Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Books to read on how to think

I just picked up, Mr. Dewar recommended, Daniel Pink's "A Whole New Mind Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future" and it has got me thinking. I just started and it explains that the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body and the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body. You may not have known but the tight side of the brain sees things simultaneously. That section of the book made me think geometry isn't like the other math subjects. Geometry uses the right side of the brain. The left side of the brain is sequential and if you have me in class I line up everything in sequence. But Dan Pink even says that geometry requires seeing all parts of geometric shapes. I knew that math used the creative side of the brain and now I have proof.

It also makes reference to how we read and how it entails using the left side of the brain, because reading is interupting symbols in in a sequence. I started thinking of ways to use the right side of your brain while you read and have some ideas. If anyone has any ideas let me know what you think.

I also got Stephen Colbert's new book. Let me know if anyone has picked it up. Oh by the way the new Mansfield Borders doesn't open until Thursday. I found out the hard way.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I didn't get his new book but I think he is hilarious, and watch it almost evey single night :-)

Paula Vargas said...

This would explain why I was so awful in math all through school (I never learned the basics...they were trying to teach "new math"), BUT I did well in geometry. It made sense to me. Shows that people do use different parts of their brain differently.
:)

R G Dewar said...

If you really want a book on how to think, find a good book about a topic you never read about. I have never spent much of my reading life in the 1950s. Thus, I am currently reading, The Longest Winter by David Halberstam (about the Korean War), and The Life and Time of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson. Bryson grew up in the 1950s, and this is a memoir.
I do read a lot of Bryson because he writes on a lot of subjects and is truly fascinating. I also find that Friedman is pretty interesting, but only once.
I am actually looking forward to the naming of the new book for One School One Book so that I can read something someone else values.

Books you probably have not read:
Guns, Germs and Steel
Robert Kennedy and His Times
The Concrete Blonde
The Professor and The Madman
What If?

There are always more.