Perry Rettig
We have come to understand so much about how the brain learns and processes information – how it thinks. This knowledge, in turn, has significant importance for how we teach our children and even adults.
My colleague at Piedmont University, Dr. Toni Bailey, is a professor of Curriculum and Instruction. She and I are writing a book on this very topic. Two neurosurgeons, one from Johns Hopkins Hospital and the other from the University of Wisconsin, are vetting this work.
What we know is that learning is a developmental process and stages cannot be skipped. Each person progresses on their own timeline and forcing learning can actually impede or even impair learning. Students go through both physical growth and learning spurts. If a child does not appear to be growing in one area, you can be assured they are growing in the other.
Children are born with as many or more neuron brain cells than adults have! Their brains are primed to learn virtually any task, learn any language or musical instrument fluently, and master any skill given to them. What they don’t have that adults do have are the complex myriad synaptic connections of these brain cells that come only through learning and experience.
If a brain cell for a particular task, or sound – for example, is never used it will die away. This is what neurologists call neural pruning. However, the cells that are used over and over become stronger and build connections with other cells, or neural branching. Some synaptic growth only occurs at developmentally appropriate times in our lives.
Let’s say an adult never learned a foreign language at an age-optimal stage in their life. They will never be as fluent as they could have been, for some of those particular brain cells have long been gone. Neural plasticity still allows the adult to learn the language but never with the fluency of earlier years. On the other hand, forced learning before the child is developmentally prepared can lead to equally poor results.
With the exception of smell, all of our senses first enter the body through our central nervous system into the brain stem which sits directly atop our spine. This would be considered our most primitive of the three main regions of our brain. It determines our safety and security response – is a flight or fight response warranted? If danger is sensed, no other thinking takes place; the body responds accordingly. If a child feels threatened or embarrassed in the classroom, they are not spending their rime thinking; they want flight or fight.
If the brain does not sense danger, but rather senses something important to learn, the brain signals then instantly move into the middle portion of the brain – the limbic system.
Here, emotions are attached to the learning along with associated memories of previous similar experiences. Emotional states are critical to our learning and are most often used to recall memories and various associations.
Of course, emotions can get in the way and cause unwarranted responses. That’s why the executive function of the prefrontal cortex in the upper region, the most advanced portion of the brain, is critical. This is where our creative and critical thinking are done. Good teachers deftly use emotion to capture attention, drive important information home, and to help students recall and incorporate previous learning experiences.
The cortex is that thin layer of gray matter that envelopes the cerebrum, of the upper region of the brain. It is where higher order thinking is done, and as such it takes the longest to develop. Certain areas don’t fully mature until people are in their 20s. The implications for education are profound.
If you are a parent and would like to learn more about how the brain learns and its impact on teaching your children, I suggest you read Dr. Jane Healy’s book, Your Child’s Growing Mind: Brain Development and Learning from Birth to Adolescence. There are so many more, but this would be a great start.
If, on the other hand, you are a teacher, I would suggest you pick up Dr. Laurie Materna’s book, “Jump Start the Adult Learner: How to Engage and Motivate Adults Using Brain-Compatible Strategies,” or Eric Jensen and Liesl McConchie’s book, “Brain-Based Learning: Teaching the Way Students Really Learn.”
Dr. Perry Rettig is a community contributor for The Northeast Georgian. He is a former vice president at Piedmont University and is now a distinguished university professor at Piedmont.