10 Things You Should Know About the Brain

Scholarly Journal: Imani Tahira, 2017. #brainbasedlearning #education #informalwriting #research

Fact: The emotional brain (Limbic System) develops before the rational brain

The Limbic System processes and generates emotions. There are 4 main parts: Thalamus - incoming processor of stimuli (with the exception of smell), Hypothalamus - internal monitoring system, seeks to regulate homeostasis with the release of various hormones, Hippocampus - important for consolidating learning and helps transfer information from short term memory to long term memory, Amygdala - fight or flight cortex, controls how the body responds to emotion, especially fear. The limbic system, more specifically the amygdala, can make or break learning for students, if any of these systems are not balanced.

Fact: The Frontal Lobe controls the rational + reasoning mind

Reasoning brain (Frontal Lobe) is not fully developed until mid-20s. This affects decision making, behavior consequences, attention, impulse control, logical thinking, etc. Because they are not able to rely on reason (under-developed), students will likely act out of their emotions instead. When interacting with students, teachers cannot rely on logic + reason, rather their method of approach needs to remain sensitive to the emotional state of each student. Mindfulness exercises and safe-words can help with emotion regulation and prevention from amygdala hijacking.

Fact: Long term memory is determined by the emotional brain, not the rational brain

Because the emotional brain is developed early, its triggers can affect thought and memory formation in a visceral way. For instance, a student may be reluctant to answer your question, because he didn’t have breakfast that morning. The reason he is in class does not motivate him beyond his immediate feelings at the time. In teaching specifically, this explains why didactic methods of relaying information is less successful than other kinesthetic methods. If students feel as if they are having fun, or being heard, or being considered, they will associate the information with good memories. Thus, with the help of the hippocampus, their brains will transfer the information from short term to long term memory. This revolutionizes the information reiteration versus knowledge retention discussion. Knowledge is retained when students have an emotional investment in the information.

Fact: Personal interaction is integral to healthy social development

Before the native technology generation, the family unit was a lot more tangible. Families ate together, verbally communicated together, gathered around the television and watched history unfold together, keyword: together. With various reasons, the decline of that togetherness has directly affected the development of healthy personal and social interactions. Families now look like houses of individual roommates, all glued to their own form of entertainment. Not negating the many positives that technology has brought us as a society, but there is a harsh difference in its effects on this generation’s social skills. As educators, it is important that we don’t just replace our pedagogy with “technology,” but rather intentionally create atmospheres of social interaction, with or without the integration of technology. This will help tech-native students bridge the chasm of lack of personal effectiveness and relationships.

Fact: Somatosensory Cortex processes touch

Adding to the image of the modern family, it’s important to note that touch is less greatly experienced. With lack of social and interpersonal relationships developing, most adolescents could go days without touching another person. This can lead to the obvious yearning for touch (appropriate or inappropriate), but the cause of those desperations are not without reason. Touch is one of our 5 main senses. It is one way we know that we are alive. Without human to human touch, we can slide into a slough of emotional irregularities. Imagine the infant child without regular contact with their mother, that child will be crying… a lot! How much more do we neglect the interactions of a simple touch, for students who may or may not be receiving the validation that they are cared for? Appropriate touch for teachers and students, first must be communicated with students and consensual. One way to safely incorporate a moment of personal touch is offering a high five to students on the way out of class. Surprisingly, that may be the only validating physical touch they receive for the entire day. It’s not much, but it matters.

Fact: Creative inquisition is innate to every person (music, and other arts)

Connected to the auditory development of the brain and the logic and reasoning part of the brain, music in particular is an area of obscure phenomenon for most studies. Young children respond uniquely to music, as it is a language understood by every culture. It is one of the very few things that stick with us all through our lives. Perhaps this is why we can hear a song on the radio, and suddenly our senses, thoughts and emotions all get drawn back to a certain memory or place, just by the melody of the song. The same can be said when associating information with music, hence the learning success of Sesame Street and the like. Music connects multiple parts of the brain at once, such as the amygdala (emotions), frontal lobe (logic), temporal lobe (senses), for music learners—occipital lobe (visual processing), parietal lobe (spatial awareness, calculations), thalamus (incoming processor), hippocampus (consolidating/transferring information from short to long-term memory), motor cortex (movement), somatosensory cortex (touch). I believe this is true for many of the arts as well.

Fact: Reiteration is not the same as knowledge retention

"Knowing a word is not the same as understanding its meaning. So it is crucial for parents to encourage their children to use new words in a context that demonstrates they know what the words mean." (Sousa, 2011). We as educators must be careful not to assume that immediate answers are long-lasting knowledge. Short term memory is held in the hippocampus, before it is determined to be kept long term. It is important that we focus on the how and why questions, over the quantitative data, as this connects information learned with emotions. We know that the emotional brain directs the transfer of long term memories, so engaging the emotional brain can aid in the transfer of long term knowledge retention.

Fact: Hippocampus is important to consolidate information

If the hippocampus is the processor of information, responsible for transferring information into long term memory, anything we can do to strengthen that function would be beneficial for all parties. We know that the hippocampus can be strengthened with healthy diet and regular exercise. It is also damaged with limited or interrupted sleep over a long period of time. Let’s take a moment to think about our students (and teachers) and their regular case load. How many of our students are getting between 3 and 5 hours of sleep a night? How many of our students are having regular lunch meetings, and not having ample rest time between classes? How many of our students are working after school, whether in a school related co-curricular or outside of school job? We haven’t even discussed the homework load… it’s not good! How can we expect our students to excel and thrive in their studies without proper measures in place to care for their immediate needs? This is a much larger problem than we are willing to admit, but it will make or break the brain health of our students (and teachers).

Fact: Motor development begins in the womb, before being born

Motor development is in process from the womb until around nine years of age. If humans are moving before even exiting the womb, how are we punishing them by requiring them to keep still for 6 hours in uncomfortable immobile chairs everyday? Movement is a natural and essential part of life. Without movement, information is only received cerebrally, not necessarily understood kinesthetically. Students can simply walk around the room, and receive more, than if they were sitting still for the entire class period. So change your methods… Lack of motor utilization leads to future inabilities or degeneration of movement; over-developed hand and wrist muscles from typing, under-developed leg muscles for walking and running.

Fact: Multitasking is a Myth

This runs contrary to what any teacher would naturally believe. It appears multitasking is our middle name. But in fact, the true action taking place is task-switching. This is what is happening on a cerebral level. Signals are passing back and forth between neurons, trying to keep up with the pace you are working at. Truthfully there are some gifted people out there, that can task switch at alarming rates. But they are at much higher risk of adrenal fatigue and burnout because of it. One way to tackle the myth of multitasking in the classroom is giving a part of each class to the practice of mindfulness. It may seem like adding more to the plate will make it more difficult. But by incorporating times of self-awareness and emotion regulation, you can guide students to become more at peace with themselves and with their responsibilities. It doesn’t change the amount of work they must do, but it does help to change their perspective on those things. By slowing down the brain, students are able to develop a stronger focus toward their tasks and accomplishments.

How We Can Apply This Knowledge

Education, Emotions and Enlightenment

How many times have we seen our students cramming 15-20 minutes before the test, trying to get as much information into their finite brain as possible? How often do we find ourselves struggling to cram information into our own brains in the same manner? It’s clear this is more than just an adolescent phenomenon. Knowing the facts about our human anatomy, we still fall victim to frenzied survival tactics like these. “There is some evidence that emotional regulation aids performance on cognitive tasks, particularly in adults (Phillips, Bull, Adams, & Fraser, 2002). In terms of academic success, Blair (2002) suggests that inefficient emotion regulation physiologically inhibits a child's use of higher order cognitive processes (e.g., working memory, attention, and planning) in the classroom.” Emotions tend to be the biggest thing getting in the way of our interactions; with teachers, with students and our peers. It intrigues me to learn that long-term memory is stored with the limbic system, or emotional brain. It is assumed that knowledge and logic go together. But for the many years of schooling students endeavor, there most relevant knowledge is attained (or rejected) through their emotional engagement with the information. Emotion regulation is something we don’t often hear as the outcome of elementary education. Yet, the emotional brain fully develops long before students enter middle and high school. So why is this not a focal point of early childhood education? “We assume that 2nd graders don’t know how to multiply, how to divide, and how to read, and that’s why we teach it to them, as we should. Why do we assume that 2nd graders know how to self regulate, how to self manage, or even to be empathic?” (Habib, 2015)

Technology has surely shifted how we are interacting with other humans. Enriched in a digital society, it is hard pressed to remember the last person you touched. With that being such an integral part of early development as well, how are we incorporating interpersonal connectedness, both physically and mentally, with our students? "Technology is neither a panacea nor an enemy. It is a tool. Students in the primary and middle school grades still need personal contact and interaction with their teachers and peers… but technology… is reducing the frequency of these interactions." (Sousa, 2011) Our role as teachers has shifted in the last few decades. Nurturing used to be an expected outcome of the home. Now immersed in a digital world, children interact with parents or guardians more frequently behind a text message, than in a face to face conversation. As teachers, we interact with students more than their own families. This puts a larger responsibility of filling in the developmental gaps that may or may not be present in our individual students. For instance, an activity purposed to activate the 5 senses seems like a kindergarten activity, but may need to be reintroduced in 5th grade, due to lack of development in those areas. “This is why I teach. There is nothing more that I want for my students than to feel empowered to be their best selves, to fulfill their potential.” (Habib, 2015) Our purpose as educators is to enhance the enlightenment of our students' knowledge capacity. We have the tools, let’s use them wisely.

References

Sousa, D. A. (2011). How the Brain Learns (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin.

Habib, R. [TEDx Talks]. (2015, Feb 20). Emotional Intelligence - The Skills Our Students Deserve | Ronen Habib | TEDxGunnHighSchool. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCm9AnoeItU.

Graziano, P. A., Reavis, R. D., Keane, S. P., & Calkins, S. D. (2007). The Role of Emotion Regulation and Children’s Early Academic Success. Journal of School Psychology, 45(1), 3–19. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2006.09.002

Phillips L, Bull R, Adams E, Fraser L. Positive mood and executive function: Evidence from stroop and fluency tasks. Emotion. 2002;2:12–22.

Blair C. School readiness: Integrating cognition and emotion in a neurobiological conceptualization of children's functioning at school entry. American Psychologist. 2002;57(2):111–127.