The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (55 page)

There are several proportions you will need to decide on. First, try out some alternatives, then decide on a proportional space to leave
between
words (the width of the letter
o
is one possible choice). Then, use that proportional spacing consistently. Decide on the size relationship between short and tall letters, and use that relationship consistently. Decide on how far down the descenders will drop relative to the tall letters and the short letters, and use that relationship consistently. The key word, of course, is
consistency.
But also keep in mind that these relationships carry subtle messages, as you can see in the examples on page 263.

This aspect of handwriting emerges from the “value” of your hand, the lightness or darkness—that is, fineness or heaviness—of your line, the closeness or distance of the individual letters to one another.

Your writing tool, of course, affects the line. The most important point here is that you should use a certain pen or pencil by choice, not by accident.

I find it so odd that art students are often extremely fussy about having just the right pencil, perfectly sharpened, for drawing. But when it comes to writing, they will unthinkingly use the dullest, scratchiest pencil or pen. Each activity deserves the same care. Drawing, sketching, handwriting—it’s all the same. In each, you are expressing yourself.

Therefore, I recommend that you try out the lightness or darkness of various kinds of pencils or pens, then decide on one that fits your style of writing and conveys the message you want to send. A heavy, dark line, for example, conveys power and muscular (or intellectual) strength. A thin, fine, precise line conveys a fine sensibility and elegance. A medium line that varies in width (from a flexible pen point, for example) conveys an aesthetic, almost poetic, personality, a person aware of the nuances of meaning in visual information. A wide, sturdy line conveys a rugged, natural personality, close to the earth.

Another means by which the lights and shadows are conveyed in handwriting is through the closeness of the letters. If you write the letters of words very closely, with the lines of writing spaced closely, your writing will be dark and close. If you write letterforms that are spaced more openly and your lines are far apart, your handwriting will be full of light and air.

Dark writing is neither better nor worse than light, but it
is
different. Again, the point is: What do you want to convey to the viewer of your handwriting? Dark writing conveys intensity and passion, like someone whispering intensely in your ear. Light writing conveys openness and enthusiasm, like someone calling “Hello!” from across the room. The choice is yours, but it should be a conscious choice.

Once you have absorbed and practiced the basic fundamentals of beautiful handwriting, you will be free to develop your individual style. As your handwriting changes to a more artistic style, you will find it interesting to observe the reactions these changes cause. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

I hope this brief review of the expressive qualities of handwriting is helpful and inspiring. I believe the Japanese are right in their insistence on the importance of nonverbal messages and in their conviction that the way we write affects our personalities.

I urge my readers who are parents to let teachers know that you are interested in beauty, wherever it might be encouraged. Help teachers to understand that you want your children to experience handwriting as an art form so that they will know the joy of creating beauty in simple acts of daily life.

I believe teachers will welcome your interest in beauty. Teachers, after all, are the very ones whose eyes and sensibilities are assaulted by ugly handwriting, the very ones who must struggle with illegibility and with nonverbal messages of disunity, carelessness, and indifference.

Making one’s handwriting more beautiful may seem a very small way to increase the total amount of beauty in the world. But, still, the widest ocean is made up of very small drops of water.

Postscript

As a teacher and a parent, I’ve had a very personal interest in seeking new ways of teaching. Like most other teachers and parents, I’ve been well aware—painfully so, at times—that the whole teaching/learning process is extraordinarily imprecise, most of the time a hit-and-miss operation. Students may not learn what we think we are teaching them and what they do learn may not be what we intended to teach them at all.

I remember one clear example of the problem of communicating what is to be learned. You may have heard of or gone through a similar experience with a student or your child. Years ago, the child of a friend whom I was visiting arrived home from his day at school, all excited about something he had learned. He was in the first grade and his teacher had started the class on reading lessons. The child, Gary, announced that he had learned a new word. “That’s great, Gary,” his mother said. “What is it?” He thought a moment, then said, “I’ll write it down for you.” On a little chalkboard the child carefully printed, HOUSE. “That’s fine, Gary,” his mother said. “What does it say?” He looked at the word, then at his mother, and said matter-of-factly, “I don’t know.”

The child apparently had learned what the word
looked like
—he had learned the visual shape of the word perfectly. The teacher, however, was teaching another aspect of reading—what words mean, what words stand for or symbolize. As often happens, what the teacher had taught and what Gary had learned were strangely incongruent.

As it turned out, my friend’s son always learned visual material best and fastest, a mode of learning consistently preferred by a certain number of students. Unfortunately, the school world is mainly a verbal, symbolic world, and learners like Gary must adjust, that is, put aside their best way of learning and learn the way the school decrees. My friend’s child, fortunately, was able to make this change, but how many other students are lost along the way?

This forced shift in learning style must be somewhat comparable to a forced change in handedness. It was a common practice in former times to make individuals who were naturally left-handed change over to right-handedness. In the future, we may come to regard forcing children to change their natural learning modes with the same dismay that we now regard the idea of forcing a change in handedness. Soon we may be able to test children to determine their best learning styles and choose from a repertoire of teaching methods to ensure that children learn
both
visually and verbally.

Teachers have always known that children learn in different ways and, for a long time now, people who have the responsibility for educating youngsters have hoped that the advances in brain research would shed some light on how to teach all students equally well. Until about fifteen years ago, new discoveries about the brain seemed to be useful mainly to science. But these discoveries are now being applied to other fields and the recent research that I’ve outlined in this book promises to provide a firm basis for fundamental changes in techniques of education.

David Galin, among other researchers, has pointed out that teachers have three main tasks: first, to train both hemispheres—not only the verbal, symbolic, logical left hemisphere, which has always been trained in traditional education, but also the spatial, relational, holistic right hemisphere, which is largely neglected in today’s schools; second, to train students to use the cognitive style
suited to the task at hand;
and third, to train students to be able to bring both styles—both hemispheres—to bear on a problem in an integrated manner.

When teachers can pair the complementary modes or fit one mode to the appropriate task, teaching and learning will become a much more precise process. Ultimately, the goal will be to develop both halves of the brain. Both modes are necessary for full human functioning and both are necessary for creative work of all kinds, whether writing or painting, developing a new theory in physics, or dealing with environmental problems.

This is a difficult goal to present to teachers, coming as it does at a time when education is under attack from many quarters. But our society is changing rapidly, and the difficulties of foreseeing what kinds of skills future generations will require are increasing. Although we have so far depended on the rational, left half of the human brain to plan for our children’s future and to solve the problems they might encounter on the way to that future, the onslaught of profound change is shaking our confidence in technological thinking and in the old methods of education. Without abandoning training in traditional verbal and computational skills, concerned teachers are looking for teaching techniques that will enhance children’s intuitive and creative powers, thus preparing students to meet new challenges with flexibility, inventiveness, and imagination and with the ability to grasp complex arrays of interconnected ideas and facts, to perceive underlying patterns of events, and to see old problems in new ways.

What can you, as parents and teachers, hope to accomplish right now in terms of teaching both halves of children’s brains? First, it’s important that you know the specialized functions and styles of our hemispheres. Books such as this one can provide you with a basic understanding of the theory and also with the experience of making cognitive shifts from one mode to another. I believe that this personal experiential knowledge is extremely important, perhaps essential, before teachers try to transmit the knowledge to others.