After only two years of elementary ‘education,’ Benjamin Franklin spent 30 years (from age 12 to 42, when he then retired, on his way to becoming America’s first millionaire) working as an Colonial American printing composer. This job meant a lot of reading in mirrored direction. You see, all the metallic letters of a colonial printing press were cast in mirrored direction so as to produce printing in the traditionally read direction. After a workday of mirror reading, the young, unschooled Franklin would then go home and read printed books in the traditional direction. Neurologically-speaking, his brain would have been abnormally different; more physically balanced from this symmetric practice (just like the symmetric skeleton, symmetric exterior features, and symmetric weight distribution of the average human body).

In addition to practicing Franklin-style mirror movement development (MMD) since 2007, I spent nearly three years working as a tour guide next to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (where Franklin spent many formative, revolutionary years). Two blocks away, I also worked on the site of Benjamin Franklin’s home at the Benjamin Franklin Museum. Franklin is also one of three people (along with Leonardo da Vinci) I talk about most in my book, BIG3MMD: History’s Ambidextrous and the Benefits of Mirror Movement Development (the world’s first symmetric book, written in both traditional and “Franklin-style” mirrored direction). As a result, I can talk about Benjamin Franklin for nearly two days straight…

After hearing everything I told my Philly tour guests about Benjamin Franklin, they often would comment, “Wow, he was so smart!” Nearly all were surprised when I mentioned, “Yeah, homeboy only went to elementary school for two years, haha.”

I then mentioned how his brain would have been physically different from the average brain, namely that it was more symmetric. This was due to his 30-year profession as a colonial printing composer, in which he would mirror read in order to type set his machine (just like reading the refrigerator magnet that brought you to this webpage!). After work, he would then go home at night and self-educate by reading books in the traditional direction. This high amount of right-to-left and left-to-right eye movement in both mirrored and traditional reading causes blood to flow more evenly between both brain hemispheres, creating new neurons and synapses and thickening the corpus callosum (the “communication bridge” between the two brain hemispheres).

Franklin was even a promoter of ambidexterity (aka mirror movement development (MMD)). So much so that he wrote an essay, titled A Petition of the Left Hand, that he creatively addressed to Educators urging them to teach the development of both hands (a practice he got Thomas Jefferson to dedicate himself to for the last 40 years of his life). Franklin wrote this essay in 1779 – the same year that the school he founded gained university status; University of Pennsylvania. More than 244 years have passed and the University of Pennsylvania still hasn’t fulfilled this desire of their Founder to teach what he wanted them to teach…

A symmetric brain is better at encoding and decoding information, aka learning, or memorizing. The more you can learn and remember, the more you can, theoretically, do. This increases the tendency of becoming a polymath (someone who is learned in multiple subjects). The same can be said of Leonardo da Vinci, another mirror reader (thanks to his 50-year practice of mirror writing within his personal notebooks).

But, let’s cut those educators that Franklin has addressed some slack. After all, even Franklin recognized, “A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.”

After reading this, you now know better. Develop your brain and body according to it’s physical design by practicing mirror movement development (MMD)!