This year, in addition to writing in class, we're doing drawing exercises from Betty Edwards's Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. The first 2 chapters are about experiencing the feeling of shifting from using the left side of the brain to using the right side. We've been copying drawings with them turned upside down to encourage us not to think of what our drawing "should" look like, but just looking at it as lines and shapes that fit together like a puzzle. Some kids are really getting into it.
It's very hard, almost impossible, for me to shift into the right brain when I'm in school, because I have to be in the left brain for classroom management. A couple of times I've been able to do it and to stay in it for maybe 15 seconds, and then a student walks in late or someone calls or asks to use the restroom or I notice that 2 kids are surfing the Web instead of drawing. Argh.
Today at lunch I was reading the end of the chapter (emphasis as found in the book): "feeling alert, but relaxed -- confident, interested, absorbed in the drawing and clear in your mind...I feel at one with the work...It's not exactly happiness; it's more like bliss. I think it's what keeps me coming back and back to painting and drawing."
I think that's part of what I mean when I'm talking about "magic". When I'm totally in the right side of the brain playing violin, it's a huge rush.
"...shifting to R-mode releases you for a time from the verbal, symbolic domination of the L-mode, and that's a welcome relief. The please may come from resting the left hemisphere, stopping its chatter, keeping it quiet for a change."
It reminds me of a book I read on ADHD. The book was full of tips from ADHD people about how to handle their ADHD. One woman said that she was fine as long as she did art daily. I'm personally much more sane when I'm playing the violin daily. So now I'm thinking, wow, I started doing these drawing/seeing exercises so that my students would get an "eye" for design. But maybe the benefit a lot of these (hyperactive) kids will get is the ability to shut off their left brain at will.
Howevah, at the moment, I'd like to shutboth sides of my brain off. Very, very tired after a TML gig night. Plus some dancing afterwards. And then grocery shopping. Now I'm wired and tired.