| BOUSTROPHEDON is... |
| By H. Bernard Wechsler |
| February 03 2003 |
|
BOUSTROPHEDON? An ancient form of writing by both Greeks (650 B.C.) and Romans was discontinued because carvers of inscriptions on buildings found it to be a pain-in-the-fundament. Boustrophedon (Gk), literally means "ox turning", within the context of plowing the fields. The ox plows up one field and down the other "alternatively". Writing and reading "boustrophedon", is the use of alternative lines, unlike our left-to-right, (go blind!), and left-to-right again, down the page. The fancy name for left-to right Westernize writing and reading is, "Sinistrodextral" (L left-to-right). The Arabs and Israelis write and read their languages right-to-left, called a Dextrosinistral language (L right-to-left). "What has all this "bous-tro-phe-don" stuff got to do with Speed Learning?" Boustrophedon is a metaphor for a "reversal", in this case ALTERNATIVELY one way and then the other. The human body does reversals too. One, is called OPTIC CHIASMA - or decussation, a crossing-over. Humans initially see things "upside-down", and our brain reverses them to "right-side-up", so we don't have to stand on our heads. It happens at the site of the forebrain where the inner half of the left and right optic nerves CROSS to the opposite side of the brain (1870). The second human experience of a "crossing" and reversal, or boustrophedon is that our LEFT HEMISPHERE (Brain), controls the "right" side of our body, and our RIGHT HEMISPHERE controls the "left" side of our body. "Great, so what?" We can write and read both left-to-right, and alternatively, right-to-left, but we don't, right? "But that would be reading "backwards", and we can't do that!" We just showed two examples of brain-reversal, optic-chiasma, and hemispheric decussation, so what is so amazing about reading alternatively - "backwards"? Our brain will automatically, in milliseconds, permit us to understand it as reading "forward". It turns right-to-left reading into our traditional - left-to-right system. "Ok, it's possible, but "why"? We have been reading since the Sumarians and Egyptians - "forward", not "backwards"- alternatively?" The "why" is because we would save about 50% of our time if we do not GO-BLIND at the end of a sentence, and even improve our "overview" of the text because we discover the author's ideas quicker. "That's the second time you said, GO BLIND. What exactly do you...? When you read now - left-to-right, and come to the END of the sentence, the last-word of the sentence, you STOP reading (go blind), until your eyes return to the first-word of the next sentence - think about it! What happened to the "time" you hit the last word of the first sentence, until the first-word of the second one? Figure twenty (20) sentences on your page, and that adds up to you NOT reading while you are "reading", twenty separate times per page. How much time does that waste? Probably 50% of your already slow reading time at 250-300 words per minute. It also negatively influences your 75% comprehension of what you are studying. Wait! That means you automatically LOSE a quarter, 25% of the meaning of everything you read. And it gets worse with semi-tuff and tuff-stuff level-of-difficulty materials like textbooks - your comprehension drops off up to 15-10% MORE as the text gets more difficult. "I was taught to slow-down on difficult text to get "better" comprehension." Old Mrs. Harrison, your first, second or third-grade teacher was WRONG because with each drop in reading-speed you LOSE about 10% more in comprehension - not gain! The slower we read, the more we "lose" concentration and require REGRESSIONS because we just miss the meaning of what we're reading. We are losing the FLUENCY and a linked-OVERVIEW of the author's ideas in s-l-o-w reading. College educated learners and professionals "regress" twenty-times per page because they just don't understand what they read as well when they slow down for semi and tuff-stuff. Sure, they eventually get it - but it takes hours of study when they could have accomplished it in one-third of the time. "Okay, slow reading REDUCES understanding." She is also the one who taught you to read ONE-WORD-AT-A-TIME because her own educational training was that our eye-span was only SIX (6) letters wide, while the truth has always been that our eye-span, our reading "field-of-vision", is from "18 to 30" letters. That means we can take-in a minimum of THREE (3) multi-syllable words with each "eye-fixation-pause", also called "saccades", or eye-pattern-movements. Absorbing three-words at a time is what we call the 20 minute hour. Guess the benefits of that? "Ok, how do I stop going-blind, and read 50% faster? Boustrophedon, reading like the ancient Greeks and Romans before they changed for the benefit of the building inscription-carvers. First step, you have to wrap your brain around a NEW idea, that reading- backwards is no trick for our brain - it's easy with practice. And it's worth learning because this permanent skill adds to your reading fluency, concentration and comprehension. Are those benefits worth the time and effort? "Sure." It's a skill, and like any skill it takes a series of steps to internalize, and the Law of 21 practice, to become a habit. Saying it is easier than you doing it. Just remember two-things, you always will have the "snailing" way of reading you were taught by Mrs. Harrison, it is a neurocircuit in your brain permanently. Some folks are afraid they will forget how to read the OLD way. Never happen, you own those skills forever because the neuroconnections are all over your brain. We view it using a M.E.G., Magentoencephlography, brain imaging while we are conscious and thinking. Second, our brain hates "change" - it's a phobia that change can make us vulnerable to danger, and the ultimate change is "death". Therefore we have RESISTANCE to change, which we deny of course, even when the change is beneficial. We overcome this resistance, neophobia, misoneism, and mutaphobia, all meaning a "hatred" of change, by finding our comfort-zone and practicing the system - in this case - boustrophedon, until it become a HABIT. A habit is an automatic response like a reflex, and once a habit, it requires no effort and is not feared as "change". "I got it, it takes getting used to, but then it becomes automatic. What else?" Number one, use your RasterMaster to OVERLINE. Number two, indent -same as always, Number three, when you come to the RIGHT-MARGIN before the end, where you indent, drop down to the next sentence - the end of that sentence, without going-blind and running to the beginning of the the next sentence. Number four, practice the REVERSAL without expecting COMPREHENSION until you train your brain. You will NOT understand a word of what you're reading using Boustrophedon in the beginning. That's a given, no understanding until you practice enough for your brain to get the "reversal" order that you NEED comprehension. One more time - you read left-to-right on sentence number 1, and read right-to-left on sentence number 2, and so on, alternatively through the paragraph and down the page. You will get "no-meaning" until later, but once you overcome your brain's natural resistance to this "new" stuff, you will read at computer-like speed. You will save 50% of the "dead" time you ordinary spent in "going-blind" from the beginning of one sentence until the beginning of the next one. "Sounds scary." It comes natural only to lunatics, so scary is the standard. You can do it, we have taught it to students, professors, executives and professionals, and they love the time it saves them. With practice it becomes automatic, a habit that you don't even think about - like driving your car. "But how does my brain know....?" Unless you are a cognitive neuroscientist, forget the brain engrams and circuitry required. Do you worry about how your eyes focus, or your how your muscles respond to your desires? Just overcome the fear of change and practice the strategy. and it works naturally, and finally becomes a part of your comfort-zone. Just don't tell "snailers" that you read "backwards", they'll give you grief because they are mutaphobic, neophobic, and misoneists, unlike you. Get this skill and be a boustrophedon SpeedLearner. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- copyrighted 2003 H. Bernard Wechsler H. Bernard Wechsler is a senior educational consultant to institutions including the Speedlearning Institute, affiliated with Long Island University, the Learning Annex, public and private schools and NYC schools through the DOME Project. He is one of the founders of Evelyn Wood Speed Reading, graduating 2 million, including Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter. Online: www.speedlearning.org Email:hbw@speedlearning.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |