01 Hermann's brain dominance

Hermann's brain dominance research is something that can be utilized in teaching from the moment it is learnt, as it is as much about knowing yourself as it is about knowing how other peoples brains work.

To summarize an in depth topic Hermann considers the Brain can be divided into 4 main types. The two larger lobes being responsible for higher order thinking such as logic processes and art etc.. The other two lower hemispheres are mainly responsible for instinctual organization and relating to people.

Hermann suggests that people will have a brain that has a tendency to work more efficiently in one area, but in a smaller number of cases some people will have an equal dominance in each area i.e. that is no part of the brain is more dominant than any other.

This is all about knowing yourself and knowing your students so the teacher can compensate for the difficulties a student may be having and to ensure the teacher does not teach in their own Brain Dominance all the time(a very easy and often unknowing action). This can make it very difficult for all the students to learn efficiently.

So where is your dominance. There is quite an involved process developed by the Hermann Brain International (www.hbdi.com) that is used to determine Brain Dominance. There is also a computer tool that can be bought to determine Brain Dominance.

Put yourself in the picture.

Click on the side menu - Teaching- -Teaching Theory- then -Know Yourself-. Down load the full size pdf version of the above chart.

Be objective and estimate what importance you would put on each of the key words when describing yourself.

You will end up with something similar to this small picture. When you have established your brain dominance with our crude method, look up some of the implications of your Brain dominance and combinations of different dominance's.

In western countries many years ago the nature of selection process for teacher training led to teachers mainly having a Logic based Brain Dominance. Since that time the selection processes have changed and their is now a greater proportion of teachers with a brain dominance in the personal interaction dominance area.

If you talk to these older students that had unsuccessful school lives of 40 years ago they will often say the teachers did not understand them.