FVCC course focuses on the human body's dominance factors

Hunched over in a Kalispell coffee shop, Carla Hannaford drew a rough outline of a person’s body in her notebook and began a series of questions:

“Focus your eyes on the tip of this pin. Now, close your left eye. Now your right,” she shaded in the right eye of her sketch and continued.

“Oh, you’re right eye dominant — that can actually determine where you choose to sit in a theater or classroom.”

After another series of questions, she faded in the sketch’s left leg, hand and right ear.

“Strange, you’re left leg dominant, but right hemisphere — that means you like to move around a lot but shut down under stress, you even have trouble hearing,” she said.

Hannaford was demonstrating the first section of a temporary course offered at Flathead Valley Community College called “The Dominance Factor.”

The course explores the link between behavior and a person’s dominant eye, ear, hand, foot and brain hemisphere.

In the last 30 days, she’s taught that lesson throughout South Africa, Dubai, India and now Kalispell.

“I’ve taught in 52 countries,” she said. “It’s just one of those things that doesn’t matter what culture you’re in — it’s important to know and understand. Evaluating your body can tell you a lot about your instincts in relationships and stress.”

Hannaford, a neuropsychologist, has been in education in one form or another for more than 40 years.

She splits her time between traveling around the world to share her studies, her home in Hawaii and her cabin in Montana. She said her Kalispell cabin is where she’s spent many summers writing books about her studies.

“So it feels right to bring the course back to my own community,” she said.

Her career in teaching began as a college biology professor in Hawaii, but elementary schools became her lab for understanding dominance patterns and their effects.

She said while assisting in her daughter’s school, she saw students who struggled to survive within a typical classroom environment.

At the time, she said people took aside students who were struggling in class or who weren’t behaving and had them sit in a chair and think about how to improve.

“It was focused on the brain and the body was completely out of the equation,” she said. “After working with the students, and identifying their dominance patterns, I learned that 89 percent of the kids struggling were right-brain dominant — sitting still wasn’t the right way to help. Sure, they weren’t fitting into the curriculum, but they were brilliant.”

She said she taught the students their dominance patterns, and then tricks on how to level out their responses to learning or stressful situations.

Hannaford said her course at FVCC teaches participants how to recognize their dominance patterns and use those tendencies to improve their response to people and circumstance. She said the course also describes examples for working together with people with different dominance profiles.

“There are links between the side of the body we favor for seeing, hearing, touching, and moving and the way we think, learn, work, play, and relate to others,” she said. “It’s important to understand that, and how to use that self-knowledge.”

There are two sections left in the temporary course, Tuesday night and Nov. 29 from 6 to 9 p.m. at FVCC. The course is $95 per person. Hannaford said the last chance to register is tomorrow night.

To join the course, call Connee Greig with the college’s Continuing Education Office at 406-756-3832.

Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at khoughton@dailyinterlake.com.