Visual Thinking summary

Around the turn of the century, a major change was underway in the US school system. Classes that emphasized hands-on learning were disappearing, and being replaced by those that emphasized standardized testing. This was reinforced in a major way by the No Child Left Behind Act, which was introduced in 2001. The consequence was the loss of opportunities for visual thinkers to explore their interests and talents.

Many schools have since eliminated hands-on classes like shop, welding, and mechanics that, for decades, had allowed visual thinkers to thrive. Nowadays, many visual thinkers are considered poor academic performers and placed in special education. But they may just have a thinking style ill-suited to current teaching methods biased toward verbal, linear thinkers who test well.

So, what happens when a nation’s education system emphasizes standardized testing and screens out visual thinkers? Well, we can actually see the effects of this already. In the larger global context, the US is facing challenges in innovation and manufacturing. 

Much of the manufacturing and industrial infrastructure that’s used in the US comes from Europe, with innovative designs coming from countries like Denmark or Germany. And it’s hard to argue that it doesn’t have something to do with the way in which trade schools and visual-thinking students have been neglected.

So far, we've learned that there are different types of thinkers – including verbal, object, and spatial. Understanding this diversity is the first step toward successful collaboration in a variety of fields, like scientific research, computer science, engineering, and the arts.

Great ideas often emerge when different thinkers join forces. It may sound like a cliché, but there’s some truth to the idea that “suits,” or businesspeople, tend to think alike, while original ideas come from those with unique perspectives. Tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook all started when diverse minds got together and dreamed, resulting in groundbreaking innovations.

Edison, Einstein, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk. If we look at their personalities and characteristics, we can see that many of the people we hold up as geniuses share more in common than just entrepreneurial success. Like many visual thinkers, these people all struggled at school – and they ended up revealing their great potential once they engaged in hands-on activities.

It’s not hard to see that neurodiversity, including autism and visual thinking, has been crucial for human progress. But it’s also important to note that gifts can come at a cost: when one sense is heightened, it’s often at the expense of others. If, say, a person is autistic, has Asperger’s, or is on the extreme spectrum of visual thinking, their heightened awareness of sensory details can coincide with things like a lack of empathy, social awareness, or personal hygiene.

For this last section, let’s shift gears to look at the critical role visual thinkers can play in two areas: identifying potentially dangerous situations and recognizing animal consciousness. 

We’ve already mentioned that visual thinkers are especially adept at noticing the fine details. Now, this doesn’t mean that visual thinkers can predict the future – but it does mean that they excel at identifying design flaws and system failures that can lead to disasters. The world needs both scientists and hands-on problem-solvers to tackle twenty-first-century problems.