Tag Archives: Education

Fragile Flexibility (EF Skills Series)

Brain Bits, Mind Matters, , , , , , , ,

In young children, the schema of their quality world usually revolves around a caregiver or a person who they consider as important in the development of their identity. Their interests initially mimic from imagining that they are versions of the adults they are surrounded by until they are exposed to wider environments, peers, language, media, and then a wholistic interest database emerges from the conglomeration and exposure.

It also makes sense that the younger the child, the more questions they ask. Rarely would you find a child between the ages of 3-5 years come into contact with adults who have set values or biases of themselves concerning what’s ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ around the way they perceive the world. This type of mental flexibility, of mixing and matching new, or new-old ideas in their youth is also directly proportional to the physical activity that they engage in. The pushing of limits of their physical capacities around places that are close to the natural world like garden parks, or places that have been landscaped for the socialization of little people like urban parks are indicators of their levels of mindful curiosity.

It certainly becomes less correlational when children become older, the degree or type of questions with physical movement. The overt questions may turn into musings and conformity is usually expected when school-age commences. Physical movement is timed if the child is not involved in organized sports or games. Just the same, however, the degree of flexibility in these minds depends on the environment they take in, and the imagination that is left from viewing the world from their youth. Martinez and Riba’s 2021 study, Cognitive Flexibility in Schoolchild Through the Graphic Representation of Movement postulates that Neuroconstructivism is the progressive complexity of mental representation over the course of cognitive development and the role of the graphic representation of movement in the transformation of mental schemas, cognitive flexibility, and representational complexity.

They also discuss that In this differential trajectory, mental representation is a key element for cognitive development and for understanding the emergence of child drawing, and changes thereof, as a graphic representation of internalized models of reality (Sirois et al., 2008). A child’s drawing is the first marker that enables the study of mental representation as an external manifestation of internalized reality, by showing what is known about it.

Moreover, events are naturally more attractive than objects, and their foremost feature is their movement. Therefore, part of the content of the first mental representations turns around the identity of events, objects, and people, and their movement and position, which forms the basis of the dynamic representations produced. The first external representative manifestation is the child’s scribble, in which the action of the drawing already contains expressive and representational meanings relating to shapes, movements, and emotions (Quaglia et al., 2015), even if there is no real figure that relates to a meaningful movement for representational purpose.

Such cognitive flexibility is what drives competition in a crowd. The narratives that may have been handed down from authority figures that were used to set ‘safety’ limits, such as limiting or eliminating outdoor time due to the location of where the child resides, or in this recent case the pandemic, inadvertently have pared down the curiosity factor toward the external influences. Subsitutions by devices and programs on the web were meant to digitize the parallel experience of the world beyond the home, however, without the multisensorial inundation of an experience, the ideas being written are almost dream-like. They may be able to describe a forest of trees in a contextual litany of facts, but ask them about the experience and then they are puzzled.

So do you make up for lost cognitive flexibility time for children? Or for yourself as a person of structure and routine? The answer is no. It is more important to make active choices to be exposed to the internal and external worlds that are immediate and to ensure that physical movements are consciously added in a 24 hour period than to make up for the over a year of standing still. Scientific studies have isolated the executive functions that aim at cognitive flexibility, which include the abilities to shift one’s thinking (flexibility), updating the learning that has been made based on the thinking shift (working memory), and response inhibition. In Uddin’s 2021 study, Cognitive and behavioural flexibility: neural mechanisms and clinical considerations she explains the core processes in thinking flexibility with this figure:

Fig. 1

Fig. 1: Core cognitive processes and brain network interactions underlying flexibility in the human brain. From: Cognitive and behavioural flexibility: neural mechanisms and clinical considerations

These brain maps were established with the use of automated meta-analyses of published functional neuroimaging studies can be conducted with Neurosynth, a Web-based platform that uses text mining to extract activation coordinates from studies reporting on a specific psychological term of interest and machine learning to estimate the likelihood that activation maps are associated with specific psychological terms, thus creating a mapping between neural and cognitive states. In the study, Neurosynth reveals that brain imaging studies including the terms ‘shifting’, ‘updating’ and ‘inhibition’ report highly overlapping patterns of activation in lateral frontoparietal and mid-cingulo-insular brain regions, underscoring the difficulty of isolating the construct of flexibility from associated executive functions.

This means that cognitive flexibility is an activity that requires the whole brain, and if that is the case, then it requires a complete human experience. In an article by Sahakian, et. al in the World Economic Forum site called, Why is cognitive flexibility important and how can you improve it? they indicate that Cognitive flexibility provides us with the ability to see that what we are doing is not leading to success and to make the appropriate changes to achieve it. Flexible thinking is key to creativity – in other words, the ability to think of new ideas, make novel connections between ideas, and make new inventions. It also supports academic and work skills such as problem-solving.

They also write that cognitive flexibility can also help protect against a number of biases, such as confirmation bias. That’s because people who are cognitively flexible are better at recognizing potential faults and difficulties in themselves and using strategies to overcome these faults. See their table below showing the flexibility representations:

How do we become adept at choosing to be flexible especially in situations that give little determination of what we can control? Aside from practicing the principles of evidence-based psychological therapy which allows people to change their patterns of thoughts and behavior (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT), Structure learning has been proven to be potentially another way. It has been described as a person’s ability to extract information about the structure of a complex environment and then decipher initially incomprehensible streams of sensory information via the process of elimination. This specific type of learning taps into the similar frontal and striatal brain regions as cognitive flexibility, thus exposure and practice are the keys to successful learning.

Go forth, be human, and explore!

Here We Go: School and Work 2.0

Mind Matters, , , , , , , ,

In the dissection of the word rebirth comes the prefix re- which means anew or afresh, while birth means the beginning or coming into existence of something, As many monikers have been given to the resumption of the midst of Covid-19 regulations and the slow burn of the worldwide pandemic, re-birthing is the closest single-word descriptor that would run the gamut of the experience right now.

The expectation that government regulations alone or science alone, not together as a unit, would cut down the life span of the virus as we have known it to be is a fault of object permanent thinking. It is after all safer to default to what is comfortable, the known black or white options than the combination of fidelity thinking. Fear or courage, anger or happiness, peace or war. We could be discussing literature themes with these high octane emotions however it does not stretch the imagination to see when one leaves the physical or digital cocoon that the either-or linear thinking is the driver of humans when faced with a problem not easily handled with prior learning or solutions.

We had discussed in previous articles how pro-social behaviors and the need for human interaction are the basis of societal stability, including the economic and academic worlds that have been in such heated contentious situations of late. Whoever said that idle hands are the devil’s playground did not take into account a forced stop, wherever one was, for longer than a few weeks. So it would make sense as people are (figuratively) dragged out of their homes and homely conditions back to what was once was normed, there will be re-birthing: kicking, screaming, and long-term adjustment.

But as mentioned, we have many brain states and developmental ages to think about in 2.0. We have the younger people who marked their schooling milestones in front of a computer screen instead of on a playing ground or person-to-person peer and teacher routine. And then there are the adults who have been lucky enough to love their jobs cause they loved them back, swing right back into it without missing a beat. And then we have those in-between who are school-aged to vocationally transitioning adults who had more than enough time in their hands to do versions of homework and self-work.

In the 2.0, there needs to be consideration of the shifts in skill sets and motivation for those skills. A curious question to ask is how did I tend to my critical thinking and literacy growth when forcibly paused? Did I overindulge in the reality to the point of paralysis? Or was I intentional in being an autodidact and directed a diet of reality, fantasy, and mindfulness worlds? How purposeful was I in conserving my energies when surrounded by the same people for those many weeks, a month?

The re-birthing of young minds into the rigor of classrooms reveals the sample size of how many adults are functioning. They first enter incautious, paralleled worlds, and the younger they are, especially if going back to school in a new environment, require a lot of effort in retooling their socializing selves. Add socializing with a mask, when you can read only the top half of a peer or school staff member’s face adds a layer of complexity — which of the emotions am I reading correctly if at all?

The whole idea that thinking critically was siloed for education or for that period where one was required to analyze text is so pre-pandemic. Without complete access to someone’s affect, body language is half calculated, or for those who have to be around a lot of people every day now, exaggerated so as not to be miscalculated. In a text from a section called Critical Literacy from a site that supports children’s literacy in the 20th century in Saskatchewan, CN, defines Literacy as a process that involves a continuum of interrelated skills, practices, and learnings that contribute to the development of an individual’s ability to understand, communicate, and participate in a variety of roles ( i.e., parent, citizen, and worker) and settings, in the home, at work, in education, and in the community.

In essence, Literacy includes Listening and speaking; reading and writing; observing, viewing and representing; numeracy; use of technology such as computers and other smart devices. Literacy is essential to and can influence the ability to think critically, make decisions, solve problems, and resolve conflicts. To further expand on critical literacy, the Brazilian educator and educator Paolo Freire in 1970 posits that, “Critical literacy views readers as active participants in the reading process and invites them to move beyond passively accepting the text’s message to question, examine, or dispute the power relations that exist between readers and authors. It focuses on issues of power and promotes reflection, transformation, and action.”

Now for the context of this article, reading is not limited to a written, visual exposition of the text. Reading here is the brain’s neuronal processing of an experience when stimuli are presented to it, either internally or externally propelled. The interpretation of what is read connects to the previous memories and experiences of the person ‘reading’ thus, the ‘text’ can be anything that causes thought to make inferences.

Ironically people read their living and nonliving environments all the time, actively or passively. The physical world interacts with the physical self first before the brain and the mind creates internal classifications of the experience – not at all similar to the binary experience of the emotions mentioned earlier. Neuronal pathways are constantly reassessing what was known to be committed as knowledge prior and reconfigured when necessary.

We are always critically receiving and giving literacy text without full awareness most of the time. To carve metacognition intended text production is key; questions need to be asked before statements, theories about other human experiences need to be tested before conclusions are drawn. Salisbury University’s Counseling Center adopts these 7 Critical Reading Strategies that are also significant for human contextual reading:

  1. PREVIEWING– learning about a text before reading it. Reviewing what the sensory systems are telling you as the reader of a person without adding judgment.
  2. CONTEXTUALIZING-placing a text in historical, biographical, cultural
    contexts    , from the personal, local and to the global environments.
  3. QUESTIONING TO UNDERSTAND/REMEMBER– asking questions about
    the content based upon the preview and the contexts to provide pre-hypothesis of the person whose experience is being read.
  4. REFLECTING ON CHALLENGES TO BELIEFS/ VALUES-examining
    personal responses and one’s previous emotional lives attached or detached from the person whose experience is being read.
  5. OUTLINING and SUMMARIZING– identifying main ideas and restating in
    your own words     after making concrete connections to the text of the person being read and theories proven or disproven.
  6. EVALUATING AN ARGUMENT– testing logic of a text when there is volatility in the reading of the person’s experience that supports polarity within the self instead of clarity.
  7. COMPARING and CONTRASTING RELATED READING – exploring likenesses and differences, reaching for empathy and pro-social intentions when making connections.

Thus in the period of 2.0, read with care. At this rate, we are all emergent readers from a collectively conscious experience that only centenarians could navigate for and with us. Reading with purpose, reading with intensity, and becoming critically literate will see us and our brains on a steady course.

ESNP Podcast 11: School…Stress…Shutdown

Podcasts, , , , , , , ,

ESNP Podcast 10: At 12:30 PM

Podcasts, , , ,

Attention (is to Thinking) and Sustenance

Neuropedagogy, , , , , , , , ,

Stop. Listen to a song, podcast or have a conversation with a friend—for 30 seconds. That is about the length of time a child with severe attention issues is able to focus on any given piece of information coming from one sensory source at any given moment. Regardless of whether the time felt long or short, children today are required to not only pay attention, but pay_attentioncomprehend and take notes on the important information being delivered through a primarily one-dimensional sensory source for at least 5 minutes, but many times 20 or 30 minutes at a time.

Sustained attention is the ability to direct ones attention to a specified source without losing focus despite potential distractors. Children and adults greatly struggle with sustained attention today; the environment no longer demands it and, in many instances reinforces, the opposite. From the 10-second news clips, to the demands on attention from multiple sources ranging from text messages, to email, to the never-ending checklist of tasks needing to be completed. The length one is expected to pay attention has significantly decreased in the digital age of instantaneous communication and access to information. However this change has not only affected the world of adults and adult occupations. It has infested itself down to the youngest of children. Dr. Straub discusses what Dr. Dimitri Christakis found in a Baby Einstein episode “A Day on the Farm”, seven scene changes occurred in a 20 second period of time compared to no scene changes in a clip of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood. Taken one step-further, Mister Roger’s Neighborhood was the only show that had no impact on children’s attention span later in school when compared to children who watched no TV. Dr. Straub theorizes this is because the show was designed to increase attention span by requiring the sole focus to be on one person. Other television series, including Baby Einstein and Sesame Street had a negative impact on attention spans in school-aged children. The theory behind this is known as the overstimulation hypothesis, which states, “That is, prolonged exposure to rapid image changes during a child’s critical period of brain development preconditions their mind to expect high levels of stimulation, which leads to inattention in later life.” While pediatricians and child development experts dissuade children from being exposed to television, computers, etc., these changing demands on attention can be found in other modalities. Toys that light up, blink, play songs, talk, move all at the push of various buttons are not effectively aiding children in improving his/her sensory processing, but rather decreasing his/her ability to focus on any given stimulus sources for more than 30 seconds. This short snippet of required attention is reinforced throughout a child’s early development.

Then school happens. Children are suddenly required to pay attention for 5-15 minutes with major distractors—wiggly bodies, children and adults talking, chairs being pulled out and pushed in, etc. If these same children have been exposed to children’s so called educational programs, smartphones, electronic toys, they have essentially been set-up to fail. Their muscle for sustained attention has not be developed and it has little if anything to do with ADHD; the pace of learning is simply too slow. Their brains have been wired to expect and therefore perform in a near opposite way for the first 5 years of their life; therefore, like most new tasks, one needs to practice in order to become successful. Children today, need practice at sustaining their attention. Oftentimes these students with weakened sustained attention are automatically labeled and sometimes mislabeled as having Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD); however according to Dr. C. Thomas Gualtieri, et al “ADHD is not simply a disorder of sustained attention. Indeed, impairment in sustained attention is common to a certain extent to all children with psychiatric disorders. Neuropsychological studies of ADHD children and adults reveal subtle but clear impairments in ???????????????????????????????????????several complex functional systems: Selective attention memory; reaction time and information processing speed; motor speed and visuomotor ability; and executive control functions, like set-shifting, inhibitory control, and working memory.” Therefore, since one can have sustained attention weakness without having ADHD; it is essential for educators to be well-versed in understanding executive function skills as well as the vast array of researched and identified disorders that emerge during childhood. Quick fixes such as medication may not always be the best answer, especially if the cause is has been wrongly concluded.

Before wrongly labeling every attention-deficient student, steps to strengthen the sustained attention muscle are critical. One way to effectively do this is to incorporate state changes intentionally throughout the lessons in order to allow students to set-shift before becoming disengaged with the material because the content is being presented without a scene change and/or utilizing only one sense. State changes for all intensive purposes provide that ‘scene change’ the brain has become programmed to expect. Attention spans for elementary aged students range anywhere from 4 to 6 minutes; mini lessons are targeted at 5 minutes; however can easily go up to 15 or more. These numbers are based on what is average or typical; therefore there will be students whose sustained attention can barely make it to 3 minutes. Steve Roninette defines state changes as, “continually switching the sensory focus from visual to auditory to body kinesthetic and back again. This keeps students’ attention and gives them the opportunity to learn more as they tap into all their senses.” State changes come in a variety of forms and can become integrated into the lesson to enhance a particular point. They can be kinesthetic in nature and unrelated to any lesson, in which case it’s best to use them between lessons. Examples include: Brain Gym Activities, simple yoga poses, wiggle or dance breaks. Dr. Gerard Evanski explains the scientific reason behind the necessity and effectiveness of state changes, “The human brain does not store energy. The brain needs a constant blood supply, which brings it oxygen and nutrients. Dr. David Sousa has said that blood tends to pool in “our feet and our seat” when we sit for too long. Many of my state changes for students are designed to also energize them, and get their blood full of oxygen and flowing to the brain.” While kinesthetic state changes may be the most energizing, they are not the only option. State changes can also be verbal or auditory and related to the content, and therefore should be incorporated into the lesson right before students typically tune out. Examples include: turn and talks, think, pair, share, or any form of verbal/auditory recap of the lesson content. State changes can also be more passive and simply change the way information is being presented to students. For example, showing a video to reinforce the topic that was just presented.

In addition to state changes, increasing sustained attention through sustaining attention is another way. Meditation or attending to guided imagery exercises offer a non-academic way to increase sustained attention while also decreasing the cortisol release and overall levels of stress. A study conducted by Dr. Stephani Sutherland at University of Southern California, found that mindfulness training and continued practice improved sustained attention when compared to no interventchildrenion or the practice of physical relaxation, whereas there was no difference between the two groups when measuring changes in concentration and inhibition of distraction. This shows that simple and easy to use interventions can be utilized in the classroom to target and increase student’s sustained attention.

Overall, the demands placed on people in the twenty-first century significantly inhibit our ability to pay attention for long periods of time; however, the very system that educates our children and many occupations in which those same children enter demand just the opposite—an ability to focus for a duration of time and internalize information despite distractors. Until one or the other changes. It is crucial to build in opportunities to help strengthen weakened or never developed abilities to attend. Most children simply cannot come to school ready-made with a skill that is not only not expected of them or naturally reinforced in their environment, but the exact opposite skill is being applied on a daily basis. If training and teaching does not occur for children during their school-day, like many other shifts in the field of education, this will be one more that sets up children for failure instead of success.

You. Don’t. Know…

Mind Matters, , , , , , ,

It is 7:30 a.m.; you’re in your classroom, preparing the materials for the day. The classroom is quiet except for the music in the background–it’s become a routine you started a few weeks back to ground you in the day. No one ever told you teaching would be THIS hard. How does time pass by simultaneously both lightening speed and a snail’s pace? It’s your sixth week of teaching already. You glance up at the clock 7:32. Relief sweeps over you! 28 more minutes until students arrive enough time to finish what stockistockstresshelpchalkboardphotojuly2012youneed to do. You print out your lesson plans and the lay out the work for the morning periods. Another grounding staple of your day, now you know exactly what you planned to say and can see everything you planned to give. Your mind shifts to your students; will she be here today? She’s your most challenging student; feedback flashes through your mind, “Just ignore the behavior; its attention seeking.” “You’re too cold in the classroom; she’s reacting to that.” “She doesn’t like change, and you’re a new teacher.” you for her out of control behavior. What’s the right answer? None of this feedback feels reflective of your experience with this student. You’re at a loss as to what you should do. A part of you wills her to be absent today. 8:00, students walk in right on cue. You look up from the computer and see her with a big smile walk in. You remind yourself to breathe.

You don’t know what you don’t know. This idea feels almost like a theme in the field of education, administrators and educators alike–new educators in particular. It seems that the idea of not knowing or being told you don’t know is often received defensively as an offense. When in fact, it is actually more akin to a free pass for commonly made mistakes or assumptions–on made by teachers and administrators–and an invitation to learn. However, the willingness to learn means admitting to not knowing or worse: imperfection. Yet this ability to stand back and look with a critical and personal lens at the breadth of knowledge possessed and honestly admit that gaping holes exist does not come easily to many. Perhaps, because this exercise in humility requires both metacognition and mindfulness.

Metacognition according to Dr. Richard Guare and Dr. Peg Dawson is “the ability to take a birds eye view of oneself in a situation. It is the ability to observe how you problem solve. It also includes self-monitoring and self-evaluative skills  (e.g. asking: “How am I doing?” or “How did I do?”)  In order to fully be able to accept, acknowledge and understand that mind-fullyou don’t know what you don’t know you need to be able to step outside of yourself and view that self from a different perspective, yet also be able to be aware of yourself in each moment. Enter mindfulness. Dr. John Kabot-Zinn states, “mindfulness means

maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment. In order to participate in these states of being, one needs intentionality, practice and an honest self-view, which is easier said than done, especially within institutions in which normed rolls have been established.

Learning, empathy and change cannot take place when conversations are entered into with established or implied hierarchical relationships, for example, the teacher and the learner. While exceptions exist, many institutions of education have an established dichotomy of superiors and inferiors. These can found throughout the school in different capacities. Yet, rather than promote an environment for learning by sharing knowledge and openly celebrating strengths and finding others to support weaknesses; a fake it until you make it attitude emerges, defenses are on high-alert and learning fails to take place.

Imagine how a conversation between an educator and administrator would go if both parties came to the table, coming clean about their knowledge gap.

The administrator would have to own up to the fact that she has very little knowledge about what happens on a daily basis in the classroom that may be enhancing or inhibiting classroom learning. A new educator may need to admit to not knowing the difference between off-task behaviors because a child is bored versus one who simply doesn’t understand. The point is both parties would be entering into a conversation with an honest self-view and the intention to truly listen and learn from the other.

Quotation-Thomas-Gray-wise-ignorance-Meetville-Quotes-50879

This begins by admitting that you don’t know what you don’t know. People are imperfect, make mistakes, react to situations without thinking and often times hold others responsible for events they had just as much stake in. Inevitably it is easier to stay on the surface of one’s thinking, examine others but never oneself with a critical lens and turn off an awareness to oneself and the environment in which he is in. If this were not the case, “Ignorance is bliss,” would never have been excavated from Thomas Gray’s poem, “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,’ written in 1742 and still commonly used today.

However, through that course of thinking, much is lost: personal growth, human connection and most importantly systemic change. So stop and think. Step outside of your mind so often on autopilot. What do you see? Ask yourself, “How am I doing today?” Do not leave this answer constrained to the cursory “good” or “fine” or related to your job. Dig deep and ask yourself, “How. Am. I. Doing. Today?” Stop.

This time, don’t think. Feel. Let your body become fully aware of the sights, sounds, and smells, physical sensations that currently surround you know. Ask yourself again, “How am I doing today?” Stay outside of your mind. Breathe. Slowly. In and out. Again. In and out. Again, in and out.

Now ask yourself, “How did I do today? Could I have done better?”

What don’t you know, that you don’t know? Imagine the possibilities if you did.

 

ESNP Podcast 6: You Need Education, Not Motivation

ESNP Podcast 5: Kindergarten Debate

Children (Both Big and Small) Learn What They Live

Neuropedagogy, , , , , , , , , ,

Children Learn What They Live


By Dorothy Law Nolte, Ph.D.

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.

If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.

If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.

If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.

Many children spend more waking time in the presence of their teachers, than their parents and caregivers.  Therefore, it may be a safe assumption that children growing up in the twenty-first century are learning what they live based on their school experience–their teachers–just as much (maybe some cases more) as they are from their caregivers.  While teachers have been taught about behavior management, best practices and given scripts for curriculums, not many are required to take college courses on developing executive functioning skills or more specifically character. Yet, they may be responsible for a large part of character development for the students they teach on daily basis.

In recent years, this is become quite obvious as there has been the push for character education to return to school curriculums and the creation of character report cards that grade children on the development of their character. This is a useful tool if character is being taught, modeled and monitored throughout the semester.

If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.

If children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.

If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.

If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.

While the intent of these two movements are originating from different sources; they are sending a similar message: children today are not naturally developing and/or aware of their character. The former was in response to the increase in bullying and ostracization of students; the latter was the rude realization that while schools were producing high school graduates capable of earning a high school diploma and acceptance into college; these same students were not only struggling once they reached college, but were dropping out.

Enter Dr. Angela Lee Duckworth. Her research uncovered that grit and self-control are better predictors for academic achievement than IQ, socio-economic status (family income) among other factors. Her research states that “Grit is the tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward very long-term goals (Duckworth et al., 2007). Self-control is the voluntary regulation of behavioral, emotional, and attentional impulses in the presence of momentarily gratifying temptations or diversions (Duckworth & Seligman, 2005; Duckworth & Steinberg, in press). Her definitions for grit and self-control mirror two concepts found in executive function skills: goal-directed persistence and response inhibition. However, regardless of what they are called, the fact remains that these skills appear essential to success; yet adolescents today do not possess these traits upon graduation from high school and pay for it dearly. So some critical questions remain: Can anyone possess these characteristics or skills? How does one acquire them? Who is ultimately responsible for “teaching” them?

If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.

If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.

If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.

If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.

If viewed from an executive functioning perspective, the answer to the fist two questions is relatively straightforward. Yes, anyone can possess them; some people appear to demonstrate more natural strengths or abilities in particular skills than others, but strategies to strengthen or accommodate areas of weakness exist and yield successful outcomes. The last question is more difficult to answer.

If viewed from a character perspective, researchers and the U.S. Education System answer the first two questions in a similar fashion. Anyone is capable of possessing these characteristics. They are acquired through direct instruction, modeling, and life experience. They also offered a straightforward answer to the third question: it is the responsibility of both schools and parents to teach character.

What happens then, if teachers themselves have never been taught or simply demonstrate a weakness in the character traits they are expected to teach and model? Or what happens if parents and teachers view these skills through different lenses?

If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.

If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.

If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.

If children live with fairness, they learn justice.

Mostly likely, that is happening right now. Character traits like grit and self-control may or may not be taught in schools and in homes. If they are taught, perhaps they are taught differently which leads to children experiencing mixed-messages and putting a hybrid of the two into practice. This may work for some, but for others it leads to dropping or failing out of high school or college. The origins of character education are synonymous with an academic education. Character education changed in the 1960s and 1970s when the focus shifted to the process of making moral decisions versus the content of morality. It has now reemerged in the past decade most likely as a result of the publicized findings on college success rates of KIPP Academy students and theories as to why it was so low.

Yet, the re-introduction of the curriculum does not mean the mastery of skills by those expected to teach it. If teachers haven’t been taught, are never asked to self-reflect and evaluate their own areas of strength and weakness the result inevitably is they don’t know what they don’t know. So, how can they teach it?

The oversimplified truth is they can, just not effectively. It has been shown that children not only learn what they live, they live what they learn. Teachers are children all grown up; they too now live what they learned. And they can only be expected to teach what they have been taught. Maybe it is time to share the focus on how we teach our children with how we teach our teachers.

If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.

If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.

If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.

ESNP Podcast 3: Education, Meet Neuro

The Article as seen in Brainblogger.com: The Fundamentals of Neuropedagogy

Neuropedagogy, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thanks to our friends at Brainblogger, here you can read the complete article. Happy reading!

Introduction

Over the past decade, we have learned that for every student who is simple to understand or figure out, there are one or two who are a conundrum. Over this same decade we as separate and collaborative professionals have also discovered that the answer to these students’ needs being met is two-fold: 1. Education looks only at symptomology not etiology 2. Education fails to integrate disciplines effectively. Special education needs to stop being about labels and start being about the whole child.

Enter the practice of Execu-Sensory and Neuropedagogy. When we look at the child as a whole: brain, body and mind, we begin to understand that more than what teachers are taught in school is at play. Take child development, for example, this class may or may not be required to earn a Masters in Educations, especially if the focus is middle childhood rather than early or elementary.  Yet, the brain is not done growing, literally, until the age of 19 or 20 and the prefrontal cortex continues to develop until the age of 25. Not to mention, the developmental surge that takes places during adolescence is akin to the one which occurs during early childhood. How then are teachers prepared to teach the ever evolving whole child if they lack the basic knowledge of brain development.  The simple answer is they most likely cannot. The brain is a vastly complex system of electrical wiring and firing that is critical to understanding, given the goal is not only to teach, but teach effectively.

However for the purposes of this blogpost, we shall focus the discussion on the fundamentals of Neuropedagogy in practice with some aspects of Execu-Sensory components.

Structure of Neuropedagogy

Neuropedagogy in its most basic state begins with the executive function skills and the developing Pre-Frontal cortex. However when we attempt discussion with other educators, the typical response is,  “Executive what in the where? Neuro?”

Understandable response, seeing as this predominantly European concept is commonly referred in the United States as Educational Neuroscience or Neuroeducation--or perhaps more commonly not discussed among educators at all. It was introduced during an educational summit in 2009 at Johns Hopkins University simultaneously with a “Learning and the Brain” wherein organizers and educators alike agreed there needed to be an interdisciplinary field that combines neuroscience, psychology and education to create improved teaching methods and curricula. It was bringing into focus new links between arts education and general learning, how learning physically alters the brain, and what goes wrong in students with learning disabilities.

Neuropedagogy however went further than Neuroeducation. The European definition of Neuropedagogy is when science and education meet and whose scientific aims are to learn how to stimulate new zones of the brain and create connections. It is targeted at stimulating the brains of all types of learners, not only those with students who have learning disabilities. Dr. Judy Willis a practicing neurologist made a conscious transition to the classroom as an educator feels that there needs be research about the brain’s neuroplasticity and the opportunities we have as educators to help students literally change their brains — and intelligence. To become a teacher without understanding the implications of brain-changing neuroplasticity is a great loss to teachers and their future students.

Based on the experience and the research we have done on current classroom structures in New York City, we have found that the most effective use of Neuropedagogy was in three sections: Brain Element Neuropedagogy, Body Element Neuropedagogy, and Mind Element Neuropedagogy. The hierarchy of training is dependent on the prior knowledge of brain function, thus beginning the discussion with the brain was the most functional and useful approach. The body then and it’s organic processes were the next step in the training and understanding connections between innervation and control, and lastly the mind which not all fields of classroom instruction fully develop or are able to reach without the clear understanding of how the brain and the body encompass the physics of the mind.

To say the least, one would need basic brain to facilitate the body and change the mind.

The Brain Element Neuropedagogy

The most obvious reason to share information is for learning, and learning can only be achieved if there is sufficient brain function. In our practice, we lay the foundation for understanding the Central Nervous System (CNS) neurotransmission, the utilization of approximate brain mapping of the cerebral hemispheres, and raise awareness of the unmistakable impact of the digital society on the organic brain.

By organizing the hierarchy of understanding based on the processes involved from brain neurotransmission in each section of the cerebrum at any given time, we shed more light into the powerful effects of neuroplasticity, the endless ability for the brain to change itself. There are four that have been identified for learning: Acetylcholine (ACH), Serotonin, GABA, and Dopamine. Ultimately these are the communicators responsible in delivering the information to all the lobes, including the Pre-Frontal Cortex. The PFC is not currently recognized as a lobe; however, the role that it plays in learning and behavior have been measured via Executive Function Skills.

Many definitions for executive function skills exist and they all essentially make the same point. The National Center for Learning Disabilities defines executive function skills as,” mental skills that help the brain organize and act on information… [it is the ability to use] information and experiences from the past to solve current problems.” These skills are critical to understand because when they are weak or delayed in developing, they can mask themselves as an educational disability which may lay the groundwork for an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) as determined by a mutlidisciplinary team.  For example, let’s say a child is referred for an evaluation for special education services because he is showing consistent negative behavior, such as being unable to focus for more than a few minutes at a time, constantly calling out, and failing to complete homework, all of which lead to decreased academic gains.  The child will most likely be mis-classified as having ADHD or a learning disability, which ultimately leads to inefficient or worse ineffective solutions. If the interventionists applied an interdisciplinary Neuropedagogical Approach, a different and more effective outcome may have played out.

Now, let’s add a layer of dynamic complexity to Neuropedagogy. Neuroscience has looked at the brains, personalities, strengths and weaknesses of people born after 1986 and compared them with brains, personalities, strengths and weaknesses of people born before 1986. The studies show a significant difference between the two. The over-arching difference: access to the digital world.  The first group is digital natives; the second digital immigrants. Digital natives have brains that have weakened pathways for interaction, decreased activity in anterior cingulate gyrus and medial orbital frontal cortex, increased isolation, aggression, passivity, loneliness, etc, increase in cortisol due to excessive brain fatigue, decreased hippocampal size. Digital immigrants, the ones who have the capacity to hand down life experiences effectively via examples and who can communicate thoughts personally are ones who are usually comfortable with familiar technology and shy away from change in that department. They have been found to have faster PFC circuitry as they have had abilities to strengthen neuronal circuits with numerous life experiences, including delaying gratification.

WIth all of the Brain Element Neuropedagogy, one can proceed to appreciate understanding the Body and it’s unique processes.

The Body Element Neuropedagogy

In our modern society, people are perceived initially from the way they present themselves. Usually what is displayed from the external body is what immediately connects one person to the next. The body’s senses take in the physical and external world, neuronally process the input and in the cortex it’s given meaning.

From a learner’s perspective, the body is both intake and output. As interdisciplinary brain-based practitioners, we shed light into the Sensory Processing Systems, the limitless potential of a person’s Multiple Intelligences and Emotional Quotient (EQ), culminating on the influence of what we have managed to call the 3 External E’s (Ergonomics, Economics, and Environment).  The body by itself is a complete sensory organ, however it has been proven by evidence-based practice that the seven (7) senses are the checkpoints of the body: sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, movement and position in space. Research in this area was pioneered by Dr. A. Jean Ayres and current practitioners include Dr. Lucy Jane Miller and Carol Kranowitz all of who have contributed to the education and learning landscape. One simply cannot function by brain alone!

Multiple Intelligences Theory was pioneered by Howard Gardner, a developmental neuropsychologist,who played the violin well, wondered if a tool, aside from the Intelligence Quotient (IQ test), could be developed to measure additional attributes to determine a person’s complete intelligence. Another factor we considered was Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Quotient (EQ) as this too plays an important factor externally; even as the limbic system is brain centric in it’s processing of emotions, the manifestation on the outside is clearly body centric.

Education in the twentieth and now twenty first century tends to teach to two types of learners: visual and auditory. Yet, research has shown that multiple types of learners exist, not just two. Teaching methodologies need to start designing lessons, activities and classrooms not only for the typically forgotten or ever present kinesthetic learners, but for the quiet introvert and the shy extrovert and multiple combinations of them.

Simple modifications such as state changes, strategically planned brain gym breaks or yoga ball chairs have shown to improve the executive functioning skills of sustained attention and task persistence. Additionally, when inserting brief yet planned breaks of any type, students are given an opportunity to work on set-shifiting a skill in high demand in the modern digital-world.  Modifications for the introvert include quiet spaces in the classroom or projects with an option to work alone.  The shy extrovert, may benefit from group projects with assigned jobs. However, this type of differentiated instruction is believed to be fitting only to the special education population. The rest of these students, rather than adopting a label that may or may not fit, they are instructed to adapt their bodies to fit because that is what the ‘real world’ will expect of them. Meanwhile, that potential intelligence lays mostly dormant because teachers are not teaching to them, and were probably never taught how. Neuropedagogy recognizes the learning process that processes from a brain and proceeds into the body offers perspective and solutions to teaching with the body in mind.

The Mind Element Neuropedagogy

Of all of the Elements that we train, it is the Mind Element that is the most challenging to explore.The brain and the mind are used interchangeably in the realm of education; however, scientists have discovered that although they do seem to be influential of the other, the brain and mind affect each other in very different but significant ways. The psyche in psychology practice have also been associated with the mind, and pop culture usually uses the word mind loosely as choice or state of one’s mental being.

In referencing the brain, it  is the material organic matter that has the physical manifestation of the neuronal processes while the mind is where consciousness and active thinking occur. However a thought may occur from consciousness which may alter the neuronal process that was intended to happen and vice versa. The mind discussion includes: theory of mind, the belief-desire reasoning in learners, and neuroplasticity in the habit loop, Behavior Modification and Habit Routine change that can have both positive and negative effects.

Neuropedagogy of the mind starts with the premise that the mind of a child is complex. The Belief-Desire Reasoning from H.M. Wellman’s The Child’s Theory of Mind Mechanism shows just that.  Thinking, perception, sensations, beliefs, cognitive emotions, physiology, basic emotions are all interconnected and simultaneously interacting to produce desires, intentions, actions and inevitably reactions. Actions are merely the tip of the iceberg to the ongoings of a child’s, and ultimately a learner’s mind. Educators who understand and teach with Executive Function Skills such as Metacognition, Emotional Control and Response Inhibition in mind, essentially have x-ray vision, which provides them the insight to ask the questions that will reveal the iceberg. Intention is marked by a WHOLE person, a product of perception, inception and conclusions.

Conclusion: The Neuropedagogy Synthesis

ESNP's Unique Neuropedagogy Synthesis
ESNP’s Unique Neuropedagogy Synthesis

When science and education meet it is called Neuropedagogy, whose scientific aims are to learn how to stimulate new zones of the brain and create connections. The information that is presented here may appear overwhelming and less comprehensive in practice however it the changing the lens and perspective that allow best practices to occur, to remind those involved in direct service that people are not formulaic in their learning.

The Neuropedagogy synthesis demonstrates just that. One of our current partnerships, The Teaching Firms of America Professional Charter School in Brooklyn, New York applies these principles by tying choice and action to their basis in the brain, Theory of Mind, and most importantly, the brain has the ability to change.  They empower their scholars to be thinkers and owners of their actions and choices by giving them knowledge from the world of neuroscience.  Finally, the utilize the principles of Neuropedagogy to guide and inform their instruction, interactions and interventions. It is a common occurrence to hear students say, “I can change my brain.” From initial classroom set-up to end of day classroom clean up, they created and continue an atmosphere of curiosity and intellect, which always seems to start and end with the brain.

You Need Education, not Motivation

Brain Bits, , , , , , ,

Your hand swings up from your side to grab your phone and shut off the music. It was your favorite song, now you hate it. “What was I thinking? A good song isn’t going to miraculously give me the energy to get up and out of this bed.” It’s 7:00; time to wake up. Actually already later than the time you should be getting up. Yet, you simply just can’t. You set the timer on your phone. 3 minutes. Because maybe in three minutes you’ll have the motivation to rise up and face the day. You roll back over, knowing full well it is wishful thinking. Hey… at least it’s 3 more minutes of delaying the inevitable.
Neuroplasticity, for all its positive attributes, has a dark side in the form of bad habits, monotonous routines, and personal, motivation1professional ruts to name a few.  Maybe it’s motivation to get up in the morning and go to work, or  spend time with friends, or go to the gym. Perhaps you feel stuck in a bad habit like an unhealthy relationship or smoking or drinking more than you should. Often times when these dark forms take over your life, they do so at such a slow, sneaky pace, you fail to notice until a friend makes a comment about your mood, behavior, health, or weight. You immediately jump to your own defense; however, later you take a long hard look into a literal or figurative mirror and a wave of panic and self-realization washes over you: she was right. Your mind flips and begins scanning for solutions to this problem. You select the only answer that could possible explain how you have landed in this inexcusable place: You have NO motivation. Obviously this is the problem.

But, what is motivation? Why is it not always the answer?

Motivation can be defined as “the act or process of giving someone a reason for doing something” Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Therefore, it is easy to assume that people need motivation in order to make a change, since typically people don’t change without a reason. Reasons may include a health scare, vanity, sick or being sick and tired of being sick and tired. Why even with reasons pushing people to change, is change still so difficult? Let’s take a look at what is happening in the brain when people are motivated. A study conducted by Mathias Pessiglione and a team of researchers at INSERM, found that the  ventral striatum was a general motivational system in the depths of the brain. The ventral striatum was activated during both physical and cognitive activities when participants were incentivized or motivated 2000px-Dopamine_pathways.svgwith money. Additionally, the level of activation showed a positive correlation with increased incentives. This essentially means the more motivating the reward, the more the ventral striatum was activated.  However, further studies have shown the involvement of dopamine in motivation is quite complex. Dopamine is released into the nucleus accumbens when people have near-successes as well as when they are successful–this occurrence plays a role in addiction.  Additionally, the nucleus accumbens is activated when people are motivated to avoid unpleasant experiences as well. Now let’s add one more blockade to our motivation to change. Researchers at CalTech and UCLA learned that different areas in the brain are activated when people are thinking about how to do something than when they are thinking about why they are doing something. Additionally, the areas in the brain do no appear to fire simultaneously and actually have shown a negative correlation in activity. In short, you need more than motivation to make a change.

Not having motivation and knowing this, is one step closer to change, however; relying on the factors that supposedly will motivate you to change may lead you nowhere except down the same path. If you focus too much on the how, the brain cannot   move onto the why; if you focus too much on the why, the brain cannot plan the how. Furthermore, the mere talking, thinking or move towards change may be enough change for dopamine release and an activated nucleus accumbens, which in your brain is enough to lead to a sense of satisfaction.

“If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around.” Jim Rohn

How can you use motivation to change?

The answer is unglamorous and gruesome: you can’t. Change takes more than motivation.  It takes work–cumbersome, agonizing work. You will be miserable, hate your life, those around you and pretty much everything related to the change you are trying to make. In addition, you will begin being haunted by reminders of change. All of this a direct result of the very comfortable habit loop you have essentially disrupted. In other words, the dark side of neuroplasticity.

But here’s the lesson: If you push through and put in the work, motivation will come. It will also sustain the new healthy habit you developed because once the change occurs, dopamine as a reward system will kick in when you engage in that new behavior.  Your brain, body and mind will begin craving the new healthy habits because the synaptic connections are now wiring and firing together in addition to the other positive outcomes gained from the change in behavior. Motivation alone won’t  change your behaviors. Instead, educate yourself on how to change and use those motivating factors to help you persevere to see that change through.

Your hand swings up from your side to grab your phone and shut off the music. It was your favorite song, now you hate it. “What was I thinking? A good song isn’t going to miraculously give me the energy to get up and out of this bed.” It’s 6:00; time to wake up. I really don’t want to, but unless I do, I never will. Change is hard, but I know now it won’t always be this difficult to wake up in the morning. I just need to push through one day at a time and the motivation will come.

Education, Meet Neuro

Neuropedagogy, , , , , , ,

Careers in Education span from being a one to one teaching assistant, which may or may not require education beyond high school, to holding a doctorate in education with the hopes of changing policy, running a school or teaching future teachers at prestigious universities. The paths to becoming an educator therefore, are as multi-faceted–ranging from the vocational training as a one to one teaching assistant to trial by fire  in teacher-certification or principal training programs. Arts_Education_KoreaLogoMany who enter the field, hold the ideals of wanting to change the world and to contribute to the education of the future generation; however, many of those same inviduals leave the field after a long and albeit arduous career,  with little to no passion for the profession they entered or beliefs they had about changing the world.

Why the phenomenon? Our colleagues have narrowed it down to the lack of support overall, both in background preparation and in workplace coaching. No one from either area really says flat out to a teacher-to-be, guess what, your classroom is a mini neighborhood, and you are expected to be town policeman, mayor, judge and parent. Maybe it is time to add therapist and neurologist to this list; skills possessed by these individuals may actually benefit an educator’s craft.

Currently, the majority of the programs that prepare our teachers discuss education theory, history and pedagogy. Many programs have teachers spend an entire semester creating a unit plan of about 5 lessons, when in reality many teachers need to create multiple lessons for multiple grades or multiple subjects in any given day. In addition, they teach to learners ranging from gifted and talented to those struggling to learn–classified, diagnosed or otherwise.

If schools of education added a fraction of the courses required to graduate with a degree in a related therapeutic service, psychologist and neurologist, perhaps it would not only change the approach taken to teaching, but also preserve the mentality educators have at the beginning of the field when they finally leave the field. An even greater outcome is teachers would change the world, at least the world for the children who they had the privilege of teaching. This is the potential of neuropedagogy. Neuropedagogy Synthesis

Neuropedagogy blends psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, school psychology, educational neuroscience and pedagogy into one, which results in a more complete understanding of the whole child in regards how children learn, how the brain functions and the role emotions play in both. Essentially, neuropedagogy explores the brain, body and mind of a child and takes all into account when teaching in a classroom.  However, the first step in teaching from a neuropedagogical point of view is to understand the anatomical brain, the power of neuroplasticity, and what is happening in brains of struggling learners.

Some schools have begun teacher training programs that explore this very notion, Harvard offers a Master’s Degree in Mind, Brain and Education. Courses include: cognitive neuroscience, statistics, educational neuroscience, atypical neurodevelopment, applying cognitive science to learning among other more typical education courses. The Teacher’s College at The University of Columbia offers a Master of Science degree in Neuroscience and Education and the courses are similar to those offered at Harvard. Finally The School of Education at John Hopkins offers a Mind , Brain and Teaching Certificate. The School of Education at John Hopkins has started an entire neuro-education initiative, which aims to inform teaching practices about the the research from neurosciences and how it can positively impact teaching practices. Most likely more programs are out there and gaining steam; however, these programs are all optional specializations in schools of education, not required. Educators or other professionals enrolling in these programs most likely have an understanding and background in the role neuroscience plays in teaching.

It is not enough. This is a fundamental disconnect, which poses  to lead to irreparable damage not only for the United States’s educational system as a whole, but for the ability of students to learn and learn to their optimal potential. Little understanding exists on the long-term effects of technology on developing minds, especially given the rate at which children are exposed to it in the 21st Century. Some doctors like Dr. Gary Small have begun studying the impacts. He has found less than positive outcomes on the development of essential executive functioning skills, which require a developed pre-frontal cortex and access to that cortex in order to employ them. Excessive exposure to technology threatens that entire process. Yet, teachers are expected to teach and children are expected to learn. How?

Teachers (and children for that matter) need to understand the brain and how that brain develops a mind and how both affect the body because all impact how a child learns, thinks, behaves and reacts. Take the Child’s Belief-Desire Reasoning developed by Dr. Henry Wellman, from The University of Michigan.  This complex thought process occurs instantaneously, and provides a glimpse as to why understanding the brain, body and mind is essential to successful teaching.  Child's Belief-Desire Reasoning

Common Core (for better or worse) changed the standards for our children; yet the change occurred before equipping educators with the ability to meet those changes armed with the required knowledge.  An education program would not be approved if they failed to teach lesson planning, educational theory, and areas of specialization–whether early childhood or advanced calculus. Neither should they be approved if they don’t teach teachers about the anatomy of the brain, how it functions, and how children learn.

The challenge therefore is to stop separating education from the very field it uses most. Education, meet Neuro.

Sustaining Holiday-esque Happiness Day After Day

Mind Matters, , , , , , , ,

The momentum to the last few days the end of the year can only be described as lightning speed. The quick high from lights and decorations everywhere you turn, reasons to be giving and forgiving (including to one’s self), and the songs overplayed and remixed in ways they shouldn’t be are all reminders that the end of the year is going to be here before you know it.

There are those of us who dread the end of the year for the excess, the commercialism, the lack of potentially peaceful relative gatherings, or worse, the dreaded office holiday party with several colleagues one is challenged tolerating every work day.  On a darker note, there are those who are in the constant state of loneliness throughout the year and this bright, loud, and extra hustled time of year pushes their fragile states even further inward, to a place of no physical return in some cases.

The recognizable flicker of your consciousness is about to commence...
The recognizable flicker of your consciousness is about to commence…

Now, stop. Just pause, and stop. There is silence if you don’t try too hard to listen for it. The world can move quickly and hurriedly around you but you are STILL. Just for 2 seconds, then 4, then 8…count up in two’s till you get to 12 and then, exhale to a smile.

You just gave yourself enough mind time to release whatever minuscule irritation, immaterial worry, or insane task load  that was pushing your brain to the brink of emotional amygdala detachment. Do you need another one? Repeat…stop, just pause and stop. Be still for 2 seconds, then 4, then 8…count up in two’s till you get to 12 and then, exhale to a smile.

Be personal to yourself. Make mental notes to yourself as you lift your own consciousness from the recesses of living. Write yourself an air note of happy holidays and great next years, and have resolutions that resolve in minutes and not months. You’d be surprised how much more realistic these promises to yourself as your own person can be.

Branch the material with the immaterial…how did you get here to the end of the year in the first place? Flashback key moments of the year, happy, sad, angry, moments of triumph and heartbreak — those pathways lead you to the very place you are standing in right now.

Reach in, dive in. You aren’t done yet, many compartments of your consciousness are resurfacing. Just because you haven’t seen them before or are seeing them again for the first time in a long time doesn’t make them non-existent. Set them free, 2 seconds at a time, 4, 6, till you get to 12.

Happy holidays have just planted themselves in your consciousness…you took time for yourself just now. Thank you to you. Now resume life a little bit lighter than when you began.