EVELYN WOOD SEZ:SECRET OF LEARNING
Author: H. Bernard Wechsler

The following are excerpts, quotes, and paraphrased conversations, based on private meetings and public lectures by *Evelyn Wood (1909-1995).

1. Q. "This is not a philosophical question, but one that comes up in our classes - relating
to speed reading - dear Evelyn, "What is thinking, and how can we get better at it?"

We know an answer - but not "the" answer, and yes, speed reading sees "thinking" differently than Webster's. Let's see if you agree or conclude we're way out in left-field,
stumbling and bumbling in our random way.

Webster's (Random House), College Edition: "to have a conscious mind, capable of reasoning, remembering and making rational decisions."

Notice the three-"r"s, and in particular "rational". Let's look at the word stem "ratio", meaning reckoning and proportion. It is Latin - to judge. (Maybe?)

What's a "rational-number"? Do they institutionalize "irrational- numbers? It's a number than can be expressed EXACTLY by a ratio of two integers. (Could be?)

They list "Rationalism" as the principle of accepting "reason" as the supreme authority in
matters of opinion, belief or conduct. The secondary meaning is: reason alone is the source of knowledge, and is "independent" of experience. Good, but how do we discover "thinking and reasoning", are they exclusively taught at the "academy", or genetic, instinctual, and maybe sent by Zeus only to his favorites? Keep going.

How about "rationalize"?

"To invent plausible explanations for actions that are actually based on less acceptable
causes." It's really a phony-baloney fairy-tale, right, because it deviates from "reason"?
So what's "reason"? It's a maze.

Maybe Socrates, the Greek with the hemlock, who paid the price for corrupting the youth
by teaching them to ask questions about their own beliefs, and that of others, the government and the Gods, maybe he could explain "thinking" and "reason".

Well we have finished studying Socrates - (few know his first name was Seymour), read his "dialogues", and are no wiser about - thinking.

Why? It's because Socrates, (husband of Xanthippe, in the 5th century B.C.; a "shrewish" woman - Webster's perpetuating a racist-religious slur - just because she wanted him to get a "real" job), uses "words" to explain other words, and ignores the source of thinking - the brain. Yes, Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.), taught that it was the brain, not the heart as
others thought, that was the seat of all learning.

2. Q. "You did it again - What shall I tell my students about thinking, and speed reading?"

But first a bulletin!

June, 2003: a study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, conducted at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. They followed 469 people aged 75
and older for five years and discovered that a majority complained of flatulence, but that
was not the essential finding. Quoting a June 24th editorial in the New York Times:

"Can regular games of bridge or chess or playing a musical instrument ward off the
onset of Alzheimer's disease, and other forms of dementia?" They quote the results
showing that 124 of the 469 ( approximately 25%), did develop dementia, but those
who were "playing chess, checkers, backgammon or cards was associated with a
reduced risk, as were playing a musical instrument and READING".

That's the part that relates to speed reading, and those who did "crossword-puzzles"
four days a week were passed over by Dr. Al Zheimer too.

Wait! There's more. "By contrast, most of physical activities, like group exercise or
team games, had no significant impact." Go know! So the Times recommends dancing
down to your Barnes and Nobles or public library, and retiring from the basketball court?
No, but, they quote from the NE Journal of Medicine article, "ballroom dancing, possibly because of the mental demands of remembering the dance steps, responding to the music and coordinating with a partner," is a valuable defense.

3. Q. "Sounds like a comedy routine on the Leno late-night show. The point is that "thinking" is like vitamin pills, and many forms of thinking do help contain dementia and especially Alzheimer's Disease, right?"

So we are back to the question - how does speed reading relate to the "structure and function" of the exercise called - thinking?

We're getting there - Buddha said: "The secret of health for both mind and body is not to
mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, but to live in the present moment - wisely and earnestly."

Let's quickly summarize the difference between our Left and Right brains. Remember, it was Roger W. Sperry, Cal Tech scientist who got the Nobel Prize in 1981 after twenty years of studies on the specialization and localization of our left and right brains.

Our left brain is the primary site for language - in the perisylvian area; and memory, strongly functioning in the hippocampus and prefrontal lobe, and reading and speech aided by Broca's and Wernicke's Areas. Our left brain is logical, reasoning, mathematical, linear, and operates by serial processing. It's orderly and organized and the neocortex is the seat of "thinking", as we know it.

Case closed?

A recent poll of students and adults - 9 to 79 profoundly believed they knew "thinking"
when they saw it. Over 98% agreed that it was analysis of information using "words" or
numbers, to solve problems. They commonly used the expressions: logical, reasoning, information-processing, knowledge-acquisition, and inductive and deductive reasoning.

Less than 2% referred to "sensory perception", intuition or insights as examples of
"thinking". When offered examples of "non-verbal thinking", as illustrated by our Right-Brain, those polled almost unanimously rejected it as "emotional" or "instinctual", but not thinking.

4. Q. "And speed reading takes the "road less traveled", of course."

Since 1981 Nobel to Sperry, we know that our Right-Brain "thinks", and strongly influences our Left-Brain's organization of logic and reasoning. Research after "split-brain" surgery - commissurotomy - proves conclusively that each brain separately functions, communicates, and affects behavior.

Dr. H.G. Gordon, neurobiologist at California Institute of Technology, says our brain house two (2) minds in a single personality. Sperry said, "Two separate realms of consciousness, awareness, sensing, perceiving, THINKING and REMEMBERING systems."

fMRI and PET scans leave no doubt our right-brain engages in "thinking"as a conscious act of organizing our lives. The WADA test (Dr. John A. Wada), injects solium amobarbital, (an anesthetic), and paralyzes either brain for 4 to 8 minutes of research.

Language tests, questions and answers to problems, clearly prove two separate thinking brains; the WADA test often results in the surfacing of conflicting ideas, concepts, and even different agendas.

In well adjusted personalities, both brains cooperatively integrate verbal and nonverbal communication through the Corpus Callosum, and the Hippocampal and Anterior Commissures, into one stable personality.

In our society, our Left-Brain is dominant during our waking hours, with the exception of daydreaming, while our Right-Brain is dominant during sleep. Homo sapiens are Beta brainwave rhythms (EEG), "dominant", which translates to being organized by our Left-Brain. The reality is that as a society we do not trust the "emotionalism" and non-conscious "instincts" of our right brain, and rely on our "reason, logical, and order-seeking left-brain to create the systems and controls of a well-oiled organization.

5. Q. "Does that mean when the left brain is "dominating", the right brain is sleeping or on
vacation?"

No, in health people both are integrated, constantly communicating, and take turns running the show every 15 to 20 minutes, like a relay race. It's not a contradiction because
it's like the foreman snoozing with her/his feet on the desk - they are still in charge and their orders are followed after they are relieved of duty. Only during sleep, daydreaming,
or "amygdala-highjack" (emotional distress), does our right-brain dominate without consultation with its integrated partner, Lefty.

Would you believe that after split-brain surgery each brain can read a separate book -
while the other reads an entirely different book? Go know - sort of like "deja vu",
all-over-again.

6. Q. "All right, please Evelyn - I beg you - get on with it - what does speed reading
DO with this information?"

You're convinced - two separate thinking brains? Spatial, pattern-recognition, parallel-
processing, non-verbal communication, vertical, not linear, but thinking none-the-less
is our right-brain? Good, now you got it.

Speed reading of course uses our left-brain and its language-instinct, but it is Right-
Brain dominant beyond 900 words per minute, with 80% comprehension.

It is a question of the famous Flax-rule - Persistence-of-Hearing. It is common knowledge
that TV and Movies are based on the human visual instinct called - persistence of vision,
at certain speeds of pictures - our eyes and brain create movement - movies.

The site of speed reading is a combination of Wernicke's and Broca's area, (in addition to our perisylvian site). These brain modules "decode" symbols, squiggles of ink on a page or pixels on a computer-screen into IDEAS, meaning, and communication.

The site of reading knowledge in through the Auditory System - the Auditory Association Area which functions with Wernicke's and Broca's areas.

Ready? The Flax-Rule is that we must "overwhelm" through reading-acceleration to gain "auditory-persistence". The faster we read, the greater our comprehension because of the holistic mental picture that emerges. We are literally "mentally" experiencing the author's ideas, not merely reading words on a page. The speed at which we read directly relates to how well we understand and remember the GIST and our ability to ABSTRACT the essential ideas.

7. Q. "And...?"

A recent study using students and professors as guinea pigs - indicated that "integration" between our two-brains is everything in intelligence and creativity. Students who were
either left-brained - (85-90% of the group were left-dominant), exclusively, or those who were "exclusively", right-brained - meaning very little integration between the two brains,
were the worse students compared to the "integrationists".

You can tell dominance by checking "handedness, footedness, eyeness, even ear-dominance. We are 90% the same - right-handed, and right-footed; our right eye is the stronger-one, and we even listen with our right ear.

Which ear do you use for the telephone? And the expression - "put your best foot forward" - notice which foot you use to "step-up" on the bus, and a lay-up in basketball.

8. Q. "Yes, I have it, there is brain dominance and it is reflected in all behaviors - and that
relates to speed reading? Who's on first?"

The students and professors with MIXED cerebral dominance were the stars, and continued to be over their careers. Cerebral communication is central to learning, reading
and THINKING.

9. Q. "I am fading fast - how do we help our students?"

Another Flax-Effect, discovered after years of neurolinguistic research - the NOSTRIL approach to creating "integration", mixed cerebral dominance.

When we cover one nostril and deeply inhale for sixty seconds exclusively through only "one"of our two nostrils - we cause a change in the functioning of our two-brains.

If we are preparing for an exam or giving a presentation, or an interview, we want to
gain an "integrated" state-of-mind, with no single dominance by either the left or right
brain.

Here's how we do it. Cover your left-nostril and inhale deeply through the exposed right
nostril, thus activating your RIGHT-Brain. Our right-brain controls the left-half of our body - intuition, insight and imagination through spatial, nonverbal thinking.

After 60 seconds we switch, and cover your right-nostril, inhaling deeply through your left-nostril, feeding high-dose oxygen and lighting-up your LEFT-brain - controlling
the right-side of your body. You now activate our language and long-term memory centers.

Almost there. Third step: inhale deeply for sixty-seconds through BOTH nostrils to
cause integration and communication between left and right brains. It will last for a maximum of 2 hours, and during a long exam should be repeated hourly. That the Flax approach to cerebral integration, and it works to increase reading speed, comprehension and long-term memory. This is the speed reading approach to Verbal efficiency and "thinking".

Details: See: Nasal Airflow Asymmetries and Human Performance,
Biological Psychology 1986.

10. Q. "Aha!

That's it till next time. See ya, and be useful.

copyright 2003
H. Bernard Wechsler
www.speedlearning.org
Email: hbw@speedlearning.org

*H. Bernard Wechsler and The SpeedLearning Institute are NOT connected, associated
nor affiliated with the present management of Evelyn Wood speed reading.






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H. Bernard Wechsler is a senior educational consultant to The SpeedLearning Institute, affiliated with Long Island University, The Learning Annex, and The DOME Project. He is one of the founders of The Evelyn Wood Speed Reading program graduating 2 million including Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter. His weekly column is listed as #1 by Google, Yahoo, and AOL.

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