BlogFluent

Confluent education has been ignored. Perhaps a change is in the air, though. After reading Daniel Pink's book ("A Whole New Mind") I'm thinking that affective domain issues may be more valued in the future. Confluent ed says there are 3 domains to learning: 1) cognitive; 2) affective; and 3) psychomotor. Our left-brained culture has focused on the cognitive - linear/serial processing, problem-solving, rational thinking has taken the front seat in education. he claims that they're still important, however, we need a balanced approach for the future. Right-brained processes and attributes may be moving to the forefront if Pink is right. Affective domain issues deal with feelings, emotions, and the like, and of Pink's 6 attributes of the future (design, empathy, symphony, meaning, story, and play), empathy fits right in. We have two halves of the brain to make a whole (the sum is greater than the parts...) and in confluent education, 3 domains make a whole. We can't ignore the psychomotor domain that copes with the physical elements of learning (i.e. hand/eye coordination that athletes, artists, mechanics, dancers, etc. all utilize). I saw yesterday where the Nickelodian Channel is asking kids to go outside to play in order to help combat rising childhood obesity levels. Here's a tv channel asking kids NOT to watch tv (or at least not as much...). As a side note, this helps us to combat the rising levels of "nature deficit disorder" Richard Louv discusses in his book "Last Child in the Woods". This seems to fit in as another piece of the wholistic puzzle. Too much focus on left brained activities in school, not enough emphasis on affective and psychomotor issues. Let's get kids back outside playing, learning, feeling, creating, storytelling, designing, and working together.