This has led to tons of study on brain lateralization, art, how to be more creative, etc. So while you’ve been calling for more left-brain logic, I’ve been promoting more right-brain creativity.

Yet healthy right-brain creativity can only occur after a solid foundation of morality and logic has been laid (your right brain has no sense of morality). In educational terms, this is what Oliver and Rachel DeMille would call the “Core Phase” of learning.

This is why so many artists are self-indulgent and self-destructive — they have strong right-brain aptitudes without having mastered the left brain boundaries.

Yet creativity, innovation, and artistry are vital for the fulfillment of mission.

This is all to say that I don’t view our respective searches as mutually exclusive in the slightest; they are, in fact, complementary and self-reinforcing.

Build a strong left-brain, moral foundation, then cultivate creativity to fulfill mission.

Your remarks to Ralph about teens and logic is spot on, but there are movies that at least complicate the picture. See the Coen Brothers’ version of True Grit, for example. What a wonderful teen heroine, Mattie, who uses determination, economic savvy and devastating logic to good use. It is of course telling, however, that the character ends up alone and unmarried. Perhaps a sad commentary on what our culture (and I would certainly include Mormon culture, despite apostles speaking to women about the importance of educating themselves) expects of women regarding logic and general savviness.

G-Man

LES worked better as an acronym. You are correct about LSE being a more accurate identifier. Not sure how to remedy it without damage one way or the other. I also blew through about 20 complicated topics in one blog. In retrospect, it was probably not a good idea. The great challenge for me is to present complicated material in soundbite form. Not sure it can be done.

Thanks for participating!!

Blessings on your head.

I think the movie would be a box office disaster. I think back to the movie, “Count of Monte Cristo.” If it had followed the book, it would have been a bust. The reason: The book shows that revenge rarely works the way you want it to. In the movie, Edmond gets the girl, the son, has a limitless fortune and all of the bad guys die or get badly hurt. In the book, everything falls apart due to the revenge. For sure the book emulates real life but makes for bad box office receipts.

Hollywood productions, for the most part, are like alcohol consumption. You can escape reality for a while and artificially activate responses, some noble and others pernicious. One of my favorites of the noble response initiators is, “The Mission.” If you have not seen it, you must! Twilight for many, is like consuming alcohol, and ecstacy in the same sitting. For me it was pure ipecac. A movie about a teen fully equipped to handle the foibles of adolescence would be as boring to the public at large as wheat bread to a fat latch-key kid.

Thanks for the comment!!

The challenge in helping teens see the need for logic, statistics, or econ, or whatever, is that it really helps if they want to learn it. These are just the sort of skills that many already assume that they master. Interesting challenge.

I have been reading selections from a FABULOUS compilation of writings from around the world throughout generations of time called READING THE WORLD. Part 2 in the book has wonderfully arranged guidelines and information to assist readers and writers in understanding and articulating the ideas generated and produced by others and themselves. It has a section on providing supporting evidence for one’s arguments. Very easy to read and understand. Evidently, however, the book is not for sale, yet. My son’s H.S. English teacher loaned it to him and then gifted it to me when I begged to know how I might get a copy. She said it was in a bunch of books sent to her for her perusal. It is aimed at college students but if my son could read it in its entirety and develop his critical thinking and writing skills by responding to the questions accompanying each of the selections, I would be absolutely thrilled and excited at the advantage he would gain for life.

Dave, the only stumble I encountered in this post was in identifying LES. I’m guessing you were trying to match the descriptions to the LGR sequence descriptions but it was actually LSE. Not sure how to describe the speed bump more clearly since I’m short on time to try again. Sabe?