Temple Grandin: Society Is Failing Visual Thinkers, and That Hurts Us All

2023年04月20日

テンプル・グランディン氏は、コロラド州立大学の動物科学教授で、「Visual Thinking(視覚的思考)：写真、パターン、抽象化で考える人々の隠された才能」の著者でもある。(English) Ms Grandin is a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and the author of "Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns and Abstractions."

Temple Grandin: Society Is Failing Visual Thinkers, and That Hurts Us All - Jan. 9, 2023

About "Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns and Abstractions."

A quarter of a century after her memoir, Thinking in Pictures, forever changed how the world understood autism. Temple Grandin—the "anthropologist on Mars," as Oliver Sacks dubbed her—transforms our awareness of how our brains are wired. Do you have a keen sense of direction, a love of puzzles, and the ability to assemble furniture without crying? You are likely a visual thinker.

With her genius for demystifying science, Grandin draws on cutting-edge research to take us inside visual thinking. Visual thinkers constitute a far more significant proportion of the population than previously believed, she reveals, and a more varied one, from the photo-realistic object visualizers like Grandin herself, with their intuitive knack for design and problem-solving, to the abstract, mathematically inclined "visual-spatial" thinkers who excel in pattern recognition and systemic thinking. She also makes us understand how a world increasingly geared to the verbal tends to sideline visual thinkers, screening them out at school and passing over them in the workplace. Rather than continuing to waste their unique gifts, driving a collective loss in productivity and innovation, Grandin proposes new approaches to educating, parenting, employing, and collaborating with visual thinkers. In a highly competitive world, this important book helps us see; we need every mind on board.

When I was younger, I believed everybody thought in photo-realistic pictures as I did, with images clicking through my mind like PowerPoint slides or TikTok videos.

I had no idea that most people are more word-centric than I am. For many, it's words, not pictures, that shape thought. That's probably how our culture got to be so talky: Teachers lecture, religious leaders preach, politicians make speeches, and we watch "talking heads" on TV. We call most of these people neurotypical — they develop along predictable lines and communicate, for the most part, verbally.

I was born in the late 1940s, just as the diagnosis of autism was being applied to kids like me. I had no language until age four and was first diagnosed as brain damaged.

Today, many people would say that I'm neurodivergent - a term that encompasses autism but also dyslexia, ADHD and other learning problems. The popularization of the term neurodivergence and society's growing understanding of how brains work is unquestionably positive developments for many individuals like me.

Still, many aspects of our society are not set up to allow visual thinkers — which so many neurodivergent folks are — to thrive. Instead, many aspects of our community seem to be set up expressly, so we will fail.

Schools force students into a one-size-fits-all curriculum. The workplace relies too much on résumés and GPAs to assess candidates' worth.

This must change not only because neurodivergent people, and all visual thinkers, deserve better but also because American innovation will be stifled without a significant shift in how we think about how we learn.

When I was 7 or 8, I spent hours tinkering and experimenting to figure out how to make parachutes, fashioned from old scarves, open more quickly each time I tossed them into the air. This required careful observation to determine how small design changes affected performance. My single-mindedness, verging on obsession, was probably because I was autistic.

At the time, I loved a book about famous inventors and their inventions. It impressed me that Thomas Edison and the Wright brothers were so single-minded in figuring out how to make a light bulb or an aeroplane. They spent lots of time obsessively perfecting their inventions. It is likely that some of the inventors in that book also were autistic.

We hear a great deal about the need to fix the infrastructure in this country, but we are too focused on the things that need improving and updating rather than the people who will be able to do the work.

For over 25 years, I designed equipment to handle livestock and worked with the highly skilled people who built the kit. Looking back at all the projects I created for large companies, I estimate that 20 per cent of the professional welders and drafting technicians were autistic or dyslexic or had ADHD.

I remember two people with autism who held numerous patents for their invented mechanical devices and sold equipment to many companies. Our visual thinking skills were critical to our success.

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Today, we want our students to be well-rounded; we should think about ensuring that the education we provide is as well.

But, at the same time, I wager that the people who will fix America's infrastructure have spent hours and hours on one thing, whether it be Legos, violin or chess — hyper-focus is a classic sign of neurodivergent thinking. It's critical for innovation and invention.

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I often get asked what I would do to improve both elementary and high school. Of course, the first step would be to emphasize hands-on classes such as art, music, sewing, woodworking, cooking, theatre, auto mechanics and welding.

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I would have hated school if the hands-on courses were removed, as many have been today. These classes also expose students — especially neurodivergent students — to skills that could become a career. Exposure is key.

Too many students are growing up who have never used a tool. As a result, they are entirely removed from the world of the practical.

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Despite my accomplishments, if I were a young person today, I would have difficulty graduating from high school because I could not pass algebra.

It was too abstract, with no visual correlations. Unfortunately, this is true for many of today's students who get labelled bad at math and might otherwise pass alternative math courses such as statistics that apply to real-life work situations.

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There is too much emphasis in school on testing and not enough on career outcomes. My poor performance on the math portion of the SAT prohibited me from getting into veterinary school.

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Still, today I am a university professor in animal sciences and invited to speak to groups of veterinarians to advise them on their work. The accurate measure of an education isn't what grades students get today but where they are ten years later.

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I am often invited to give talks at corporations and government agencies, and the first thing I tell managers is that they need a neurodiverse workforce. Complementary skills are the key to successful teams.

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We need the people who can build our trains, planes, and internet, and those who can run them. Studies have shown that diverse teams will outperform homogeneous groups. If you've ever attended a meeting where nothing gets solved, it may be because too many people think alike.

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Today, Taiwan produces most of the world's highest-tech silicon chips. However, much of the specialized mechanical equipment for processing meat is made in the Netherlands and Germany.

When I visited the Steve Jobs Theater in California, pre-Covid, I discovered that an Italian company created the glass walls. The massive carbon fibre roof that looks like a spaceship was imported from Dubai.

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The reason this equipment comes from outside the United States can be traced partly to differences in educational systems.

For instance, in Italy and the Netherlands, a student at about age 14 decides whether to go the university or the vocational route. The vocational course is not looked down on or regarded as a lesser form of intelligence.

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And that's how it should be everywhere because the skill sets of visual thinkers are essential to finding real-world solutions to society's many problems.