Whole Brain Post

By: Kyle Schmit

Looking back over the last semester, there are a number of projects and assignments that could have benefited from a more 'whole brained' approach. Specifically, we had an assignment in Spanish class to participate in a "Cultural Experience" and write a brief one page description of the activity. I decided to do one of the preset options, a trip to De Leon's Grocery on Francis. There was a list of questions that I was supposed to answer, and as such, I went into the experience, clipboard in hand, to answer those questions. This was a very right sided approach to the assignment, question and answer. Had I gone into the project with a whole minded approach, I could have gained much more from the experience. I know that I would have been better able to interact with people from another culture and to glimpse through to what the Hispanic world is really like. Instead, I spent my time at De Leon's with my head down, looking at my paper, and navigating the store looking for specific items rather than having a true cultural "experience."