How Art Can Develop Your Brain

Can a walk through your favorite art museum increase your own creativity and ability to innovate?  Author and art historian Jonathan Fineberg thinks so! 

I turned on the radio in the car today to listen to my favorite public radio station (NCPR; North Country Public Radio broadcast from Canton NY).  The show Here and Now was on, and the story was so timely and meaningful that after I got home, I sat in my car in the hot driveway so that I could finish hearing the rest of the interview and scribble down some notes.

I want you to be able to hear this interview too, so without further ado, here's the link to the story: "How Art Can Develop Your Brain".  The interview was with art historian Jonathan Fineberg, talking about his his new book, Modern Art at the Border of Mind and Brain.  During the interview, he referenced works by Dubuffet, Calder, Motherwell, Miro, and Christo.  

Please note: the photos in this post are NOT from the book.  Rather, they are photos I have taken at visits to various art museums, and have all been previously featured in this blog.)

Fineberg's thesis is that viewing modern art makes our brains more creative.  He says when we look at modern art, we are increasing our ability to think creatively and to innovate. This is certainly an excellent bit of ammunition to have when fighting to protect our art programs!

Here's a quote from amazon.com describing the book:
"Based on Fineberg’s Presidential Lectures at the University of Nebraska, his book examines the relationship between artistic production, neuroscience, and the way we make meaning in form. Drawing on the art of Robert Motherwell, Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Christo, Jean Dubuffet, and others, Fineberg helps us understand the visual unconscious, the limits of language, and the political impact of art. Throughout, he works from the conviction that looking is a form of thinking that has a profound impact on the structure of the mind."

I generally prefer reading fiction, but this is one non-fiction book I definitely not only WANT to read, but is also a book that I definitely NEED to read.  But it's a new book, just out in hardcover, with an amazon price of $31.60.  Oh dear...

Thoughts on Cursive Writing; brain development, genealogy, and more

 So, this is a different sort of post, one that I have been seriously thinking about for the better part of a year or two.  It's one that I write with deep introspection and more than a fair share of worry, that has meaning to me, and to society in general, on so many levels.  I hope you'll take the time to read on. 

I actually first started seriously thinking about the demise of cursive writing when my son Ben, now 24, was in middle school.  He, like so many of us, learned cursive writing beginning in the 3rd grade.  That used to be common practice, at least where I have resided.  By 4th grade, all schoolwork handed in was required to be written in cursive. 

But by the time Ben was in middle school I noticed he was back to using printed letters for most of his handwritten schoolwork, and when I asked, he said cursive wasn't required; actually it wasn't ever even mentioned any more.  By high school, I never saw him use cursive for anything.  But his printing was pretty illegible.  You see, my son was (still is) a quick thinker, and my feeling was that with cursive writing, the flow and connectedness would more appropriately match the flow of thought from his brain.  But I'm not a scientist or an expert on the brain.

My classroom was on the same hallway as grades 4-6 classrooms in the school building where I spent my last dozen or so years teaching.  In the early years in the building, student papers on display in the hallway (stories, essays, etc) were always in cursive, but by the time of my retirement this past June, I never saw any cursive work in the hall at all, with the exception of a few kids: these were kids who were new to our school districts; transfers from other school districts, places far away.  If you asked the teachers, they would say that they used to spend classroom time practicing cursive, but didn't any more.  They had too much other stuff to do.  And now, with the adoption of the Common Core, keyboarding is critical but it appears cursive writing has gone out the window.

So I started wondering about how the ramifications of this loss.  A quick internet search made me realize that I was not the only person with concerns about the demise of cursive writing.  Here's a handful of articles that I found, with information that backs up my own personal hypotheses.  Pick a couple and take the time to read.  I truly believe that cursive writing is one of those rare activities that forces our brain hemispheres to work in collaboration with each other, and that the loss of this skill is more than just an 'oh well' concern.  What we do about it; I don't know.

Brain Development Could Suffer as Cursive Writing Fades
Cursive Writing at Risk in US Schools
Left and Right Brain Hemispheres
What Learning Cursive Does for Your Brain
Top Ten Reasons to Learn Cursive
Learning Cursive Boosts Brain Development

 Then, of course, besides the impact on the brain, is the fact that people who don't learn to write cursive, also don't know how to read it!  Imagine looking through wonderful old historical documents, and not knowing what they say!  I have letters written to me by my beloved (deceased) father during my college years, and letters from friends and family that I received at Girl Scout camp, recipes in my (deceased) mom's handwriting, letters and love notes from boyfriends, and so much more handwritten documentation that is really precious to me.  I can't imagine not being able to read them, and I'm glad they were not all just emails that disappeared during a computer crash or were deleted during a file cleaning.

My brother and I have off and on over recent years been involved in some genealogical research, in particular relating to my sculptor/artist grandfather Harry Levine, who I told you about here and and here and  here back in 2011, as we searched for a missing totem pole he had carved in Croton-on-Hudson in NY state.  (An aside here; just two days ago my brother called me in excitement; someone thought they had finally found the totem pole, in Tarrytown NY.  I quickly emailed a photo of it, but unfortunately it was yet again a dead end.  So the search goes on.) My husband also has done extensive genealogical research on his own family.  Imagine not being able to read these documents belonging to my grandfather.

 

 

Now I don't really expect you to be able to read the documents below, even if you still can read cursive, because, of course, they are not in English.  But still, cursive writing is a key to being able to translate this passport (at least that's what we think it is) below, which was for my grandmother, her mother, and two siblings when they were en route to (eventually), we believe, the US having left their home in Vilna (then, Russia).

The postcards below are just a few from a large collection given to me by Grandma when I was young, written in a mix of Russian and Yiddish, and it has been a challenge finding anyone to translate them, but they represent important keys to my family history.

 

 

 

 

 

So my question is this: what do we do now?  How can we prevent cursive writing from becoming a lost art?  How can visual art educators play a part?  I think we have a unique comprehension of the vital differences between holding a paintbrush or pen or pencil in our hand, and plunking away on a keyboard or clicking on a screen.  I want to be proactive but don't have a clue as to how I can make a difference.  I'd love your thoughts.