesthetic is when you shut your and be made of foam rubber?” You know... like,
senses off, and deaden yourself what's “Does it have to be a paper clip as we know it,
happening. And a lot of these drugs are that. Jim?”There are testsfor this. They gave them to
We're getting our children through education by 1500 people in a book called Breakpoint and
anaesthetizing them. And I think we should be Beyond. And on the protocol of the test if you
doing the exact opposite. We shouldn't be scored above a certain level, you'd be considered
putting them asleep, we should be waking them to be a genius of divergent thinking. So my
up, to what they have inside of themselves. question to you is: what percentage of the
But the model we have is this. It's I believe we people tested of the 1500 scored genius level for
have a system of education which is modeled on divergent thinking? Now, you need to know one
the interest of industrialism, and in the image of more thing about them. These were kindergarten
it. I'll give you a couple examples. Schools are still children.... So what do you think? What
pretty much organized on factory lines. On percentage of genius level? -80 80, OK? 98% Now
ringing bells, separate facilities, specialized into the thing about this was a longitudinal study. So
separate subjects. We still educate children by they retested the same children five years later,
batches. You know, we put them through the ages of 8-10. What do you think? -50? [52%] They
system by age group. Why do we do that? You retested them again 5 years later, ages 13-15.
know, why is there this assumption that the most [10%] You can see a trend here coming. Now, this
important thing kids have in common is how old tells an interesting story. Because you could've
they are. You know, it's like the most important imagined they're going the other way. Couldn’t
thing about them is their date of manufacture. you? You start off not being very good but you
Well I know kids who are much better than other get better as you get older.
kids at the same age in different disciplines. You But this shows 2 things: One is we all have this
know, or at different times of the day, or better capacity and Two: It mostly deteriorates. Now a
in smaller groups than in large groups or lot has happened to these kids as they grown up,
sometimes they want to be on their own. If you a lot. But one of the most important things
are interested in the model of learning you don't happened that I'm convinced is that by now
start from this production line mentality. This is they've become educated. They spend 10 years in
essentially about conformity. Increasingly it's school being told there is one answer, it's at the
about that as you look at the growth of back, and don't look. And don't copy because
standardized testing and standardized curricula, that's cheating. I mean outside school that's
and it's about standardization. I believe we've called collaboration but, inside schools. This isn't
got go in the exact opposite direction. That's because teachers wanted this way it's just
what I mean about changing the paradigm. because it happens that way. It's because it's in
There is a great study done recently on the gene pool of education.
divergent thinking - Published a couple years ago. We have to think different about human
Divergent thinking isn't the same thing as capacity. We have to get over this old conception
creativity. I define creativity as the process of of academic, non academic, abstract, theoretical,
having original ideas that have value. Divergent vocational and see it for what it is: a
thinking isn't a synonym, but it's an essential Myth. Second, we have to recognize most great
capacity for creativity. It's the ability to see lots of learning happens in groups. That collaboration is
possible answers to a question. Lots of possible the stuff of growth. If we atomize people and
ways of interpreting a question. To think, what separate them a judge them separately, we form
Edward de Bono probably called laterally.To think a kind of disjunction between them and their
not just in linear or convergent ways.To see natural learning environment. And thirdly, it's
multiple answers and not one. So I made up a crucially about the culture of our institutions. The
test for this. I mean one called the cod example habits of institutions and the habitats that they
would be people might be asked to say: How occupy.
many uses can you think of for a paper clip? One