Introduction to Book One for Teachers
CHILDREN’S FIRST STEPS
Greater Brain Growth→ Greater Abilities→ Greater Intelligence
Recently, new technologies have created opportunities for us to learn more about the human brain and how it grows. We are interested in this whole idea because of the obvious potential it has for education. Knowing about brain growth offers teachers a chance to improve their student’s abilities to learn and it helps teachers to increase their abilities to help children be successful in many areas of their lives.
One rather amazing discovery has been the discovery that every person’s brain adapts to the world around them and what they experience. At the beginning of life, what children hear, see, touch, smell, and taste influences the brain to grow networks of neurons or nerves in order to support or create successful abilities in relation to what is required. The more neurons children develop, the greater their abilities will be.
Neuron networks are thousands of brain cells forming strands in a specific area of the brain that connect and grow according to what the brain repeatedly experiences. The more children experience something, the larger or more developed that part of their brain becomes and the more brain capacity that child will have in that area. Greater capacity leads to greater ability and greater ability leads to greater intelligence.
NOTE: Neuron networks develop according to both positive and negative experiences. According to J. Madeleine Nash, Time Magazine, 1997, “[babies] who don’t play much or are rarely touched develop brains about 20 to 30 percent smaller than normal for their age.” Suppose a baby is touched, caressed, spoken softly and lovingly too, cuddled, and smiled to. Imagine that another child is not cared for as intensely and even mistreated. The baby who has positive emotional experiences will have a larger neural network for positive emotions than the other baby who was ignored and mistreated. The mistreated child might have a larger network of brain neurons for wariness, suspicion, and fear. According to Dr. Bruce Perry of Baylor College of Medicine (Time Magazine, 1997), “Children exposed to chronic and unpredictable stress will suffer deficits in their ability to learn.” During life when emotions are stimulated, the cared for child will have access to more positive emotions resulting in more desirable, positive outcomes. Contrast this with the child that has been ignored and mistreated. This child’s brain will have been wired with more negative emotions, which ultimately hinder development and learning. Children in both of these scenarios could be influenced by these early experiences for the rest of their lives.
What does developing neuron networks really do for children? Let’s look at the example from above where one child is cared for and loved and the other child is ignored and mistreated. The first child is developing strong neuron networks for positive emotions—based on his experiences. Meanwhile, the second child is developing networks for negative emotions—again, based on his experiences.
To illustrate this point, let’s imagine it is the first day of school for these two kids and they are meeting their teacher for the first time. The child that was cared for and loved, and therefore has more developed positive emotions, will be much more likely to see the teacher as someone good, supportive and helpful. On the other hand, the child who was neglected and abused, and as a result has developed more negative emotions, will most likely see the teacher as a possible threat or someone who might hurt them. Can you imagine how school would be different for these two kids with one child viewing the teacher as someone who will help them and the other seeing the teacher as someone who might hurt them?
NOTE: Kids who have been cared for and loved may still feel fear or anxiety when first introduced to new people and situations. By developing more positive emotions, teachers can help their students adapt to these new situations more quickly.
In another example, suppose a baby heard a certain sound, such as “daddy or mamma,” over and over again. His brain would assemble a network of neurons in response to that sound, and the neural network would be larger for familiar sounds than for other sounds the baby did not hear as often. The baby’s brain is adapting to sounds and sights and other emotional experiences by creating an actual brain structure.
NOTE: Emotions, Language and Numbers—To this point, we have explained brain growth and adapting to particular environments mostly through examples involving emotions. It is essential to understand that the concepts used to develop positive emotions also apply to developing greater langue skills and abilities with numbers. While it is true some children are born with special abilities, what children can learn, and how much they can learn, can easily be influenced by you as teachers. Being a positive, caring, encouraging and patient teacher will allow your students to grow up in this positive environment. Teaching your students the alphabet, reading to them, and teaching them how to communicate—teaching them how to express themselves, listen to and interpret others accurately—all can be influenced and improved by you. Numbers are obviously essential to mathematics, but did you ever consider that number concepts are directly linked to logic, and even further, behavior? Skills used in identifying and using patterns, large to small or sequences of numbered or colored objects—first, second, third, red, yellow, green—involve some of the same skills children use to understand cause and effect patterns of behavior—“If I do this, this is the reward, or this is the punishment.” Whether you are teaching positive emotions, developing language and communication skills, or creating greater abilities with numbers, how effective your efforts are depends on when you provide the experience and if you repeat the learning experiences.
Understanding how children’s’ brains grow according to what they experience and hear most often provides wonderful opportunities for teachers. It suggests that teachers who teach and otherwise care for children can have a direct role in how children’s brains grow. If we want children to have improved abilities in reading and math, or more developed positive emotions, for example, you can create conditions where children’s brains will grow networks of neurons to become more efficient and expansive in these desired areas. We only need to know what to do and when to do it.
How the Brain Grows
To begin, it will be useful to review how the brain grows so you can see what is possible. We have learned, for example, that brains grow over a fairly long period of time—from birth to approximately the mid twenties. There is a very individualized pace. Some people’s brains grow faster during certain periods of life (e.g. age 10-12) and other people’s brains grow faster during other time periods (e.g. 12-16). Some of these are connected to the physical growth spurts most common during childhood and adolescence. If a child’s body slows growing for awhile, then the brain probably slows as well until there is a rapid growth spurt and then the brain speeds its growth too.
EXAMPLE:
Imagine a male child in the second grade. He tries hard to read well but is not making the progress that his parents hope for and expect. Is he not intelligent? Does he have some inherited learning disorder? It’s possible, but not likely. Then, let’s suppose that in the summer between the second and third grade he grows a couple of inches and develops new physical abilities. It is very likely that when he returns to school, instead of being inadequate at reading, he now devours books and rushes ahead of many of his classmates. What happened? His brain grew and improved and the worries about learning problems or a lack of intelligence are unfounded.
Natural brain growth means neuron fibers are becoming stronger, and more connections, called neural networks, are forming between separate brain cells. Simply put, the brain is creating more and more connections for everything it experiences. When a child repeatedly experiences positive emotions, love, comfort and affection, their brain is creating networks of connections for emotions of love and affection. When a child repeatedly hears a common sound or word, his brain is creating neuron networks for these familiar sounds and words. How many words are you teaching your class? What types of emotions are your students most often experiencing? How often do you count things with your class? When speaking to children, do you use many words or few words?
Neuron networks are like a road map. Fewer roads come with fewer experiences and more roads are a result of more experiences. Tasks are easier when there are more roads to take. When more neural networks are created, children control their emotions better and have fewer tantrums. They have better memories, are less likely to forget instructions, and they try to do what they are asked to do. They can consider more things, reason better, and make better decisions. They can also learn greater amounts of information and learn it faster. It is very possible to influence brain growth and how children learn, but it is up to you to learn how to do it.
Sensitive Periods Another remarkable discovery you should know about is the idea of “sensitive periods” or “windows of learning.” A sensitive period is a time when children’s brains are extra sensitive to the world around them. During the rapid growth of the first few years of life, a young child’s brain is also growing at a fast rate.
During this rapid growth of the brain, a child is more likely to adapt to what he or she is exposed to. Researchers have learned, for instance, that children’s brains are very sensitive to emotions in the first five years of life.
During this sensitive period, if we expose children to many positive emotions such as love, happiness, warmth, affection, tenderness, patience, and cheerfulness the centers for these emotions in the brain will grow larger and children will have increased abilities in these areas. We should again note that this is also true if, during the first five years, children most often experience negative emotions such as anger, sadness, pain, neglect, and anxiety. Those centers of the brain will grow larger during this same period.
Researchers have also identified sensitive periods for language and numbers. Human brains are extra sensitive to these areas of learning and develop brain structures (neural networks) for them during the first ten years of life.
If you provide additional opportunities, your students’ brains will respond by creating bigger and better networks during this period than later on. Your students’ abilities can be enhanced for a life time if you are willing to give the proper effort.
How to Develop Brain Growth
Activities Designed for Brain Growth--Emotions, Language, and Numbers What does all of this mean? If you had learning activities for young children, and they were designed for brain growth, could you use them during these sensitive periods to enhance their abilities and intelligence? The answer is a resounding and enthusiastic, yes! To stimulate brain growth, children must be exposed to learning that 1) takes advantage of the sensitive periods of development, and 2) that is continually repeated to provide the enhanced experiences for accelerated learning. The activities in the Children’s First Steps Brain Growth Activity Books are divided into two stages, Beginning and Advanced. This format helps you to take advantage of the sensitive periods children experience between the ages of four to five for beginning and ages five to six for advanced. The activities can easily be repeated and adjusted to add variety, and the beginning and advanced format allows you to extend the time your students are exposed to these incredible brain growth learning tools. As children learn activities in the beginning books , the advanced books can be used to further their development
Children learn about and experience many positive and healthy emotions. They learn many different number skills and a variety of language abilities. It is not possible to measure the neural networks for developed skills with numbers, language or emotions for obvious reasons, but these activities have been tested and proven with many children in a controlled learning condition.
We have discovered that children who use these brain growth activities do in fact begin to learn more quickly and they become more confident in their abilities.
Two Learning Environments
Lastly, to improve our opportunities to help children there is one more thing we can do. When it comes to brain growth, what teachers do is very important and is significant. What parents do is important and significant. We can be even more effective if parents and teachers do some of the same things during the same sensitive period. The reason for this is clear. If a child is exposed to similar things with both parents and teachers, it is more likely that his or her brain will conclude that the ideas and mental skills they are being invited to learn should be focused on because they are showing up in more than one environment.
The activities in this program have been designed to be easily adapted to both home and classroom use. We have prepared two sets of brain growth activities. One set of 108 activities is for teachers and one set of 108 activities is for parents. All activities have corresponding teacher/parent activities. There are four Children’s First Steps Brain Growth Activity Books available:
1. Parent’s Book: Beginning, ages 4-5 (54 Brain Growth Activities)
2. Parent’s Book: Advanced, ages 5-6 (54 Brain Growth Activities)
3. Teacher’s Book: Beginning, ages 4-5 (54 Brain Growth Activities)
4. Teacher’s Book: Advanced, ages 5-6 (57 Brain Growth Activities—Note: Three activities in this book were copied from the Teacher’s Activity Book for Beginners.)
* The 108 activities in the parent’s books and the108 activities in the teacher’s books can easily be adapted for home use or classroom instruction to provide parents and teachers with 216 brain growth activities.
All 216 unique activities are available on CD-ROM.
Educating Others
We have developed training programs in emotions, language, and numbers so others can be taught how to become more proficient in helping children. The training programs for Children’s First Steps are simple to use and can be completed in one day or spread over a number of days. The program is ideal for preschools, kindergartens and various parent groups. We believe when both parents and teachers are involved, they will readily see the results of their work in the enhanced abilities of their children. Please see the contact information below for more information regarding these incredible activities and the training programs. If you have any questions, would like more information, or would like to find out how you can distribute this wonderful program and its activities, please feel welcome to contact us.
Knowledge Gain Learning Systems
703 South State Street
Suite 1
Orem, UT 84058
Tel.: 801.225.9585
800.526.7793
Fax: 801.221.8810
Website: www.totalcharacter.com
Email: brett@totalcharacter.com
POWERFUL BRAIN GROWTH
LEARNING TECHNIQUES
The purpose of Children’s First Steps is to provide activities and information that will help you to understand how to develop the brains and enhance the abilities of your students. To develop the brain and improve abilities, you must pay attention to how the brain itself functions and learns, and then you must provide stimulation–or activities in this case–that match up with the brain’s natural methods of learning and developing. Following are two brain-based learning methods, Metacognition and Mind Mapping. These two brain-based learning methods are very powerful when it comes to brain growth because they take advantage of the natural development of the brain. Although these brain-based learning methods could be discussed at great length, they have been briefly introduced in this book to provide you with a look at how powerful and effective brain-based learning can be when used to teach your children.
METACOGNITION
Metacognition—students thinking about their thinking—helps to associate positive feelings to learning, adds meaning and value to what children learn and helps kids personalize and understand how to apply what they learn. Each activity in the Children’s First Steps program provides a series of metacognitive questions—possibly the most exciting portion of the activities.
Three Metacognitive Goals
1. To establish and reinforce a connection between positive emotions and learning activities
2. To give meaning and value to the concepts learned for increased retention
3. To awaken awareness of what learning “feels like” emotionally, physically, and intellectually so that the children can recognize and initiate learning in the future
Two things are essential to accomplish these goals. One, whatever form this activity takes it must be consistent. Two, the activity must include the three goals of metacognitive processing every day. Adhering to these two rules allows the children to become familiar with the process and become more fluent in their verbal responses.
Facilitating any metacognitive processing activity is a humbling but positive experience for teachers. Children do not always learn what we intend them to learn. Sometimes they learn important and profound lessons from us that we did not intend to teach. As teachers, it is tempting to gently lead your students to give the expected response or to interpret or reframe their response according to your agenda. This is very demoralizing to children (and adults!) and critically hampers the learning process. It is crucial that we allow children free expression within the metacognitive activity so we can accurately identify what they have learned or have not learned.
As you become more skilled in participating in metacognitive processes, it may be of value to do a very short metacognitive review of previous activities at the beginning of each day’s instruction. Again, please view the questions listed in the “Let’s Talk About It” section of each activity for metacognitive questions.
MIND MAPPING
Mind Mapping is a technique for organizing information that uses both sides of the brain, encourages children to use symbols, and has many learning benefits. The activity requires the brain to integrate multiple sources of information, including visual images, emotional responses, and written words. Integrating these into a symbol system stimulates the brain to use higher level functions. Essentially, Mind Mapping helps children organize large quantities of information for better retention and greater achievement. Mind Mapping is often a more effective learning method because it initiates the natural paths of the brain when learning and recalling information.
Mind Mapping Advantages
• Mind Maps use the whole brain, not just the left side
• Mind Maps are fun
• Mind Map images are more memorable than the words in an outline
• Mind Maps, like our brains, are non-linear (ideas do not come from our brains in an outline manner)
• Mind Maps are quicker and easier to use than an outline
• Mind Maps can help you organize information by allowing you to see an overview of the information and connections between ideas
Mind Mapping Basics • Use a central image: This image should be simple, but fun and representative of the main idea. For example, if your students just learned about bigger and smaller, you could draw a big shape and a small shape in the center. You don’t have to be an artist to convey the general idea!
• Use lots of smaller images: Surround the central image with other simple, colorful, meaningful, and memorable pictures. For example, the concepts of bigger and smaller do not refer exclusively to size. To illustrate those concepts’ relationship to less and more, draw pictures showing less and more around the central image.
• Branch out: Use lines to branch out from the main idea to sub-ideas. Use dashed lines, arrows, or circles to show connections between all the concepts. • Use key words: Words used should be few and meaningful. Young children may not be able to read, but you can include words they have learned to recognize.
• Use colors: Relate ideas, enhance images, and improve appearance with lots of colors. For example, if you are teaching concepts of bigger, smaller, less, and more, you might use the same color to highlight similar concepts. Or, consider letting children color the pictures you draw in a certain order to reinforce relationships.
• Include all ideas: Draw what comes to mind using free association. When certain correlations and ideas enter your mind, use them. For example, a truck is bigger than a car. Adults eat more food than babies. Use natural associations to reinforce ideas.
To help you become more familiar with the idea of Mind Mapping, practice by drawing a Mind Map that describes yourself. What will you use as your central image (probably yourself)? Surrounding this central image, what will you use to represent yourself? Perhaps your family members, certain talents, and hobbies might be included. Are there colors that best characterize your personality? Continue until you have depicted several aspects of yourself. When you are finished, you may wish to show someone else your personal map and see how he or she responds to it. You may be surprised with how well that person understands your images and learns more about you.
This same activity can be utilized to reinforce and teach your students number concepts. As you do this, you are also teaching them how to recognize and use symbols, as well as how to maximize memory skills. These are skills they will rely on for the rest of their lives.
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