NICK GOSNELLHutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — As part of the Dillon Lecture Series at Hutchinson Community College, Dr. Temple Grandin spoke Tuesday about different kinds of thinkers.
"I've got a new book, Visual Thinking, I've got a couple of copies with me," Grandin said. "The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions. Research shows, there's people like me that are object visualizers. Everything I think about's a picture. It's not words. My kind of mind is good at art, skilled trades, mechanical, all kinds of mechanical things, photography and working with animals. Animals don't think in words. The thing that my kind of mind is terrible at is algebra. You need us. If you want to have the infrastructure keep working? Let me tell you, you need us non-mathematicians. Then, when you go back to the food processing plant, my kind of mind makes all the mechanical equipment, but we need the mathematicians for boilers and refrigerations. I noticed you had a boiler factory here in town. You need both kinds of minds and you have your more mathematical, pattern thinker. Your pattern thinkers, music and math go together. In the visual thinking, art and mechanics go together. I know it sounds crazy, but, it's true. I write about it in my book."
Grandin said a lot of people are mixtures of the different kinds of thinking.
"When a kid gets a label, you tend to have, autism, dyslexia, ADHD, whatever, they tend to be much more uneven in skills," Grandin said. "An extreme object visualizer or an extreme mathematician. The verbal thinkers, one of the things they tend to do is over generalize. You have this big concept, like inclusive classroom, let's just say that. My mind thinks more bottom up. What are things I can do to make a classroom inclusive? Get bullying under control. Get rid of LED lights that flicker. Some of the people with head injuries, dyslexia and some other conditions have problems with the flicker of flourescent lights. You can find it with slow motion video on your phone. The other thing is, I have a very bad working memory. I do not remember long lists of verbal information. Tests that have a sequence, let me have a pilot's checklist."
Grandin did note that it is harder for people who think visually to succeed in traditional academics.
"The next Temple Grandin is getting screened out by the algebra requirement," Grandin said. "I am not kidding. I've talked to students who want to become veterinary nurses on their third algebra class. How about geometry? How about statistics, or maybe accounting, or maybe business math, practical math, like a shop. That's keeping a lot of them out, but you need us."
Grandin's latest book is a New York Times best-seller.