Assalamualaikum
Good evening. Tonight I'm going to talk about something that might bored you to death. After learning about the relationship between language and the human brain, I was suddenly called into doing further research regarding this fascinating creation that God had given to us humans. Let me start this, *not so much* thesis with a personal experience of mine.
When I was in kindergarten, I was one of the children with deficiency in learning. I was slow in understanding what's going on around me. I didn't realized it that time, but now that my mind had developed enough for me to think with logical sense, I realized that I am not as smart as I thought I would be. I was placed second last in the whole grade. I thought it wasn't serious *since it was in kindergarten* and the only reason I managed to scored a hefty sum of good grades in English during primary school was because I had my fair share of practice with my mother in the form of language usage training since I was 5 years old. * I must say her methods works splendid with this inferior brain of mind*. But as time goes on, I started to notice my limits in understanding language comprehensions with matters involving logical thinking. In fact, I am slowest when it comes to general knowledge.
Fast forward to the present day, and I am still being haunted by the fact that I am so slow. That was until I learn about this brain of mine and it's connection with me being a south-paw. Now, let's get on with facts shall we?
Our brain consist of 2 different hemispheres. Each corresponding to different functions. The way the brain works is incredibly complex, but this simplified explanation will give you some understanding of where our left-hand dominance comes from. The brain is "cross-wired" so that the left hemisphere controls the right handed side of the body and vice-versa and hand dominance is connected with brain dominance on the opposite side.
*Here's a simple chart on how the brain works*
Linear Thinking
The left hemisphere as you all may know, is where our ability to write, understanding language comprehensions, logical thinking, mathematics skill, our ability to list out simple/ complex matters, and our scientific skill are located and developed. As it suggested above, the left hemisphere of the brain is associated with those who are right-handed. Making sure people who are right handed to be inclined in subject that requires them to think and depends on logical explanations. A good example would be Mathematics. This is one particular subject that I would never be able to master. I do not know much of a right handed person since I myself am not.
Holistic Thinking
The right hemisphere of the brain is where all the creative part of the human nature such as emotions, creativity, imaginations, our ability to decipher an area of dimension and the ability to describe a picture as a whole is nurtured from birth. Also as it suggested above, this part of the brain is associated with those who are left-handed aka South-paw. You might be puzzled why I said I get good grades in English and Malay although my specialty has nothing to do with this. Well, us south-paws have what scholar and scientist called "spacial awareness". In doing tests and quizzes, we were usually presented with choices that unintentionally mess with our ability to choose wisely, obscuring our mind from choosing the right answer. Spacial awareness acts as our last fail safe to differentiate between right or wrong. It's not like we choose the answers because it has the probability of being right, but it's because we KNOW it's right. Unfortunately, this ability has it's fair share of weakness. Sometimes *but not all the time* our cockiness would get the better of us and cause a 'miss' in our choice. Causing an error in our depth of perception.
Now let's see here. Here are reasons why in lectures, I have trouble to fully understand what I'm learning. As a left-handed person, the way my brain works is tweaked to be the opposite of how right-handed person think. If they learn parts by parts and continuing on into a whole, we actually takes matters a whole first. Knowing the answer but not knowing the details. That's why we would know what it is we're learning, but we don't really understand the gist of it.
*And here I am torturing myself into thinking why I was so slow in the first place*
Here's another simple way for me to explain about how the brain receives information. Were you aware that our brain takes in that information from right, to left? Let use an example. I see a car. What would I say once I saw the car? Simple. The first thing that comes into my mind would be "That is a car". It would take me a couple of seconds to finally access the whole picture and say "That car is my father's". But for right-handed person, they would immediately say "That car is you father's". See? Because I was using the right-hemisphere of my brain, the information had to do a detour before I can finally use the information at my disposal.
