The theme of brain-based learning this year attracted 1 000 principals and deputy-principals from all nine provinces to the South African Principals Association (Sapa) conference in Cape Town.
Gavin Keller, academic director of the conference and principal of Sun Valley Primary in Cape Town, said the theme emanated from scientific advances which have made it possible to watch how the brain learns. This has been a revolutionary discovery for education. [We] now have a biological framework for education. This means teachers need to learn how to turn on the brain in the classroom [as] we have the power to turn it on or off.
The brain is ready for simple, concrete problem solving by the age of one or two. There is a spurt of dendritic branching in the right hemisphere between four and seven years and another spurt in the left hemisphere between the ages nine to 12. Both sides of the brain are fully developed and usually ready for complex abstractions by the ages 11 to 13. Brain-based learning is based on the following so-called 10 Big Ideas.
l Movement: Movement is critical for cognition, especially in young children, because it unifies all brain levels and gives learners the opportunity to use both sides of the brain, resulting in whole-brain functioning.
This idea is based on neuroscience research, which shows that passing information between right and left hemispheres maximises the storage and recall of information. The motor systems of the brain are along the right and left hemispheres. As a result movement is one of the few systems through which learners can pass information back and forth between hemispheres. This movement must happen in the lesson every few minutes in order to embed learning. A two-minute piece of music that involves actions, for example, gets the required oxygen-rich blood to the brain.
l Stress and a threat-free environment: Schools need to reduce stress dramatically. Poor curriculum planning, overloaded projects, assignments, tests and rushed attempts by teachers to gather marks adds unnecessary stress on the brain. Well-organised, whole-school curriculum planning, with clear guidelines that outline the expectations in each subject, give purpose and direction and reduce the stress so evident in many schools.
l Novelty: Too many schools are doing the same thing year after year, lesson after lesson. The brain hates a school that is boring. It loves novelty and novelty breeds achievement. Novelty is expressed in how the classroom is designed: its layout, notice-boards and activity tables. It is seen in outings, shows and parent discussions. Phase heads will be looking for novel ideas. Children should be in a state of relaxed apprehension, never knowing quite what will be produced from the bag.
l Meaning and connections: A recent study shows that 60% of all learners are chronically disengaged from school by the time they reach high school. Learners want to be connected. Ask any learner who their best teacher is and they will list those who connect with them.
Challenge learners to leave their emotional baggage, once they have shared how they are feeling with you, at the classroom door on entering the room to complete the work for the day. Encourage every learner every day — never forget the value of encouragement even when disciplining a child. Control what you say and how you speak to your learners and the results will be amazing.
Finally there is love — corny but so true. Education is like parenting; it is a labour of love. As the modern family breaks from traditional moulds, the first thing to go is someone with whom a child can connect. Today that person must be the class teacher, who should be robust, motherly, fatherly, honest, genuine and loving.
l Feedback: Regular feedback is essential if you want the brain to feel successful. Learners need to be told often — daily if possible — how they are doing. This feedback guides the brain and gives encouragement to proceed.
Feedback is often negative. To ensure a more positive environment for feedback, single-sex class groups have been created in grades one to three. The research on gender and the brain is clear. Boys and girls learn differently and need different approaches in their foundation years. Female brains are predisposed to excel in language, auditory skills, fine motor skills and attention to detail. It is more decentralised, integrates thoughts and emotions, and it presents as being more attentive and willing to learn.
The male brain, however, is more impulsive and aggressive and this results in boys finding themselves with behavioural problems — especially when compared with the female brain. They tend to be the classroom risk takers and have a more negative attitude to reading and writing, but they do show a greater adaptability to traditional approaches such as memorisation, repetition and abstraction.
Thirty years ago grade one was about finger-painting, singing, socialising and acclimatising the child to school. Today it is academic, with reading, writing and mathematics. The expectations have changed dramatically, but in too many schools the venue, layout, decor and method of tuition remain exactly the same.
l Processing time: The brain demands time to process information. Too often the curriculum is so full and demanding that teachers end up having to cram more and more information into the 200 school days in a year. This results in overload and the brain simply dumps the information in the recycle bin.
l Music and rhythm and rhyme: Music is often offered as a subject for those learners who are musical. Recent research, however, has indicated that music has a direct physical, emotional and psychological effect on both learner and teacher. Properly employed, music creates a heightened social learning context and motivates students to engage themselves more rapidly in the task.
l Humour: When last did you see a happy teacher? The pressure on the profession is causing teachers to lose their spark. Laughter is contagious and the more teachers laugh, the more open our brains are to learning. Laughter creates the necessary neurotransmitters that will enhance learning and retention of data.
l Learning through different pathways: Teachers must be exposed to learning modality, or the mode in which we learn. We all have a different combination of learning styles. Educators should recognise the different intelligences in the human brain and adapt teaching styles to meet the needs of different learners.
l Enrichment: Too much or too little enrichment and learners either give up or get bored. Mental challenge can come about with new material, adding a degree of difficulty, or through limiting the resources. The single best way to grow a better brain is through challenging problem solving.
The 10 Big Ideas are based on the work of Eric Jensen in the US. He runs a Brain Expo each year and, after attending the conference in Orlando, Florida, in 2006, the information was brought to South Africa by the Western Cape president of Sapa, Alta van Heerden, and Gavin Keller, its publications officer