Self-Control Made Easy

February is the time of the year when it’s not only colder, you’re more likely to have sick days, but also you’re heading into the testing season, too. Oh, one more thing…we tend to put on a few pounds, too!

Any help out there?

This month, we’ll learn about how to get yourself and your kids to do much, much more. We’ll learn about the science behind “self-control”. This executive function skill turns out to have such an enormous impact on our lives that those that are higher in self-control tend to be sick less often, earn more money, have better quality relationships, get more schooling, earn higher degrees, are happier and even donate more money. In short, there’s a very, very strong correlation with quality of life.

But…is it teachable? For the surprising news, keep reading…

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The Research

We know that self-control has a genetic component (as do many of the executive function skills). But that only speaks about a small likelihood of its strength, not certainty. As usual, DNA is not your destiny. The research on self-control is complex and messy.

Here is what we know (that is relevant to you) and what the research tells us.

First, the effects of low self-control tend to be persistent. Individuals who were less able to delay gratification in preschool and consistently showed low self-control abilities in their twenties and thirties performed more poorly than did high delayers.

Second, self-regulation can be taught. I’ll tell you how a bit later on.

Third, the sensitivity to environmental “hot” cues plays a significant role in the individuals’ ability to suppress actions toward such stimuli. For example, a crying baby (chocolate or sexy peer) may trigger to activate the brain’s “hot” cue in one, but not in another. Thus, resistance to temptation is partly predicted by environmental cue sensitivity.

We know that willpower is depleted by usage. For example, some kids have to work VERY hard to PAY attention, or to NOT touch another student. After a while, their brains have “run out of” willpower. The longer dieters are tempted, the harder it is to stay away from their sinful wishes.

We know that we use the same “stockpile” of willpower for all the tasks we do. If a husband and wife have to exert willpower ALL day at their jobs, when they get home, they may not have the raw energy left to be “nice” to their spouse. They’ve used up their willpower!

The scientific term is called, ‘Decision fatigue’. It can explain why competent people can do very stupid things if you catch them at the wrong time. We have learned that willpower can be for control of thoughts (ever heard a song that you can’t get out of your head?), emotions, work performance or just about anything. It can be taught and it can be learned, but the key is give the person a reason to do things. A huge component of willpower is that the fuel for it is glucose. Having enough glucose in our blood and brain means we can exert better self-control.

Practical Applications

Here is what the scientists have learned about willpower. While there are many strategies, we’ll focus on just three of the BIG ones.

First, we have a limited supply of it (willpower), so focus on just one task or challenge at a time.

Narrow your goals to the one or two things that matter most. Build confidence with small time amounts (“Can you do this for just 30 seconds, please?”). Then, over time, continue to build up the length of time for the classroom task (“We’ve already tried and succeeded at 30 seconds, so let’s try for one full minute this time.”) Avoid asking kids at school to resist something. Instead, just deflect or redirect their attention to something more interesting. Limit the brain and get small things accomplished. Keep the task short, compelling and over time, you can extend it.

Second, the relationship between willpower and glucose is well studied.

A single act of self-control causes glucose to drop below optimal levels, thereby impairing subsequent attempts at self-control. In short, when our blood sugar is low, we run out of willpower (we get to the “Oh, whatever” stage, where anything will do). Low levels of blood glucose after an initial self-control task predicted poor performance on a subsequent self-control task. When we consume a glucose drink, it reduces self-control impairments. To raise blood sugar, there are only 3 options: 1) food or drink, which is expensive, 2) movement which releases glucose stored as glycogen in the liver, or 3) strong emotions which trigger the release of glucose. No glucose means no willpower. By the way, this applies to dieters.

Third, to reduce the depletion risk, make things actionable for your brain.

Avoid putting anything down on your “to do” list that you cannot at least take some immediate action on. When you write out your goals and plans, write them so that each can be done ASAP.

In other words, “Send Valentine’s cards,” can’t be done unless you already have either located the website to use (and have the email addresses), or have the physical addresses (and bought the envelopes, cards and stamps). Only put on a “to do list” that which can or must be done next, not a vague project like, “Paint the bathroom.” For Valentines, your first item might be, locate awesome Valentine’s website (see below for a suggestion).

Special Websites FOR THE MONTH:

For Valentine’s Day, go to: http://gpage.hubpages.com/hub/GREAT-VALENTINES-DAY-E-CARD-SITES

Another great newsletter! The IAE Newsletter is free of charge and specifically oriented toward educators, parents, and others who are seriously interested in improving the world’s education systems. http://i-a-e.org/iae-newsletter.html

AND

Looking for something fun and online for the younger brain? Go to Eric Chudler’s site. He’s a neuroscientist at UW. Go to: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/flash/ua/home.html

TRAVEL AND PRESENTING:

February is here and I’m now in Asia. In January I was in Texas, Minnesota, Santa Barbara and Lafayette. I’ll be in Singapore, Hong Kong and Mainland China. Back home for a few days, then off to work with some key districts and individual schools. I love my work!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Have you visited our new lesson-planning site yet? Go to www.10minutelessonplans.com and start planning dynamite lesson plans immediately. It’s in the “new and improved” Beta testing stage, so be sure to send us some feedback and suggestions, too.

Your partner in learning,

Eric Jensen

Eric Jensen
CEO, Jensen Learning
Brain-Based Education

CITATIONS:

Casey BJ, Somerville LH, Gotlib IH, Ayduk O, Franklin NT, Askren MK, Jonides, J, Berman MG, Wilson NL, Teslovich T, Glover G, Zayas V, Mischel W, Shoda Y. (2011) Behavioral and neural correlates of delay of gratification 40 years later. Proc. Natl Acad Sci U S A. Sep 6;108(36):14998-5003

Eigsti, IM, et al. (2006) Predicting cognitive control from preschool to late adolescence and young adulthood. Psychol Sci 17:478e484.

Gailliot MT, Baumeister RF, DeWall CN, Maner JK, Plant EA, Tice DM, Brewer LE, Schmeichel BJ. (2007) Self-control relies on glucose as a limited energy source: willpower is more than a metaphor. J Pers Soc Psychol. Feb;92(2):325-36

Hare TA, Tottenham N, Davidson MC, Glover GH, Casey BJ (2005) Contributions of amygdala and striatal activity in emotion regulation. Biol Psychiatry 57:624

Kubzansky LD, Martin LT, Buka SL (2009) Early manifestations of personality and adult health: A life course perspective. Health Psychol 28:125.

Metcalfe J, Mischel W (1999) A hot/cool-system analysis of delay of gratification: dynamics of willpower. Psychol Rev 106:3.

Mischel W, Shoda Y, Peake PK (1988) The nature of adolescent competencies predicted by preschool delay of gratification. J Pers Soc Psychol 54:687.

Mischel W, Shoda Y, Rodriguez MI (1989) Delay of gratification in children. Science 244:933.

Moffitt TE, et al. (2011) A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 108:2693.

Posne MI, Rothbart MK (2000) Developing mechanisms of self-regulation. Dev. Psychopathol 12:427.

Rothbart MK, Ahadi SA (1994) Temperament and the development of personality. J Abnorm Psychol 103:55e66.

Somerville LH, Casey BJ (2010) Developmental neurobiology of cognitive control and motivational systems. Curr Opin Neurobiol 20:236e241.

photo credit: chotda

All enrichment effects start with contrast from a baseline from which we can create environmental contrast. But remember, the baseline is not always so obvious.

The consideration of the ultimate enrichment response is laughable if the brain’s own minimum baselines are not being met. While it’s true that there are many ranges of criteria for optimal child rearing, but nonetheless baselines do exist.

I’m convinced many people think they’re living an enriched life, when it’s got a long ways to go to maximize their potential. In the cases of extreme danger, trauma or high-risk poverty, it’s pretty obvious. These seven positive factors are the contrasting factors that are most likely to maximize the enrichment response.

A child will not be raised poorly if parents and teachers ignore some or even all of these principles for a day or make occasional mistakes. No one expects constant miracles, but young children do need constant help, and it’s useful to keep these principles in mind.

1. Physical Activity and Exploration

There’s nothing like it on earth. The first time a baby sees you blow bubbles, open a box of goodies, or peel a banana. The developing brain needs this active exploration to learn the new world of senses and to connect it to its own world. That’s what creates expectancy and coherence. This key principle is to foster safe and active exploration of the natural world. Notice that I did not say exploration of battery-operated toys, television, or the DVD. The real world of natural sensory stimulation is where the child’s brain needs to interact.

Curiosity is a good thing for children. How valuable is this to your child? Research found that children who are curious and seek out new adventures and experiences at age 3 have substantially higher IQs by the time they are preteens (Raine et al., 2002).  The most adventurous of the 3-year-olds in a study of 1,795 children scored 12 points higher on total IQ when they were tested years later. They also had far better academic and reading ability by age 11 than their less exploratory and less curious peers. UCLA researcher Adrian Raine used recordings of children in informal learning situations as they explored their environment, engaged socially with other children, and verbally interacted with adults.

Exploration developed the brain better than being sedentary.

2. Learning that’s novel, meaningful, and challenging

The funny thing is, you almost can’t stop a child from birth to five from learning. Their brain is designed to learn and does learn countless things. In the context of our first few years, there are two specialized types of learning that we’ll focus on.

The first is the learning of appropriate emotional responses. That process is known as attunement. The brain is born with the capacity to express six, maybe eight wired-in emotions. They include joy, fear, surprise, disgust, anger, and sadness (Ekman, 2003). But we have to learn 100’s of socially appropriate, environmentally learned responses such as gratitude, worry, appreciation, anticipation, suspicion and flirting and others.  Attunement helps children activate emotional states appropriately and in context.

The second type of learning is the more formalized types of cognitive learning that parents and caregivers frequently provide for youngsters. This learning helps us learn cause and effect, addition, the alphabet and countless other early chunks in life.

The word attunement means becoming “in tune” with another, that is, establishing an emotional and physical reciprocity between two or more persons. The child smiles and you smile back—that’s attunement.

For the child, your response launches a synchronous dance between the visual, auditory, and tactile systems and the developing emotional centers in the brain. Early healthy emotional attachment—especially during the first twenty-four months—helps develop the social and emotional skills fundamental for life (Siegel, 1999). This is when the primary caregiver illustrates the proper and critical emotional responses, and the child learns how to express emotions in a social world.

While all humans are born with the capacity to express basic emotions such as surprise, anger, and sadness, we are not born with the hundreds of more sophisticated emotional responses that make up our culture; they have to learned in context, over and over. There is accumulating research that suggests that children with delayed cognitive development are not getting the frequency of exposure they need from adult-child transactional experiences (Ramey & Ramey, 2000).

Some years ago, the phrase “quality time” became quite popular in the press and especially among parent advocate groups, but it turns out that there is absolutely no substitute for the quantity of quality time. The lower end of the baseline here is that parents or loving caregivers should have sufficient positive contact with growing children for some but not necessarily all of the first five years. But that’s far from the upper end. It is this quantity that not only builds the emotional systems need for life, but other basics like the skill of paying attention.

The games and toy manufacturers would have you believe that children under age five should be getting on board the electronic bandwagon or they’ll fall behind early. Nothing could be further from the truth. Kids will get more exposure in their lifetime than you and I ever dreamed of.  If a toy needs batteries, children under age five don’t need it.

Will a battery-operated toy for young children do harm? No, it won’t. But a steady diet of electronic games and computer-like products are the wrong way to feed the developing brain. No child can be raised by a TV set, video game machine, DVDs, or even the best quality computer games. For a good treatise on this subject read Jane Healy’s Failure to Connect (1999). Videos and DVDs that are made for babies, no matter how cute, funny, coherent and well meaning, are babysitters, not an enrichment program. Don’t fall for the hype that says that such and such DVDs will are critical for developing early learning in your kids.

Be smart about exploration; you can offer active exploration, interaction with other children or well-designed toys, books or even just a big empty box, cartoons lose by a landslide. Do not use electronic media on children under five as a way for them to grow their brain; it’s not going to happen.

Your child needs things that they can do, not watch the toy do it instead. The ideal games are ones, which look simple (but are in fact, complex) to a child, with many colors and big pieces or parts to it. It should engage a child immediately not by barking out irrelevant sounds or lights, but it should beg the child to try it out, explore it, test it and modify it. Children who learn to build, arrange, create and repair their own toys develop a sense of competency that will never, ever come with punching buttons with sound effects on a dumbed down laptop. Here’s an interesting concept, the bigger the toy that kids get for Christmas or their birthday, the more they like the plain brown box it came in. A big box (with imagination) can be a fire station, space ship, queen’s palace or haunted house. Now that’s a real builder of the brain!

3. Managed Stress (low to moderate)

This contrasting enrichment factor reminds us that body and brain responds negatively to distress. Since stress is a biological response that results from the perception of lack of control, children are highly vulnerable to stress. They simply can’t manage the variables as their brain soaks up the world. They don’t have the capacity to reframe life, debrief it and redirect attention very well. During the first five years, the human brain is especially adept at—and therefore vulnerable to—a process called “downloading the culture.”  This is an amazing human phenomenon that allows youngsters to get “up to speed” in their new world.

The single worst downloads from culture are those of trauma associated with violence, distress, bad language, disrespect, and poor role models. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) urges parents to avoid any and all television for children under 2 years old. They also say children over two be limited to one to two hours of educational screen media per day.

Exposure to television is dangerous in itself because of the kind of passive, no-feedback absorption it involves. The more time a child spends watching TV, the less time that child spends interacting with the world. And that’s positive, constructive television. The content that fills most of the airwaves—full of violence and the sort of vocabulary no child needs—takes an actively negative toll on children (Strasburger & Donnerstein, 2000). Overall, the levels of violence in prime-time programming have averaged about five acts per hour—while children’s Saturday morning programs have averaged about twenty to twenty-five violent acts per hour (Murray, 1994).

Strategy for Enrichment response: Mediate as many stressors for your children as you can. Remember that they cannot cope well with distress. Come as close to zero for electronic entertainment in the first five years as you can. Too much of an unmanaged electronic download is terrible for a growing brain. It’s not only stressful, but a huge wasted opportunity for alternatives that could do more benefit. Instead find other children for your child to play with and make your house childproof so the kids can play with less supervision. These include social time with friends, more hands-on games or an adult reading to the child.

4. Nourishment

This factor continues to linger as a potential brain maximize. Why? Most parents believe that they already provide sufficient nutrients for their young children, but the data shows otherwise. Many ignore nutrition, thinking that getting the government’s minimum daily requirements are all that’s needed. Growing children need much more. This is a huge opportunity for maximizing the health and growth in any child. Many children under five years old often drink soft drinks (a no-no), eat deep-fried foods (a no-no), and get more refined carbohydrates than fruits, protein, or vegetables (that’s a no-no, too). Among infants aged 24 months or less, 11 percent (one in nine) have French fries daily, and 24 percent (almost one in four) have hot dogs daily (Fox et al., 2004). French fries and hot dogs are a carnival experience, not nutritious food for the delicate growing brain. Hypoglycemia has a profoundly negative effect on the hippocampus (that’s a small crescent structure in our temporal lobes that organizes and codes explicit memory). Instead of a diet of sugar, children need nutrition-rich complex carbohydrates. Those are the unprocessed foods that take longer to break down and digest, but offer far more nutrition. They include potatoes, brown rice, pasta, yams and eggplant.

Young brains need many nutrients for learning. Here are some suggestions:

• No soft drinks until age 5, even then, make them an occasional treat (children don’t need the sugar or the habit).
• Potato chips, donuts, pop-tarts and cookies are neither staples nor a balanced meal.
• Whole fruits—bananas, sliced apples, grapes, and watermelon—should be a steady part of the diet.
• Water is the best liquid, otherwise use real (not artificial) fruit drinks. (Artificial drinks have too much high fructose corn syrup, which has been linked to diabetes.)
• Commercial hot dogs, hamburgers, and pizza are not staples; make fast food an exception offered no more than once a week. If you buy frozen pizzas, add fresh ingredients to make it healthier (spinach, broccoli or bell peppers).
• Stick with whole foods—real foods—and reduce the ready-made ones.
• Give choices—but make them minor, insignificant choices. The adult should be the real guardian of the child’s nutrition, offering only positive choices.

Strategy for Enrichment response: Include a wide range of foods for your child. Sneak some supplements or extra nutrients into the meals. Make protein smoothies with flaxseed oil in them. Proteins and fruits are needed as well as the more complex carbohydrates (pasta, real potatoes, and brown rice).

5. Coherent Complexity

If you’ve ever visited to another country or simply listed to another speak a language that you do not know, it’s easy to feel outmatched. When you don’t know the language, you’re seriously “out of the loop.” New languages, when you have no background are tough. But on kids, it’s even tougher. The difficulty of learning a new language is the greatest complexity that most children face. While some parts of a child’s life may be suboptimal, that doesn’t make them complex. In a child’s life, the most complex part of his or her environment is language.  Between birth and six months and again between six months and twenty-four months children cross several thresholds in language learning.

The development of language is primarily stimulated by these activities:

• Listening to millions of words. The more words a young child hears the better. The highly fluctuating tonality of “Parentese” (the “goochy-goochy-goo” burble that people find themselves using without thinking about it, sometimes to their embarrassment) is actually helpful from birth to twelve months.
• Listening to whole sentences. The children who had the most impoverished vocabularies and who were least likely to read were those whose parents shouted out commands, directives, and complaints. Children who hear phrases all day such as “Stop it! Now sit down,” or “Shut up!” will have weaker vocabulary development than those whose parents take time to talk with them.
• Seeing words as well as hearing them. Point out letters. Point out words when you read aloud. Point out signs on streets. In short, make the world of letters, sounds, and words very real in an everyday context. Use fingers to show letters. Sign language is often valuable for infants to learn before they have a spoken vocabulary. It can reduce their stress of being unable to communicate.
•  Speaking. The more the better. Encourage a child to talk through things. Ask simple questions such as where, when, how, why, and who. Most important, read interesting books to your child, and talk about them.
• Specific identifications. It’s not enough to say to your child, “This is a hat. See this . . . this is a hat.” Make distinctions so your child knows what is similar and what is different. Instead say, “This is a hat right here. And here, we have a scarf.”

From birth to age five, the children starting school with the weakest vocabulary had parents who spoke, on average, about 500–1500 words per hour. That adds up to a million words—which sounds like a lot! On a per day basis, it’s about 5,500 words or about 1,000 words for each of the five waking hours of daily contact (subtract time for sleeping, playing, and other activities).

But contrast that with those who began school with an excellent vocabulary. They had parents who spoke an average of 1500–2500 words per hour. In five years, that’s two to three million words or more than a million more words! This gives you an idea of how much language children have to hear to be ready for school. More speaking, more quality speaking to children is better for educational outcomes (Hart & Risley, 1992).

Strategy for Enrichment response: When you’re with very young children, talk as often as possible. Speak clearly and often. Use full and complete sentences. Ask questions and wait patiently for answers. Avoid “barking” out one-or two word commands. Talk through every task you can. Talk through getting dressed, using the toilet, and changing diapers. Talk through exploring objects and playing games. One of the easiest ways to ensure a child gets a daily dose of vocabulary is by reading aloud. Read every day for at least 10–15 minutes. Talk with enthusiasm and remember when it comes to exposure of vocabulary, there are no studies that show one can do too much. You can play the “I Spy” game. “I spy a . . . dog!” “I spy a . . . tree.” Or, “I spy a… shoe!”  It’s great for kids to learn new words while being engaged with some suspense.

6. Free Time

Most parents have a tendency to want to keep their children busy, and for good reason. At least they know where each child is and what’s happening. But it is possible to keep a child too busy. Children need time to go at their own pace, taking pauses, breaks, and doing nothing at times. As long as the area is safe, it’s perfectly acceptable for your child to be doing absolutely for as much as an hour a day of waking time. Why?  Read what a leading expert, Peter Huttenlocher, a professor of pediatrics and neurology at the University of Chicago, says:

“The brain of the young child may need some ‘time out’ to consolidate the information. Reservation of cortical space for the processing of later acquired skills may also impart a functional advantage . . .. A proper balance of early exposure to an academic enrichment environment and time off  (italics added) may be important for optimal cortical development.” (Huttenlocher, 2002)

Peter Huttenlocher has made detailed studies of brain development that are classics in modern neuroscience. As much as anyone in the world he understands the complex process of a growing brain, and he maintains that it may be costly to try to cram too much too fast into a young brain. Enrich, and then allow for settling time. If the brain gets too many learning experiences too early, it may use areas that would have been better reserved for later development. The world is full of “late bloomers”—people who were average or below early in school or even by graduation, then became substantial contributors later in life. To cite the most vivid example, Einstein was an average student up through middle school. He did not get life crammed into his daily routines and was unable to make it into the equivalent of the advanced placement classes in his high school. In fact, he struggled with basic math problems. No early blooming here; Einstein’s first job was as a patent office clerk.

The studies on this are unclear. Many of these “Better Baby” graduates do better the first year or two in school. But others not in the super-enriched program catch up quickly (Hirsch-Pasek et al., 2003). This raises other questions: Is there any possibility that other opportunities are being lost? Are other kids better at things not measured? What would happen if the Better Baby brigade were tested ten years later? Maybe it’s not how much you offer children, it’s whether what you offer is appropriate for that child, on that day. One of the lessons here is that enrichment is not about cramming as much as possible per minute of life. It’s the whole package. It means avoiding harm, keeping stress down, giving some free quiet time daily, and managing the download so it comes in amounts the child can use constructively.

Strategy for Enrichment response: Avoid cramming high-speed activities into every waking hour of your child. It’s acceptable to let them simple sit, rest, observe, explore and take naps. Find a balance between guided activity and quiet time. Remember to allow for simply relaxation or passive observation. Even more than adults, children need a chance to consolidate their gains and find uses for them that are personally rewarding.

7. Social and Community Support

Much of the studies on enrichment suggest that a positive social environment can do wonders to enhance health and social out comes. One of the roles that positive social contact serves is to be a go-between. Other people can buffer negative experiences and amplify positive experiences. Usually one or more of the older group serves as a mediator. A mediator is a go-between, one who serves as a way to translate, influence, and ensure the success of a relationship.

Children need mediators—people who will mentor, encourage, rehearse, guide, limit, and celebrate the experience of life, helping them perceive and understand how people and things work. This is one of the hardest but most important principles for enriching the brain. The first five years are a time when the child has little ability to regulate its own brain. Life happens to them. What children need, especially from ages two until five, is a guide, mentor, and guardian to help them navigate their way through life. This is particularly challenging for today’s working parents, but it is essential for enrichment.

Use this time in your life to protect your child from bullying, harassment, teasing or physical punishment. Children this age cannot understand others’ intentions and they sure don’t know how to understand the history behind another’s misdeeds. Infants especially do not need to be punished. You may say, “No,” and walk away, but they don’t need violence. When your child makes a mistake, keep remembering their age. Their brain is not mature and there’s no way on earth that they’ll understand etiquette, manners, safety or cause and effect for social conduct or just plain mischief. Children at not resilient; they are highly vulnerable to stress, trauma, abuse and distress.

Finally, children are learning countless things every day. Earlier we talked about the constant downloading of the environment. Children download the stress, the vocabulary and the emotions. Children are also downloading images, phrases and actions. They are downloading how you treat them, how you treat others and how you respond to stress. Children are downloading the love you show them, the way you treat other children and the way you treat your spouse.

Amplify the Positives Through Celebrations

Celebration is key, not just to children, but also to those who live and work with them. When your child finishes a task, celebrate with a smile, clapping and whoops of joy. Celebrate for not just the first word, or the first step, but for every little thing. Your child needs to know what you find important. But you, too, need to stop and smell the roses. Your child is making a breakthrough! You and your child did it!

Make a point for a mini-celebration when your child:

• Completes a simple task
• Mimics your smile, movement, or laugh
• Stands up, walks, or holds an object carefully
• Completes a request
• Tries out a new food
• Finds a toy, puts toys away
• And countless other simple tasks

The celebration becomes an encouraging milestone. The child learns what you value and what to anticipate will be celebrated in the future—and the joy of learning itself. But what about you? You get to see the forest through the trees. You get to stop, pause and smell the roses. You get to freeze time and say, “Progress is happening, goodness is here, we are getting there.” It’s an acknowledgment of your parenting as well as a celebration for the child. Remember to celebrate even the little things, and remember: it’s just as important for you to celebrate as it is for others.

Strategy for Enrichment response: Mediate the world for your child by making it safe, more interactive and filled with laughter. Be the parent that you’d want your child to grow up to be someday. Every day, practice being loving, encouraging, accepting and patient. Celebrate the simple milestones. With children under five, there are often new milestones reached every week.

What Effective Early Childhood Programs Do:

If this enrichment response was the real deal, there should be evidence for it; and there is strong evidence. The place to do the best studies is in early childhood because many kids who are starting first grade are not ready for school (Carnegie, 1995). While the more obvious complaint might be that kids are cognitively behind, the fact is, many are behind socially and emotionally.

That’s why the seven enrichment response factors mentioned above are wide in their reach—they’re not all academic. The first thing to understand about effective programs is that it’s not easy. It’s simple—just follow the seven guidelines mentioned above. But executing them is not a piece of cake. One reason is that for any early childhood program to be effective, they must either keep up with the anticipated or typical developmental trajectory of healthy kids, or make up for lost ground if the kids have been exposed to adverse circumstances.

Prevention always sounds good to some in hindsight. When the problems pile up, it’s worth asking, “Could any of them have been prevented?”  Many parents make the time to deal with adolescent problems of oppositional personalities, attention deficits, depression, anxiety disorders, drug abuse, poor choices in activities and friends, and other growing-up issues. But the evidence suggests we might have far fewer of those problems if we invest better in the first five years. The brain is developing far more, faster and more critically in these years than any other time. Why not do the prevention early on when the child is far more cooperative?

Some argue against the early investment in childcare, saying, “Why not wait and only deal with the ones that become a problem?” But, can later problems get fixed? For the most part, yes. But the amount of time, headache, and resources it takes to fix a teenager’s problem usually far outweighs the prevention investment.

Part of the benefit of early enrichment is that by doing things smarter and earlier and better in a child’s life, you’ll be able to enjoy the benefits for a lifetime.

Summary

A pioneer in the early childhood enrichment field, Dr. Craig Ramey says, “What is needed from the research community is a shift in the central question being asked in contemporary early childhood education research. We need to realize that the old question of whether the development of high-risk children can be positively changed has been answered with a resounding “yes.” We must now move on to more refined questions concerning the relative influence of different types of programs including practical questions concerning age of onset, intensity and duration of treatment as well as the effects of various specific educational curricula.” (Ramey and Ramey, 2002 pg. 3).

He’s right; early smart programs that invest in human potential have the capacity to pay off for a lifetime. Are you on board?

photo credit: Thomas Hawk

Let’s explore the role of music in your work. Whether you’re a teacher, staff developer or administrator, today’s audience often expects music. Why? A presenter who has orchestrated positive music into a thoughtful tapestry may have spoiled the audience. But is that a good idea?

First, is there any research behind using it? Second, how do you choose the right music?

Music is the perfect stimulus for triggering either raw or complex emotions. First, as you might expect, while novel music can be fun, you’ll get the highest emotional response from playing music which is familiar to your students (Pereira et al., 2011). Typically, the familiar songs evoke strong positive memories. This suggests if you want to play novel music to kids, you might need to a bit of repetition (playing it over and over and associate it with new positives) to turn it into a consistent positive trigger for students.

Another study investigated whether and how individuals employ music to induce specific emotional states. The music was used in everyday situations solely to manage personal emotions. This study shows how emotion-congruent music selections are extra powerful in activating emotional states in everyday situations (Thoma et al., 2011). It validates something very important to me: sometimes the best reason to use music in your own work is that it puts you in a positive emotional state for doing your best work.

The third study was designed to investigate whether listening to music in a social group influenced the emotion felt by the listeners. Surprisingly, the study found that the participants (all were musicians) did not experience greater “group emotionality” or collective emotional response when listening to music in a group than when listening alone (Sutherland et al., 2009). With non-musicians, the effect was the opposite. We all felt the “collective kum-bah-yah!”

Another study goes at this social question from a different angle.

We all know music is a powerful means to induce emotions. This study investigates whether these emotional effects can be manipulated by online social feedback. After each song excerpt they heard, participants rated their emotions according to arousal (intensity) and valence (positive or negative) scale. But one of the two groups was also given feedback on how pervious listeners rated the music. Study results show that the online feedback significantly influenced participants’ ratings of music (Egermann, et al., 2009).

In short, when others say they liked a song, we listen with a more favorable ear. This may be why iTunes and Amazon always shows you ratings of the product by previous buyers when you are shopping for a song.

We’ve known for some time that music emphasis and rhythmic phrases activate physiological variables. Our autonomic responses can become synchronized with music, which trigger new emotions through autonomic arousal during crescendos or rhythmic phrases (Bernardi et al., 2009). We’ve also known for some time, that stronger emotions correlate with stronger memories. This association led a prominent researcher to propose a theory.

In an influential paper, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio and his colleagues, proposed the “somatic marker” hypothesis and it has slowly gained credibility. Essentially, this says that the feelings we have will create a decision-making bias. In the context of the classroom, it does not mean every moment must be positive. In fact, psychologist Barbara Frederickson says the ratio should be about 3-1 (positives to negatives) to have a healthy balance (Werner et al., 2009). As you go through your week, keep the ratio in mind. Remember, it’s not an hourly or daily ratio. That level of scorekeeping would drive you crazy.

Now, how might this play out in a classroom with music?

Practical Applications

Many times, educators come up to me during my presentations and ask for my playlists of music. Most of my song lists are changing monthly, so there’s nothing sacred about them. One of many ways I use songs is for the role of emotional punctuation. That process is a “somatic marker” in the sense that it strengthens the emotions of the learned content. I play a particular song directly after a fresh learning experience as a tool for memory-making.

Here are ten affirming, fabulous songs for emotional punctuation
that I use.

Click here to open iTunes and purchase the songs listed below.

TO STRENGTHEN A GOOD MOOD
Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah… from: Splash Mountain on The Official Disney Album

TO REINFORCE THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIPS
You’ve Got a Friend in Me… Artist: Randy Newman on Toy Story Soundtrack

TO AFFIRM SELF-CONFIDENCE
Unbelievable… Artist: EMF

TO AFFIRM STRENGTH AND CAPACITY
You Got What It Takes… Artist: Marv Johnson

TO AFFIRM VALUE OF PARTNERSHIPS
It Takes Two… Artist: Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston

TO AFFIRM SUCCESS
When You’re Hot, You’re Hot… Artist: Jerry Reed

REINFORCE OPTIMISM
Stay Positive… artist Cali P.

TO AFFIRM A GOOD FEELING
I Second That Emotion… Artist: Smokey Robinson & The Miracles

TO AFFIRM STRENGTH AND CAPACITY
Feelin’ Stronger Every Day… Artist: Chicago

TO AFFIRM OPTIMISM
Always Look On the Bright Side of Life… Artist: Costa Crew

photo credit: boston_camera

THE NEUROLOGY OF ERROR CORRECTION THROUGH THE VISUAL FIELD.

Most people probably never wonder what occurs in their brain when they make a mistake; scientists, however, have diligently pursued the question. “Solving difficult, novel, or complex tasks, overcoming habitual responses, and correcting errors all require a high degree of cognitive control,” the study reports. Acting as the brain’s “mistake filters,” the frontal eye field and anterior cingulate cortex, it appears, critically impact our thoughts, actions, and errors.

The critical point here is that when we can actually see the errors we make, we learn to correct them more quickly.

Action Steps:

Rather than simply pointing out learners’ mistakes, help them identify where and how their logic became faulty. Remember, when we can see our mistakes, the frontal eye field-which houses our error correction and overriding faculties-is activated. Next guide learners through the correct steps, thus, reinforcing accurate methods.

Create a learning environment in which students feel comfortable and safe and smart despite the making of mistakes. Reassure students that mistakes are how we learn.

Allow sufficient “down time” for reflection and consolidation of facts, concepts, and skills.
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Do you like travel? How about attending the HONG KONG BRAIN EXPO? Interested in going to China, starting with Hong Kong? There’s an amazing brain-based conference there in early February with Art Costa, Eric Jensen (me!) and the famous Dr. Daniel Amen. Check it out at http://www.brainandmindexpo.com

Yes,I’ve taken the plunge and have joined Twitter! Click here to check it out. It lets me get a feel for the issues educators are dealing with, as well as keeping up with the technology that impacts the classroom.

photo credit: Mikey G Ottawa

1. Constantly make something important to their brain (say, “Wow, this is so good that…” Or, “If you learn nothing else all day, listen closely and remember this…”)

2. Get students out of their seats for a quick energizer every 8-15 minutes (it bumps up Cortisol, Dopamine and Norepinephrine, all of which help strengthen memory formation)

3. Every single key idea, repeat after me (“Now we just learned there are four seasons. How many seasons are there?”)

4. Use acronyms

5. Use priming ALL Day long (“Earlier I said we have 4 seasons and the coldest one is W-I-N________?”) They spell out the rest of the word.

6. Use partners more often. (“We just learned the four seasons. Now, please stand up. Great. Find a neighbor and point to him or her say, “You’re it!. Great. Now, between you and your neighbor, see if you can remember all four seasons.”) Then do error correction.

7. Use their body more often, like every 15-30 minutes to connect with content. (“We just learned the four seasons. Now, let’s burn them into our brain in a fun way. Please stand up. Great. With your body, show your neighbor, you wiping sweat off your forehead. That’s summer. Great. Now show your neighbor raking up leaves. That’s fall. Etc.”)

8. Put key ideas up on posters around the room. Ask kids to stand up, find a partner and take them to the poster. Then they review the material using the poster as a helper.

9. Use peg systems

10. Use spatial learning and associate concepts to places in the room. Take a key idea like cumulus clouds and go to a corner of the room with the kids. Ask them to look up in the corner and imaging HUGE rain clouds in the ceiling corner. Imaging the rain. Repeat after me: “Cumulous clouds means.. rain (or whatever).”

Knowing these are good. Actually doing them-all day long, every day of the week, is how you get miracles.

Make it happen.

photo credit: Justin Shearer

Is the expression, “Fight, flight or freeze” a myth or science?

There’s an assumption that if a student in school feels threatened in any way, there’s going to be an immediate response we’ve all heard of before. Those might include “fight” (talk back to teacher, argue or even get physical), “flight” (try to get out of the situation, change seats, rooms or get out school), or “freeze” (quit participating and disconnect from learning).

However, recent research tells us there’s far more going on. In fact, you might be surprised what researchers have discovered about student emotions (and your own)…

Recent Discovery

There are many things you should know about our emotional system, but we’ll focus on just one area (the amygdala) and only the relevancy to school and your own life. Just maybe we can help out your relationships and add joy to your life!

First, there are gender differences in our emotional system.

You may have heard of the amygdala as if it’s singular, but we have two of them (on the left and right side of the brain). Technically, it should be referred to as the amygdalae (plural). Known as small, almond-shaped brain structures, they are highly involved in the fear response. These structures are located deep in the temporal lobes at the foot of the hippocampus in each hemisphere. And, they operate differently in males and females.

The male processes emotions in the right amygdala and, hence more globally. It helps you understand why those with male traits (usually boys and men) often are comfortable with the “gist” of things for an explanation of an emotional event (“That sucks!”). The female amygdala processes emotions in the left hemisphere. This results in memories encoded more in parts and sequentially. Those with female traits are more likely to want to unpack an emotional event and process it, often in some detail (“She told me…and then I…but she…”). Women are more likely to want to “unpack” an intense emotion and men are more likely to “bundle” them (Cahill et al., 2004). In the classroom, help boys write more easily by using emotional story starters, word prompts and provide opening sentences for paragraphs to help them get going. In a relationship, it might be a good idea for each person to appreciate the other’s tendencies.

Second, there are speed differences in our responses.

The amygdala can be activated fast or slow. Fresh studies provide evidence of an early survival-oriented response to threats regardless of task load or attentional focus. Super-fast amygdala processing is specific to only fear during attended processing, like when you’re feeling threatened. It can also activate slowly, like when you’re trying to fall asleep but you keep hearing strange sounds in your house. In this case, cortical processing is undiminished, and more broadly tuned to threat during unattended processing.

This initial fear activation response is an electrical and chemical process. This fast-operating high threat system is your hard-wired (fight, flight or freeze) defense activation (Pichon, et al., 2011). Once started, it cannot be stopped like flipping a switch. It’s going to “run it’s course.” If you scare someone, then tell them you were “Just kidding”, their brain may still not recover quite so quickly from the fearful reaction. It will take time to “settle down”.

Third, our amygdala is not all that automatic; it is regulated by attentional bias and personality differences.

The more scattered our attention, the less likely our amygdala is to be activated. The delayed amygdala response depends on attentional bias. This means, if we are distracted or simply don’t pay attention, we delay the secondary response.

This why our amygdala works BOTH fast and SLOW. Our emotional responses to a situation CAN work like an on-off light switch; but they more often work like a dimmer switch, slowing brewing and unfolding. In the classroom, more student engagement will increase student focus on the learning and work at hand. Students are less likely to get their “uncertainty response” activated when they’re excited.

It is also regulated by whether you are a low or high anxiety subject (Brosch and Wieser, 2011). The same stimulus does NOT always provoke a fight, flight or freeze response. Higher anxiety means stronger arousal. Originally, it was thought that our amygdala was designed only for threat detection. Today the research suggests, ‘It’s way messier than we thought.’ It actually is designed to detect uncertainty, NOT JUST FEAR. You don’t have to instill fear to provoke it, just high uncertainty. Those that have higher anxiety will likely activate their amygdala (uncertainty) more often than those with low anxiety. Do you know someone who is more fearful? A higher anxiety level will facilitate that response.

So, how do we help our kids in class better regulate their emotions while we live a life of serenity and bliss?

Applications

Let’s reveal our three immediate applications.

First, when it’s time for either oral or written assignments where males must express their emotions, you’ll often get a “gestalt effect” (meaning they are all in one “package” in their brain). Help the boys ‘unpack the emotions’ through leading comments, more structure in the writing and story starters. That means, you can put leading sentences in the text for writing such as, “The first thing I felt when I arrived was _______. Then I knew ________…” (from here on they can write).

The second is geared towards the fight, flight, or freeze notion and the amygdala. If you, or a colleague, activate the student’s “fight, flight, or freeze” response (accidentally, we hope) here’s what to know.

First, there’ll be an automated activation of a cascade of responses. The chemicals (like cortisol) will be in the body at elevated levels for 1-2 hours. What you can do in the classroom is give your students something they can have control over immediately. Give them an object to work with or manipulate, a process to complete, a puzzle to solve, or an experience at a learning station to get their minds on action they can control. Why? The sense of control over one’s life is the best antidote to the “uncertainty experience” that triggered the “fight, flight, or freeze” response in the first place.

This is why, if you or your spouse get mad at the other, one of you will often wander off and start doing something routine, like busywork (e.g. putting away dishes, working in the garage, cleaning, fixing something, laundry). These are ‘high-control’ tasks which enhance the sense of having ‘say-so’ over one’s life. It might irritate the other spouse, but it does slowly settle the brain down.

Third, how else can you apply what we know about emotions? The key is learning how to manage and regulate your own emotions. Many books suggest ways to do this. The best chunk of research I’ve seen on positivity probably comes from the work of Martin Seligman (Learned Optimism) and Barbara Fredrickson (Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity). Both give you the lab-tested tools necessary to create a healthier, more vibrant, and flourishing life. Both are researchers you can trust.

Seligman suggests: 1) extend your existing positive states, 2) find more meaning in your life, and 3) stay more engaged in life. Frederickson suggests that experiencing positive emotions in a 3-to-1 ratio with negative ones leads people to a tipping point beyond which they naturally become more resilient to adversity and effortlessly achieve what they once could only imagine.

The beauty of both of these resources is that you are not a victim. You can learn to manage your emotions and have a great day nearly every day of your life.

Brain-based education says, “Be purposeful about it.” Now, go have some fun and make another miracle happen!

Now, for the December holiday treat…

Brian Vaszily has a great site for positive emotion-building. He runs the site IntenseExperiences.com. The content below is directly from Brian’s site. This is great content and perfect for the holidays coming up. Here’s what he suggests:

1.) Embrace New Experiences. Most people suffer from merely existing versus really living. Don’t get caught in a rut; get out of it if you are. Explore. Play. Go beyond your comfort zone. Don’t lean on the excuse “I don’t have time to try new things.” It is as tragic and ridiculous as saying “I don’t have time to breathe.” New experiences are life. Live deeply.

2.) Be Who You Are. Recognize what others expect of you, including society’s expectations, your parents’ expectations, the opposite genders’ expectations, and anyone’s expectations. Recognize and clear through the guilt, anger, fear and other emotions that are sabotaging you. What are your dreams? Your goals? Your loves? Who are you? Be that person.

3.) Let Go of the Past. The past is good for two things: the happy memories, and the lessons it provides. Clinging to resentment and sadness for past events hurts one person the most: you. Don’t let the past suck the gift of the present out of you. Forgive. Let go. Be here now, and go forward.

4.) Be Kind. It is easy to act kindly to those who have been kind to you. Do so, but also remember that is not where kindness is needed most. Recall those many times where you made mistakes, where you reacted out of negative emotions instead of responding from who you really are. Recall how you felt, or how you would have felt, if others responded to your mistakes with kindness instead of harsh criticism or a cold shoulder. Negativity only breeds more negativity. Empathize, and choose to be kind. It spreads rapidly.

5.) Be Responsible for Yourself. Whatever happens, however promising or tragic, only one person is responsible for how you respond to it: you. There are no greater wastes of energy and potential than blame, envy, a desire for revenge, and wallowing in self-pity. You and only you are responsible for how you respond to anything and how you act. You wish others were a certain way? You wish the world were a certain way? Be the example.

6.) Nurture Relationships. Think of your most joyful moments. Think of all you have learned. Think of what has helped you grow. Chances are great these all involve other people, and other relations such as pets and nature, too. There are over six billion people on this earth. There are infinite relationships to be had. Everyone has something to understand and to learn from. There is infinite love to be had, and to give. You can choose to be lonely, but you are never alone.

7.) Recognize All You Have, and Be Grateful for It. If you are alive, you are fortunate. If you can read this, you are fortunate. If you can walk, talk, see, smell, taste, or feel, or all of these, you are fortunate. You are what you focus on, so if you focus on what you lack, you become that lack. Focus on all that you do have, on the gifts inside and all around you. Be grateful to be great.

8.) Do What Inspires You. Painting, singing, writing, biking, swimming, gardening, reading, dancing, walking, woodcarving … what is your flame? What ignites you, inspires you, enlightens you, and restores your life? Do it, and do it often. Do not believe your excuse of having too much work to do and too little time for what inspires you. Doing what inspires you is the very fuel that will give you the strength and motivation to do the other things you need to do, and do them well.

9.) Remember That Happiness Is A State, Not A Circumstance. Happiness is a state of being, not merely a moment of pleasure or joy. By committing to your happiness you acknowledge and accept that there will be times of challenge and suffering, but by staying true to who you are you will not just endure, but thrive. Happiness is not just the bird floating serenely on the water, and happiness is not made unhappy by the rock that falls and temporarily disturbs the water. Happiness is the water itself, always being exactly what it is.

Please pass these strategies for bringing joy to your life (and the website link at www.IntenseExperiences.com) on to family, friends and co-workers. Please pass it on to other teachers so they can share it with their students. It will make the holidays a more joyful event than ever!

Your partner in learning,
Eric Jensen
CEO, Jensen Learning
Brain-Based Education

CITATIONS:
Brosch, T, Wieser, MJ. (2011) The (non) automaticity of amygdala responses to threat: on the issue of fast signals and slow measures. J Neurosci. Oct 12;31(41):14451-2.

Cahill L, Gorski L, Belcher A, Huynh Q. (2004) The influence of sex versus sex-related traits on long-term memory for gist and detail from an emotional story. Conscious Cogn. Jun;13(2):391-400.

Pichon S, de Gelder, B, Grèzes, J. (2011) Threat Prompts Defensive Brain Responses Independently of Attentional Control. Cereb Cortex. Jun 10.

Posner J, Russell JA, Gerber A, Gorman D, Colibazzi T, Yu S, Wang Z, Kangarlu, A, Zhu H, Peterson BS. The neurophysiological bases of emotion: An fMRI study of the affective circumplex using emotion-denoting words. Hum Brain Mapp. 2009 Mar;30(3):883-95.

photo credit: TheeErin

“There’s a big front coming in this weekend. Expect temperatures to drop to well below freezing. There will be icy and dangerous conditions. Winds will be near gale force. Please take all necessary cautions to protect life and property.”

Sometimes being right is just as bad as being wrong. Just ask any weatherman or weatherperson. Nobody likes to hear the messenger when the news is bad. It’s no different when the news is about our own lives.

Today, we take a look ahead. That’s always a bit dangerous. Today’s world has so many complex variables that any predictions beyond the next few weeks seem far too tenuous to “bank on.” Who would have predicted interest rates would fall to record lows in 2011? Few would have predicted the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster, which set back the space program by years (and maybe put it out of business). The events following 9/11 changed many things in politics, economics and even tourism. The point here is simple; general timelines are easier to predict, high impact events are, well, unpredictable. We’ll have to exclude in this chapter those catastrophic events (sorry, even psychics get them wrong) and stick with the likely stream of events. Based on the trends so far, there are three possible trajectories. One is the nightmare, where all that can go bad, does. Another is the dream, where most important decisions and events are positive. And finally, there’s the most likely scenario of all. That I’ll leave to the end.

The Nightmare

One plausible scenario is that of a society with decreasing enrichment for all ages. There would be widespread decreases in nutrition, quality of life, social interaction, safety, new experiences and overall learning. In this scenario we would see many changes. Included in those changes are  the eight events listed below.  To a degree, they are already happening:

Early childhood care… This would get ignored by federal and state agencies, becoming massively underfunded. Children would lack the access to pre-kindergarten resources needed to help them be ready for school. Only the wealthy would be able to afford it. The nightmare scenario is that programs of this type, the ones that have been marginally funded so far, disappear for lack of funding.

School testing narrows… In this scenario, schools would narrow the range of curriculum to be tested for. Policy-makers would increasingly narrow focus to math, reading and science. But that’s not the problem; the real problem is the stakes involved. Schools that fail established markers would lose their funding (by the thousands). In our worst-case scenario, the testing becomes even more restrictive, narrow minded and worst of all, putative.

Curriculum changes… We are seeing continued narrowing of the curriculum to meet the demands of high stakes testing. In fear of becoming labeled “unsatisfactory” many public schools have eliminated or reduced physical education, arts, electives and the vocational and career tracks. These types of programs are the very types, which have helped students, feel good about being in school. In our worst nightmare, these curriculum choices leave the public schools.

Breakdown of public schools in America… The society becomes increasingly fragmented. More and more schools are offering classes on-line. Soon, many students will have no perceived need for school. In twenty years, 95% of all secondary education could be on-line. There is less of a coherent, social-cultural glue. The social fabric that wove the strands of cooperation, support and familiarity is irreparably eroded. Social problems become more rampant. Charter schools are gaining in popularity because they can admit students preferentially, operate with less red tape, and have a different set of accountabilities. This makes them attractive to many entrepreneurs.

Impoverished or Helped by Technology… In many ways, technology could lead to an impoverished environment for humans. Instead of physically going somewhere, we travel, see friends, compete, play video games and shop all   “virtual”. Why travel or shop around the world when you can have huge color plasma screens as big as a wall bringing you the world to your doorstep. Why learn a language when technology will be able to translate it for you? Why travel to meet people when you can teleconference with anyone in the world?  In many ways, all this technology means less work for the brain. Less work means less enrichment. Or, could it lead us to a whole new world of amazing positive changes??

Managed health care rules… One of the biggest changes in society is that health care is being managed by corporations which opt to choose the cheapest (and most profitable) solution for any given problem. This does not mean the choice will be made for the safest choice, the best long-term choice or the most ecological choice. As an example, millions are given meds but are not given the training for the cognitive skills and lifestyle changes that would eliminate or support the changes needed.

The meds mean less effort on the subject’s part. The meds change the brain, but there’s no enrichment.

Quality of life… There are dozens of factors which determine our quality of life. They include good schools, healthcare and access to resources. But the quality of the physical environment continues to deteriorate. Pollution is increasing, so are the number of toxic waste sites, the volume of traffic flow, the amount of airborne particles from pesticides, pollen and dust. Food no longer has the nutrition it used to have. Along our beaches, more and more of them are closed for contamination and pollution. Countless fish are either too toxic to eat or are endangered species. In our worst case, the environment takes back seat to more pollution and lower quality of life.

Social Changes… Many factors are influencing the changes of the social fabric in America. We are seeing the gradual (over the last two generations) altering of moral, ethical, social and spiritual qualities. There is more violence in the media, more profanity used by youth, increasing drug usage, fewer social bonding activities (aside from college sports) and more virtual activities. The social institutions that foster connectedness are weaker and the society is different because of it. The use of technology has been a huge factor. Do you think the change is overall good, or does it remain to be seen?

The Dream

“I have a dream,” Dr. Martin Luther King proclaimed.

Our dreams are essential for well-being. So many of us were both comforted and buoyed by Dr. King’s speeches. He helped all of us feel saner, more human, more fair and at the same time, hopeful of better days. We all have to carry dreams. Dreams give us a vector, an angle a direction for life. They propel us to higher ground. They give us a reason to struggle. They help us feel bigger than our sometimes petty selves. It is with that spirit, that the following dreams are offered. If we don’t at least consider them, the likelihood of them happening is pretty small.

Here are some of the same scenarios listed above, but with a more positive outcome to them.

Early childhood care strengthened… The best-case scenario would be that early childhood is treated as a “highly sensitive period” in life and that we allocate significant resources and expertise to strengthen available resources. As recommended in the Report to the Nation from the Commission on Children at Risk, we ought to empower service and organizations, philanthropists, scholars, families, seniors and state and federal governments to implement to create a climate where educational assets and mental and social health is optimized for the next generation.

School testing gets smarter… The types of both national and state testing violate most of what we know about what makes for success in life. Qualities like perseverance, optimism and emotional intelligence prove to be just as critical indicators of likely future success as a single test score. We ought to include more humane assessments that value integrity, concern for sustainable environments, teamwork, social conscience, creativity and love of learning. These are just as valuable as the ability to read. Nobel Laureate Archer Martin said it was his love of learning that kept him going; that ensured that his dyslexia never held him back.

Positive Curriculum changes… In a better world, school slow down the on-line components and retain the “in-person” social climate needed for real life. At school we would see physical education, more life skills, more career options offered and better arts curriculum. This would lead to more student satisfaction and eventually better support of public schools in America.

Managed health care evolves… In a positive scenario, many new options are introduced that empower the patient. Ideally, patients work with “health coaches” who provide on-going life style support. Offering them drugs is not empowering; it’s a temporary solution. Long-term, something’s got to change internally, because the brain will adapt to the drug and it will lose its effectiveness. Better in-person support will help change lives.

Widespread support for change in prisons rehab… As you saw earlier, many prisons are becoming aware of the rehab necessary for the real world. But to get the results done in the timely way, the programs have to be enriched. Ideally, we make the nationwide commitment to enrich the ex-cons to get them up to speed.

Greater positive changes in elder care homes… This is another area where changes are on the way. With good, visionary planning, more and more care centers and homes for elderly become resources to the community. Digital technology and a wealth of experience can bring out a lifetime of positive resources and use them in a fast-moving society.

We can all have dreams; and it doesn’t make them invalid if they are low in probability. That’s actually what makes them so sexy—they’re the winning numbers on the Powerball lottery or the perfect mate at e-harmony.com.  But instead of it being an artificial game, real lives are at stake. The lives to consider are those of you, your family and the next generation.

Dream on and do your part. The dream may be wild, but it’s still worth pursuing.

The Most Likely Scenario

You might have guessed it: the most likely scenario is somewhere in between the nightmare and the dream. Why? It’s difficult to gain consensus on policies that seem more extreme, whether they’re long-term beneficial or not. But the important thing about these scenarios is that they’re not decided yet—no one has cast these in stone.

You can influence the decision-makers. In fact, any leaning towards a positive scenario may be dependent on it. Without your overt support, we may find ourselves falling precipitously towards the negative worst-case scenario.

Vote!

Eric Jensen

photo credit: Marty.FM

Researchers Discover the Most Visible Ingredient that Matters Most in School Data on Teacher Quality (and how it ties in with brain research)

In September, I shared the research that told you that feedback was the top achievement-boosting variable. in learning. This month, we’ll tie together some brain research and student achievement data to reveal the most VISIBLE ingredient in better teaching.

First, the hint: It is consistently correlated with high achievement gains and it is one of the single biggest variables in teacher quality.

What The Research Tells Us

For years, realtors have tried to help sell prospective home buyers on the neighborhood with “good schools.” You may have had parents that fixate on picking the right school for their child. But the research shows it matters far more which teacher the child gets.

Teachers had THREE times as much influence on students’ academic development as the school they attended.

Many of the factors commonly assumed to be important to teachers’ effectiveness are NOT causal or even strongly correlated with student achievement. Although teachers are paid more for experience, education and training, those are not a guarantee of better student performance.

At lunchtime, look around your staff lounge. Some teachers are working miracles every day with their kids, while others (unintentionally) are actually slowing students down. Recent studies have found that students’ race, wealth, English proficiency or previous achievement level played LITTLE role in whether their teacher was effective.

At Madison Elementary, Principal Mrs. Cameron described teacher Emily Conroe as one of her most effective staff. Even mothers of her classroom kids gushed with enthusiasm.

“Ms. Conroe was an amazing teacher,” said Christy Johnson, whose daughter was in Conroe’s class a few years ago. “She really worked with her, socially and academically.”

But years of student test scores suggest otherwise (see references at the end of this article).

In the research analysis, Conroe, who teaches third grade, ranked among the BOTTOM 10% of elementary school teachers in boosting students’ test scores. On average, her students started the year at a high level — above the 80th percentile — but by the end had SUNK 11 percentile points in math and 5 points in English (the data is real, the names and school were changed).

The teacher said she was surprised and disappointed by her results, adding that her students did well on periodic assessments and that parents SEEMED well satisfied.

Listen everyone, there’s a new assessment tool being used and we’d all better get used to it. Around the country, more and more districts are paying attention to the “value-added data” that tells whether kids GAINED or LOST as measured against their grade level peers.

Highly effective teachers routinely accelerate students from below grade level to ABOVE in a single year. There is a MONSTER gap at every year’s end between students whose teachers were in the top 10% in effectiveness and the bottom 10%. The randomly lucky students consistently will be ranked 10-20 percentile points HIGHER in reading and 20-30 points HIGHER in math.

How can you get yourself and your staff up to speed?

In September, I shared the research that told you that feedback was the top achievement-boosting variable. But there’s another factor that keeps showing up with feedback.

What is the HUGE VISIBLE “partner secret” that will help kids do better in school? This is the one quality that shows up as the single biggest variable in teacher quality.

So, what is the quality that seems to matter most?

Let’s look at some data. First, you would consider 14,000 teachers to be a pretty good sample size. You might also consider that teaching in Los Angeles Unified School District would provide a HUGE diversity of teaching situations and conditions. And, you’re right.

So, I’ll quote from the study in which the researcher said, “The surest sign of a teacher’s effectiveness was the engagement of his or her students — something that often was obvious from the expressions on their faces.”

Well, there you have it.

Yes, it’s true that it’s good to engage your students cognitively, physically and emotionally, and they will learn better.

It turns out that there is a whole slew of evidence that shows that “involve don’t tell, body-based learning, changing states, action-based learning, cooperation, project-based learning and total physical response” is more than just brain-friendly instruction. It’s effective!

But, there’s more to it.

In the field of neuroscience, engagement is a bit slippery to quantify. You see, to the brain, a certain type of engagement is ideal: engagement with feedback. That’s the ultimate teaching “tool.”

CLASSROOM APPLICATIONS:

Cognitive engagement can be simple. Use curiosity and prediction activities. Activities that challenge students at the lower levels (K-2) include sorting, grouping, comparing, associating and linking activities. Fill in the blanks are better than nothing, but vary the type of activity so the students have to work for more than only recall. At the higher levels (grades 3-12), writing is one the best cognitive activities. Ask them to explain, defend, justify, contrast, describe, critique and speculate. Each of those has feedback built into them!

Emotional engagement has to do with orchestrating and allowing emotions to enhance the learning, rather than avoiding the triggering of them. This means use suspense, surprise and celebrations. Use competition and drama.

Physical engagement is critical too. Use total physical response, body-brain experiences. Touch and say, move and learn. Use relays, games, paired activities, recess, even movement at the seat. But whatever you do, keep them in action.

Social engagement is critical, too. Kids get bored with whatever social condition you use, if it’s overused. You must have a toolbox of social options. Use small group work, impromptu-paired activities, cooperative learning, student teaching, student lead energizers, and teamwork. Use individual work no more than 50% of the total time. And you can quote me on that!

Let’s cut to the chase: everything you do in your classroom is likely to have SOME effect on the brain. Brain-based education says, “Be purposeful about it.”

Now, go have some fun and make another miracle happen!

CITATIONS:
Appleton, J. J., Christenson, S. L. and Furlong, M. J. (2008), Student engagement with school: Critical conceptual and methodological issues of the construct. Psychology in the Schools, 45: 369–386.
Buddin, Richard & Zamarro, Gema, (2009). “Teacher qualifications and student achievement in urban elementary schools,” Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 103-115, September
Buddin, Richard & Zamarro, Gema, (2008) Teacher Quality, Teacher Licensure Tests, and Student Achievement. WR-555-IES May. Institute of Education Science
Buddin, Richard & Zamarro, Gema, (2009). “Teacher Effectiveness in Urban High Schools,” Working Papers 693, RAND Corporation Publications Department
Buddin, Richard & Zamarro, Gema, (2009). “Teacher Qualifications and Middle School Student Achievement,” Working Papers 671, RAND Corporation Publications Department
Davidson DJ, Indefrey P. Error-related activity and correlates of grammatical plasticity. Front Psychol. 2011;2:219.
Ladd, Gary and Dinella, Lisa (2009) Continuity and Change in Early School Engagement: Predictive of Children’s Achievement Trajectories From First to Eighth Grade. Journal of Educational Psychology Volume 101, Issue 1, Pages 190-206
Marks, Helen M., (2000) Student Engagement in Instructional Activity: Patterns in the Elementary, Middle, and High School Years. American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Spring, pp. 153-184.
Taylor J, Roehrig AD, Soden Hensler B, Connor CM, Schatschneider C. (2010) Teacher quality moderates the genetic effects on early reading. Science. Apr.23; 328 (5977): 512-4

photo credit: billaday

In-depth discussions and summaries.

There is no replacement for this strategy. Students somehow need to talk about, argue, think through, summarize, question, rewrite and recall the learning to develop some depth of elaboration.

An older study (Eysenck and Eysenck1979) showed that processing capacity was greater when information was retrieved from secondary (the resource) memory than from primary memory (“I recall”). It’s better when processing was of a deep, semantic nature than when it was shallow. Students have to do the digging, not you. Let them create quizzes, summaries or dialogs with the material.

More recently, teachers found that if you pause and give students time to answer questions on index cards, then discuss in groups learning goes up. These short, in-class writing exercises increase focus, thinking and depth of knowledge (Butler 2001). Reciprocal teaching is well supported by research. Developed by Annemarie Palincsar and Ann Brown in 1984, reciprocal teaching switches the roles of the student and teacher.

It has been well generalized (Coleman 1997) to many subjects areas as well by using three basic steps:

* Group discussions. These smaller groups allow less competent students to perform at higher levels with greater safety than in the large group. These may include small groups.

* Independent Group Discussions. The group collaborates to revise, understand and construct the meaning of the material their way. Students become motivated by autonomy and curiosity.

* Scaffolding: Students can learn from peers just as well as they can from adults. But the process must be guided and managed to avoid any downsides. Here the teacher encourages and provokes students for deeper understanding. The teacher provides support for those less able students and then backs off.

The commonly used process includes these steps:

The old way was to ask student for their answers, acknowledge them and move on. But research tells us that asking students to answer why the answer is correct is better. For students to grow as thinkers, gatherers of knowledge and to improve self-esteem, make the typical Q&A process more productive. Ask students to explain why correct answers are right and why and how they came up with the incorrect ones. This consistently leads to deeper, more accurate learning (Bielaczyc et al.1995).

This strategy works well with students on their own work, too. If you compare the results of high school student learning with either complete materials provided versus self-generated elaborations, students demonstrated greater learning when instructed to use self-generated and very elaborative interrogation (a questioning strategy using “why” questions. The other, less effective choice in this study was using repetition of teacher-provided elaborations of facts (Wood 1994). Take every opportunity you can to elaborate, even in front of the room. Remember that students are highly sensitive to your comments, so be on your best behavior when asking students to elaborate.

The primary tools for elaboration include the following five strategies:

• Understanding key relationships (water-clouds-rain, etc.)
• Transformation of content (turn a summary into a song, an object a mural, map it, etc.)
• Discover new meaning from the same content (study, discussion or reflection may bring it out)
• Find a new organization of content (see it larger context, see categories within it)
• Uncover details within the main ideas from content searches (many key ideas may have a half dozen sub topics, each of those may have another dozen details)

Without having some guidelines of where elaboration can take students cognitively, you won’t know what to do.

These are a few of my favorite things! Enjoy them.

Eric Jensen

  photo credit: fabola

There’s a revolution taking place throughout education… a revolution sparked by the explosion of new knowledge about the human brain and our practical, urgent need to gain cutting edge, paradigm-rocking teaching survival skills for this new century. Now is your chance to be part of a rare event that brings together the worlds top experts on learning, the human brain, educational innovation, and you get to be there!

Discover the New “Neuroscience of Teaching”

That’s right. At Jensen Learning, we were the originators of the Learning Brain EXPO, and to our delight, other Brain EXPOs have popped up around the world. Now the first Hong Kong Mind/Brain EXPO is coming up we are excited to be a part of it!

Click here to register for the first Hong Kong Mind/Brain EXPO

How to Tell if it’s For You

You should attend… if you’re interested in the powerful impact and practical applications of brain research on learning, teaching, training, and education. The Expo is particularly valuable for:

• Supervisors
• Classroom teachers
• Staff developers
• Principals
• Support Staff
• Trainers

Can You Find Your Area of Interest Below?

Our speaker list is highlighted by the always-popular maverick psychiatrist Daniel Amen. Amen is the author of many best-sellers, and a true pioneer in brain imaging. His sessions sell out every single time. Join the EXPO to find out his latest research on maximizing your brain health. This is critical, cutting-edge information for you AND your loved ones!

Learn how to revolutionize your teaching and learning – and make it a place of learning, discovery, collaboration, excitement, and positive transformation, with brain-compatible pioneer, the original and legendary Eric Jensen. He’s written 26 books and he will show how you turn your classroom or school into a brain-compatible event that excites students every day.

But there’s more…

You’ll get a chance to hear the legendary Art Costa, founder of the Thinking Skills movement and Cognitive Coaching movement. He is a legend and you’ll get a rare chance to hear him before it’s too late.

When you attend, you’ll…

RECEIVE dozens of specific, practical tools and strategies that they can apply immediately including the power of nonverbals with

INTERACT with leading experts in neuroscience, learning, and the arts;

LEARN proven methods for boosting student learning, motivation, and achievement;

DISCOVER how to create and sustain positive change in their local school, district, and community;

DEVELOP a step-by-step action plan ready for immediate implementation back on the job;

INCREASE knowledge base by experiencing the cutting-edge of innovations in teaching and learning; and

SKYROCKET self-confidence as they develop greater expertise with brain-compatible approaches. Who else will be there?

What Can You Expect to Learn?

• How to promote intrinsic motivation
• The intricate role emotions play in the thinking and learning process
• How to get students emotionally engaged and excited about learning
• How emotions (our body’s ‘second nervous system’) influence ability to learn
• Why movement is absolutely critical for effective and enduring learning
• Why music and the arts build better brains
• Practical suggestions for immediately boosting student learning – and teacher success

This will be the biggest learning party in Southeast Asia. It is… February 2-5, 2012 in Hong Kong.

By the way – I know you’re already on the cutting edge – after all, you’re on my list! But I still need your help! Could you help me spread the word?

Would You Do Me a Small Favor?

Please – share your enthusiasm with others. Show this material with your peers, your principal, your colleagues, school board members – in short, with anyone and everyone who could also benefit from this once-in-a-lifetime learning, networking, and personal growth opportunity.

Give this to your colleagues and supervisor so that every teacher, principal, and staff member can find out about this amazing event. Just think – the more your peers are exposed to this brave new world of brain-compatible learning, the greater your opportunities for creating profound, sustainable, positive change throughout your particular universe of influence.

Plus, when you bring colleagues with you to the conference, you’ve created a built-in support system when you go home. So, spread the word. You’ll be doing your colleagues – and the young people whose lives they impact – a great service. And to help you apply what you’ve learned, stay for the last afternoon of the last day. Why?

You’ll come away with new lesson plans and a blueprint for weaving deep learning strategies into your teaching. Gain confidence and be inspired by knowing how to make the most of your new strategies.

It’s time to quit dreaming and start taking action. You can attend an amazing conference that will absolutely BLOW YOU AWAY! Here’s how to find out more and get registered…

Click here to get the details on the first Hong Kong Mind/Brain EXPO