Helpful Information from Sally
Building
Strong, Healthy Brains
Fall
2000
Enriching the academic environment
Creating positive emotions
Eliminating threat
Eliminating boredom
How do educators face the challenging task of raising test scores and
improving overall student achievement?
In the fascinating new book, Teaching with the Brain in
Mind, Eric Jensen supports what many educators have known innately for
years. The secret to creating
active, happy students who flourish in the classroom is not to pile on
monotonous worksheets, nor to lecture continually in sterile environments while
students remain passive. He reveals that there is important new brain research
whose application could be revolutionary to teaching and learning. Fascinating
neuroscientific discoveries have provided us with exciting new insights about
how the brain functions and how learning best occurs. Through the use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and
Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scientists have gained new ways to understand
and see inside the brain while its owner is alive.
What
does this research tell us? It is vital for teachers to build healthy student brains!
The scientific data now supports Jensen’s premise that the key to
creating smarter and more capable kids is to grow
more synaptic
connections among their brain cells, and not to lose the existing ones.
How are
these brain synaptic connections formed and maintained? By:
1. Enriching the academic environment through the creation
of:
Extensive use of student choice, in every arena of the classroom especially
curriculum and methodology
Relevant and engaging learning
with opportunities for challenging academic and personal interactions
Novelty: Employing props, costumes, noise makers,
bells, games & integration of the arts. Moving from the traditional classroom
setting to the hall or commons, or changing the configuration of student desks
for special activities
.
2. Creating
positive emotions through building:
Meaningful relationships: Using celebrations, drama, peer support, discussions, teacher interest
and affection for students.
A sense of community: Using rituals, positive greetings, handshakes,
hugs, sharing time, music, fanfare.
“ Teachers who help their students feel good about
learning through classroom success, friendships, and celebrations are doing the
very things the student brain craves.”
E.
Jensen
3. Eliminating
threat
Jensen states, “The evidence is pervasive:
Certain traumas literally rewire the brain.” The resulting change in brain chemistry alters
brain transmitters in a powerful way, most of which interfere profoundly
with learning. This new information supports what many educators have believed
intuitively, spiritually, and philosophically for years. Creating an environment where students feel afraid is totally
counterproductive to learning! What are some ways to decrease threat in the classroom?
Allow students to have transition time in order to shift gears from the
outside world, eliminate teacher judgments, finger pointing, humiliation,
detention and embarrassment. Solve
problems cooperatively.
4. Eliminating boredom
Just as research has discovered that enrichment, novelty and variety grow
better brains, it has also been
proven that barren classrooms with one-way lecture, deter brain development and
even cause a weakening of the neurons.
“Threat activates
defense mechanisms that are great for survival,
but lousy for learning!” E. Jensen
“Boredom is more
than annoying to teens, it may be thinning their brains! ” E. Jensen
Would you like to raise test scores and increase the achievement of your
students? Build strong,
thick brain neurons! For more
information, I recommend: Teaching
with the Brain in Mind by Eric
Jensen, Published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development,
Alexandria, Virginia, 1998.
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