S6E137: The Right Side Of Normal and Honouring Our Individual Learners with Cindy Gaddis

The Right Side Of Normal and Honouring Our Individual Learners

Have you ever met someone at a time in your life and you wish your paths had crossed at an earlier time? You say to them, "I wish you were here to share this with me when"....

Well, that's Cindy Gaddis to me. Actually, it's more like- "why are we just meeting each other now???" I need more of you in my life. Now that I do have Cindy in my life, I am sharing more of her knowledge and experience with you. Because I know you need it too!

Cindy Gaddis is a 30-year home education veteran and mother of seven right-brained children, ages 21-35, and grandmother to two sweet babies, ages 5 and 2 months. She’s married to her high school sweetheart, and they live in a log house on 15 acres in beautiful central North Carolina. A passionate advocate for understanding and honoring the natural learning path for creative, right-brained children, Cindy is a popular conference speaker and writer on the subject. Cindy wrote her book, The Right Side of Normal, in order to reach more parents and teachers who want to benefit from strengths-based learning for right-brained children. Cindy fulfilled her dream goal of opening a creative learning center in 2017 in a 1920s farmhouse on 18 acres and primarily mentors middle-high school attendees in collaborative education. You can find her at https://www.therightsideofnormal.com/ where she offers homeschooling consultations and relevant content for supporting creative, right-brained learners.

In This Episode

Both Cindy and her husband loved school, did well in school and were excited to have their first child start his first day. But after a first day orientation that left her very uncomfortable she decided to research other options. She found her way to homeschooling and eventually unschooling. Cindy says that in that first year, she learned so many lessons just through observation of her children and the natural learning process. In this episode we explored those lessons as we dove into the BIG unschooling and learning questions:

Reading and Learning To Read 

• Our fears around learning to read
• Children that read early and read later (Her children were early and later readers, from ages 4-15)
• Autism and reading
• How she supported each of her unique learners to build a "positive relationship with print"
• When children are spatial learners as opposed to word based learners

Right Brain and Left Brain Learners and Supporting Neurodivergence

• What it means to be Right or left brain dominant
• Why the school fits left brain learners
• What happens when learning activities and environments only reflect left brain learners

The Right Side Of Normal- Deschooling on Crack

I think that this was one of the best book descriptions ever. And it's so true! Cindy's book offers ideas and reasons as to how learning happens outside of our traditional ideas of school. Deschooling on Crack~opens your mind to allow anything to happen. It gives the WHY. Why our children can learn in these different ways and be happy and joyful learners.

Cindy breaks down examples and resources through different age and developmental stages that support right based learners through using:

• Imagery
• Reading Out Loud
• Hands on and Visual - getting out in the world
• No formal academics before the age of 8
• Comic books, graphic novels and video games
• Allowing whatever our child is doing to be valued

 

Cindy offers such a huge amount of examples and stories in this episode. She shares books her children loves but also speaks to our changes times and the power of the internet and screens for right brain learners.

Resources

Cindy's Website-