The Power of Images: Visual-Spatial Learners (continued)

Our society has lived for millennia under the domination of our critical, verbally bombarding left hemisphere. Our mute right hemisphere has a difficult time getting a picture in edgewise. It takes quieting of the mind (the left hemisphere), ceasing of the continuous flow of words, for the images of the right hemisphere to be received. Tribal societies had rituals to invite their right hemisphere to guide their lives through visions. Today, many go on vision quests, or do daily meditation practices, as a means of gaining intuitive wisdom and clarity. These practices bring more balance to our hemispheres. They are paths to inner peace, which, eventually, may translate into world peace.

Children who come equipped with powerful right hemispheres need to be cherished for their tremendous potential as artists, builders, designers, musicians, inventors, actors, technological wizards, surgeons, innovators, CEOs, visionaries, empaths, and spiritual leaders. Our society needs their gifts. We must stop treating them as defective if they can't read by six, if their handwriting is poor, if their spelling is atrocious, if they're hopelessly disorganized, if they can't memorize their math facts, if they don't know when to capitalize and where to put commas, or if they turn in assignments late. These are all left-hemispheric values. Instead, we need to look at what they can do well, what fascinates them, what is deliciously lovable about them. That is how we will reach them. Teach to their delights. Believe in them. Love them and they will blossom.

References

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Grow, G. (1990). The writing problems of visual thinkers. [Available from the author at Florida A & M University, Talahassee, FL]

Haas, S. (2001, August 1). A validated instrument for identifying visual-spatial learners. Paper presented at the 14th World Conference of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children, Barcelona, Spain.

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Lohman, D. F. (1994). Spatially gifted, verbally inconvenienced. In N. Colangelo, S. G. Assouline, & D. L. Ambroson (Eds.). Talent development: Proceedings from the 1993 Henry B. and Jocelyn Wallace National Research Symposium on Talent Development (pp. 251-264). Dayton, OH: Ohio Psychology Press.

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Silverman, L. K. (1990). The Characteristics of Giftedness Scale. Denver: Gifted Development Center. [Available on-line at www.gifteddevelopment.com or write to the Gifted Development Center, 1452 Marion Street, Denver, CO 80218]

Silverman, L. K. (2002). Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner. Denver: DeLeon Publishing.

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Linda Silverman, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist. She directs the Institute for the Study of Advanced Development and its subsidiaries, The Gifted Development Center (www.gifteddevelopment.com), and Visual-Spatial Resource (www.visualspatial.org). Her life has been devoted to the study and development of giftedness in all of its forms. Among her 300 publications are Counseling the Gifted and Talented (Love, 1993) and Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner (DeLeon, 2002).