Have you heard of the right-brain/left-brain controversy when it comes to learning?

Have you heard of the right-brain/left-brain controversy when it comes to learning? An interesting example might be horses. Yep, horses. They have a tiny corpus callosum which connects both sides of their brain. Many horse trainers insist that in order to effectively train a horse, a person has to “teach” to each side separately.  So, show the horse something on its left field of vision, then the right, so that each side of the brain learns better. I have two horses and I agree that certain things are best taught “right” vs “left”. Horses learn pretty well using simple classical and operant conditioning techniques whether a trainer focuses on one side and then the other or not however. There is something called Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum (ACC) in humans. They are born with either no corpus callosum or a very small one. Interestingly, they don’t grow up learning any differently than other children and may have minimal cognitive deficits if any at all (some may have significant deficits but there may be other reasons for that). That is because the hemispheres in our brain can compensate for what is lacking on one side. Also, if there is damage to one side of the brain, quite often the other side will compensate so all creativity isn’t lost if there is damage to the right side.