Thought patterns (The Care and Feeding Of Phinnia; first in a series)

[phinnia]

I was thinking this morning about the five types of thought patterns.
This is one of the very few things I remember from those dopey guidance classes they frogmarched us into in highschool. So yeah, that was about a hundred years ago now, and as such this recollection will likely have holes, but I'm trying to remember. I seem to think that we all vacillate between all of them, and it depends on the person and the moment which they're more likely to use.

1. Circular thought, which was symbolized by a pentagon, which I can't draw in one line ascii art, so you'll have to imagine one - round and round and round.
2. Separate unconnected thoughts (which looks like |||||) - no connection between things, just individual bits of data.
3. Linear thought (-----) A leads to B leads to C, etc.
4. Thoughts spreading out from a central point, like (*) - jumping off in all directions from an idea.
5. Logical leap - (-|||-) a beginning and an end and the middle gets leapt over, kind of like those 'aha!' moments. salyavin would call this 'blackboxing'.

They're all useful. The asterisk is useful for brainstorming, the vertical lines often are the first set of ideas that lead to connections, circular thought sometimes helps us solve a problem - the logical leap is responsible for wacky ideas that work. But the culture that we're in stresses the linear line. And that's not particularly fair. Testing and academics are often skewed toward the logical-mathematical, and even though that's not a bad skill to have, it's not better.
What I'm trying to say:
(a): I can do linear, but only under emulation: it's difficult for me. I'm more inclined to numbers 4 and 5 on this list. Okay, yeah, I jump around a lot. But that's what I do. It's me. That's where the wacky ideas come from, the logical leap. So I can only loosely understand (and only provide in a limited way) a need for linear structure. Yes, this extends into my personal life: I eat when I'm hungry, I go to bed when I'm tired, we don't really have much in the way of 'time' and 'structure' unless it's imposed by an external force. Things are usually about the same time and order every day, but they don't have to be. That's the thing. I'm not married to this. I can't be. It's been proven that too much in the way of structure and pressure makes me physically react badly. It's brain chemistry. The pieces are all part of a whole, and the pieces get picked up eventually, even if they don't get picked up beginning to end.
(2): What do the teachers out there think about this? It's obviously got connections to Gardner and his seven intelligences; and the notion of kids learning 'test taking skills' wasn't lost on me either.

Comments

[hai-kah-uhk.livejournal.com]

My linear thought skills have improved after two years of MARZ Saga. Ironically, writing fiction utilizes most, if not all of the above, and doesn't particularly favor linear. So, hey, maybe my skills in all of them improved. And intuition, too, in which you spontaneously generate new ideas from nothing your conscious mind is aware of. I love that one.

[curtis.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to remember what book I read those in! (It's a fiction book, but a good one)