Intellectual Development
Of all the aspects that children need to develop, intellectual development is the one that we most probably concentrate on the most. So, for instance, we send our children to pre-school to ensure that they are ready when school starts.
When I was at school, what we learned was largely knowledge based. Today we find ourselves in the midst of the “information age”, where any information is at our fingertips.
What we as parents need to do is to teach our children to interpret information, make comparisons, and arrive at new understandable insights. We cannot hope to teach our children information only. We must teach them to find the information, and use the information in a responsible fashion. We must expose them to learning methods that can develop their brains and memory capacity.
6.1 The Brain
The brain is divided into two hemispheres that are associated with particular thinking and memory styles. The two hemispheres are linked by over 200 nerve fibres (known as the corpus callosum) and each hemisphere is skilled in the mental capacities of the other. There is a crossover effect: each hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body. The body is designed to help the two hemispheres to work together. When learning, it is best to have both hemispheres involved in the process so that optimal learning can take place. The following characteristics apply to the hemispheres:
The left brain controls the right side of the body as well as language and sound. The left brain likes to analyse, place things in order, make deductions and break up complex pieces of information into smaller pieces. This brain concentrates on detail. It has the following characteristics: logical, mathematical, analytical, linguistic (words and language), linear, and reasoning.
The right brain controls the left side of the body and is responsible for spatial orientation, music and visualising. The right brain sees information more holistically and concentrates on the bigger picture. The following characteristics apply to the right hemisphere of the brain: intuitive, creative, artistic, emotional, visual, playful, imaginative, and spontaneous.
Think about building a puzzle: You keep in view the picture of the puzzle. You sort the pieces on the basis of similarity. You start building the puzzle by selecting a piece. You look at where it fits into the picture of the puzzle. You continuously move between the detail (puzzle pieces) and the big picture (puzzle picture) and back to the detail again as you continue to build. You need both sides of the brain to build a puzzle.
The same applies to learning. The brain needs to connect the detail to the big picture (left brain) to the big picture to the detail (right brain) at the same time. Everything that we are exposed to through our senses goes into our brain in duplicate This means we have two memories of everything. Each memory supplies a different perspective. When these two perspectives are put together properly, a light switches on and we are able to understand the information.
Incorrect studying takes place when we try to cram in loads of detail without really understanding the information. Rote learning, cramming and other traditional study methods do not allow the detail (left brain) and the big picture (right brain) to communicate with each other.
We have about 100 trillion nerve cells in our brain. When we learn new bits of information, the nerve cells grow branches. One new branch grows for every new piece of information. The more branches there are, the more memory we are building.
The nerve cells (neurons) receive information from the five senses in the form of words, pictures, movements, smells, tastes, and so on. The sense organs have receptors in them that change the information into electrical impulses. The neurons pick up, translate and read these electrical charges that then stimulate branches to grow from the neurons. These branches are called dendrites and they store information. The more dendrites you grow, the more intelligent you become.
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