Should Teacher Know About Brain Research?

Should Teacher Know About Brain Research?

By Jill Jenkins

            Why are autumn leaves so beautiful? Leaves always have their beautiful fall colors hidden beneath their chlorophyll. In fall if the trees has had just enough stress, they shed their chlorophyll and the trees reveals their magnificent colors, but if they have too much stress, they simply turn brown.  Children’s brains operate in the same manner.  They are hard wired to learn, so if they have just the right amount of stress they do, but if they have too much stress, they cease to function and arrested development occurs. To improve learning we need to understand how the brain works.  According the American Psychological Association, research shows that the brain develops at different rates in each individual.  If a child has not reached the level of brain development despite his biological age, he will not be able to comprehend a given concept.   For example, the frontal lobe doesn’t develop until about middle school and continues until a child is in his early twenties.  It is in the frontal lobe that higher cognitive functions and appropriate social behavior develops. This means that abstract thought is difficult for students who are preadolescent. According to “How Your Brain Works” by Craig Freudenrich, Ph.D. and Robynne Boyd, “The brain is composed of 100 billion nerve endings called neurons.  These neurons have three main parts, the cell body (soma), the Axon (cable like projections that carry extra chemical messages) and the Dendrite (branches that let cells talk to each other.  As activities are repeated, the Myelin Sheath around the Axon increases.  That means the connections become stronger.”   Knowing this means that teachers need to find a variety of ways to present each learning skill. It also means that if learning is inaccurate, it is difficult to unlearn.  For example, I took up nail-biting as a child and my mother used every measure to break me telling me I would look hideous with fingernails like the teeth of a rusty old saw and painting nasty-tasting medicine on my nails, but I am  60 years old and I still bite my nails. Make certain students are practicing a skill correctly or it will be difficult for them to unlearn the skill.  This means read their papers quickly and give them accurate feedback or sit with them while they are writing and show them how do write it correctly.  

            The brain organizes information in a web.  The more connections a piece of information has to early learned material, the more likely the person will be able to retrieve it.  This means, like the advertisement industry, teachers need to use “hooks” to connect the new knowledge to skills the child has already developed. 

            Even more important is to be aware of how the mind works.  Unconsciously our minds can interpret the emotional state of those around us.  Four years ago, my husband, Randy, went into sudden cardiac arrest on his birthday.  For three days, the doctors kept him in a drug induced coma.  Each time, he would begin thrashing about in his bed, the nurses called me to his bedside in the Intensive Care Unit where he would grasp my hand like a Vise-Grip.  I would talk calmly to him and he would calm down.  However, when his mother came to visit and sobbed over him, tears began to stream down his face and he began to thrash about, even though he was completely unconscious.  Fearing that he would rip the many hoses and tubes that they had plugged into him, the nurses asked us to please keep his mother from visiting him while he was in ICU because she seemed to upset him.  If someone in a drug induced coma can be affected by the emotions of the people in their environment, imagine how your emotions and attitudes affect your students’ learning. 

             When the mind becomes stressed either from physical injury or emotional trauma, it shuts down.  My husband has no memories to his heart attack or the week he spend in the hospital. Concussions and malnutrition can impact a student’s cognitive abilities.  I recall the summer between sixth grade and seventh grade, my family was in a terrible car accident.  I was sitting in the front seat of my father’s GM International between my father and my Aunt Fae.  My eleven year old brother, David, and my three year old sister, Sherry, were in the back seat.  Nobody wore seat belts in those days.   We were driving through a residential neighborhood when suddenly an old pick-up truck driving at speeds nearing 50 miles per hour ran a “Stop” sign and smashed into the front of our car.  I remember seeing the truck in front of us and my next recollection was the street filled with people, there was an ambulance and was father was screaming that he couldn’t find Sherry.  He pulled her out from under the front seat. My brother David and I had large bumps on our foreheads about the size of eggs.  He had hit the back of the front seat and I had hit the dashboard.  I had a large bruise in my stomach where the gearshift had impacted my stomach.  I don’t remember how we got home or anything else that day, but my mother told me I had a concussion and was violently ill that night.  In fact, although I was told that I went to the doctors and my mother described the symptoms of my suffering that night, I don’t remember anything that happened during most of the next two or three days.  Students who suffer from concussions will have a difficult time recalling what they learn at school, so you may have to repeat lessons until their brain recovers.

            Likewise, people who have suffered emotional trauma will have lapses in their cognitive abilities.  For example one of my students facing the emotional trauma of a rape by a step-father refused to recognize that she was very pregnant, even though it was obvious to everyone except her mother. Both of them continued to believe that she was just getting fat.  I finally sat her down and talked to her.  Because her step-father had raped her, she was afraid to tell her mother fearing that her mother would blame her.  The other students in the school had been writing horrible things on her locker and filling her books with human feces.  I involved a counselor who called the mother and had the bullies disciplined.  The family was in such trauma that even though her pregnancy was obvious to others, neither of them were capable of seeing it or believing it. Luckily, it all turned out well.  

            Another student who had recently lost his mother seemed perfectly normal, but when his writing became almost indecipherable and his thoughts were jumbled in his essays, I showed his papers to a counselor and we decided to call in his father.  His father was an elementary teacher teaching near our school.  All of us decided that he needed both counseling and extra help to get over his mother’s death.  When most of the boys were heading off to basketball and football practice, seventh period, he went to his father’s school to tutor elementary students.  That experience of helping others and getting counseling helped him get past this emotional trauma.  

            Being aware of how the brain functions could improve teaching.  Teachers need to create a stimulating, but nurturing environment where the students feel motivated to learn, but are not overwhelmed with stress.  Teachers need to repeat certain learning goals and connect them to past learning to enable the Myelin Sheath on the Axon’s to increase and connect it to earlier learning to increase the student’s ability to access the knowledge.  The teacher needs to monitor the students learning to ensure that they are learning it accurately because unlearning practiced misconceptions is difficult.  The teacher needs to be aware that children’s brains develop at different rates, so if the child has not reached adolescences, he may not be capable of critical and abstract thought. Most importantly teachers need to watch students for signs of  stress that they might be suffering outside the classroom.  If those sources of stress can be alleviated, the child’s learning can blaze like an autumn leaf.

           

Small Gestures = Big Bang for That Child

Small Gestures = Big Bang for That Child

By Jill Jenkins

          School has started and all of the teachers anxiously peruse their rolls, looking for “that child.”  There are some simple techniques to handling “that child.” Ideally that child will assimilate quietly into your classroom without disturbing the orderly process of education. If you have “that child” on your rolls, there are small gestures that will have a big bang on his/her behavior. 

My daughter, Jeanette, another "that child"

            “That child” seeks attention.  Remember teaching does not end at your classroom door.  If you can make a connection with “that child,” he/she will stop being such a disruption.  Learn everything you can about all of your students including that child: what music does he listen to; what does he enjoy doing in the summer; what books does he read; and what problem does he face at home. Greet him and your other students in the hall outside of your classroom and chat with each child about his life outside of school.  Listen to him, because he needs that.  When you see him in the hall, chat with him.  When you enter the cafeteria, in the immortal words of my college theater professor, Jay W. Lees, “play the room.”  Wander from table to table chatting with your students, and slather on the B.S. (Behavior Science was Jay W Lees called making positive comments). When you see him/her doing him/her doing something right, let him/her know very publically how much you appreciate it.  Students who feel their teachers care about them are less likely to be defiant and belligerent in the classroom.  Be careful to make whatever you say sincere, because students have good crap-detectors. They will care about their teacher.  A teacher once told me that a group of sixth graders, “turned on me” when I was being evaluated.  If students don’t feel appreciated they will use their power to make your life miserable, but if students feel you care about them, they will put on such a wonderful show when you are being evaluated.   Small gestures have big bangs.

My daughter, Jeanette, another "that child"

            Quite honestly, I was one “that child.”  I always completed my assignments before the rest of the students and then I could disrupt the class with endless chatter.  I recall being sent to the principal’s office in sixth grade for this very behavior by Miss Peterson who said, “Go to Mrs. McDonald’s office.  Maybe you can entertain her.”  I wasn’t being belligerent or defiant, just chatty.

            I was a child, so I thought like a child.  I thought Mrs. McDonald is all alone in her office and she probably gets pretty lonely.  She just might need me to talk to her.  So unruffled, I went to her office.  After about ten minutes of listening to my endless noise, Mrs. McDonald tired and put me in the adjoining office in front of a phone.  She instructed me to answer the phone and push a button to send the call to her.  She stated clearly, “You are in charge of the phone and greeting visitors.”  I felt so important.  (That was a smart move for Mrs. McDonald.  She gave the student a task and made the student feel special for completing the task.)

Bottom Row Second child on the left hand side, that's me.

            She returned to her office.  After a few minutes three firemen entered and asked to speak to someone “in charge.”  I assured them that Mrs. McDonald said I was in charge.  They laughed and asked to speak to Mrs. McDonald, so I led them in.  In a few minutes, the fire alarm rang.  I evacuated the building right of Mrs. McDonald and the firemen who were saying to Mrs. McDonald, “She said she was in charge.”

            Mrs. McDonald laughed and said, “She thinks she is.” (This was not a smart move because I heard her and I was completely destroyed emotionally.  Children are very sensitive so be cautions what you say around them.)

Me with my cousin

            If you have one of those precocious little darling chatting in your room, simply give them another assignment or have them help around the room.  Miss Peterson did not need to send me to the office.  She could have found some chore that needed to be completed.  Obviously I wasn’t disrupting the class out of malice, simply boredom.  Students like this don’t care if the assignment counts on their grade or if they will receive any points.  They are anxious to learn and to please you.   If they are one of those students who finish their work quickly, but the work is not well done, ask them to redo it.  Walk around the room and interact with your students as they complete an assignment. When I taught math in an alternative program, I had two students who belonged in an advanced class, but they were stuck in my basic skills class.  I always found additional activities that took their skills to a higher level, usually math games or puzzles. They competed to see who could solve the problem the quickest.  Neither of them disrupted the class and everyone was happy.  Never let “that child” sit stagnant or he/she will make himself/herself in charge.

            How do you handle “that child?” Basic ideas like recognizing connection with a student includes interacting with him outside of your room.  Learn as much as you possibly can about each student including his likes, wishes and problems, not just his name.  (That may mean you have to go outside your comfort zone and watch MTV or read books that aren’t your favorite genre.)  Always have additional work for the bright students who finish early and for the students who need to learn in smaller bites to master skills.  Most importantly, remember that all of your students are “that child.”

Common Core Testing: Embarking on a Brave New Endeavor

Common Core Testing: Embarking on a Brave New Endeavor

By Jill Jenkins

          Last year teachers across most of the United States embarked upon a brave new venture, implementing the Common Core Curriculum.  Armed only with the learning goals, they set out to prepare students for the new examination.  If you were a teacher in a state like the one that I taught in, you had no idea what that new examination looked like because that state had just fired the company they had worked with for two years to create these tests and hired a new one.  Meaning for two years teachers developed lesson plans and activates to prepare students for the new tests, only to learn that the test  that the state had presented  in workshops was not the test we would be giving at the end of the year.  That fact shouldn’t frustrate teachers or worry parents.  This should prevent teachers from teaching to the test because the test had not been invented.  Several times during the year, the district called me (as a department chair) to a meeting to reassure me and present some ideas about the format of the new test, but they couldn’t give me too much information on how to best prepare the students because the test was still in the process to being created.  Being the bearer of this bad news made me very popular with the other Language Arts and Reading teachers.

            A month or so before our assigned date to take the test, they showed me practice tests I could use with my classes, but by then other departments are scheduled all of  the computer labs for their state tests, so I couldn’t actually use the practice tests and neither could my anxious staff.  However, I assured them, they could use their I-Pads and their I-TVs to show the webpage to their students so at least they had some idea what was going to happen on the day of the test.  This did not alleviate their fears, because after all teachers' performance and maybe someday soon their salary might be based on their students’ performance on this test.    

            Finally, the day arrived for my classes to take their examination, the writing portion of the test which the district assured me the students could easily complete in just three class periods.  This was not my first rodeo, so knowing how things usually work I had asked the counselor to reserve the computer labs for each of my teachers for five days in the event things didn’t go as planned and to make up any absent students’ tests.  I was right.  The state computer servers froze several times making it impossible for the students to work.  The schools’ band-width was too small for the number of students using it so the systems not only worked really slowly but dropped students like hot potatoes.  The writing selections requires M.L.A. documentation, but the reading selections that the students were given did not provide all of the information to do this correctly.  By law, I am not allowed to help them, so all I could do was smile and tell them to do the best they could.

             The good news is I retired, so I will never know how my students did on the test, but all of my students assured me they did an outstanding job so I could go out with a bang.  If you are unhappy with your schools performance on the Common Core Curriculum Tests, remember that teachers prepared your child without any substantial knowledge about the test.  In the past, tests have been tested on a select group of students to determine the validity of each test question.  This test was given “cold-turkey.”  Teachers were asked to throw their students in the deep end of the pool and hope they taught them how to swim well in the kiddie pool.  Teachers were asked to in the words Star Trek, “ to boldly go where no man has ever gone” and “embark on a brave new adventure” (if you will excused the split-infinitive.)

Are the Concepts in the Common Core New?

Are the Concepts in the Common Core New?

By Jill Jenkins

                I collect old text books, a fitting hobby for a retired teacher.  Over the forty years of my career I have quite a collection and some I inherited from my grandmother and my great grandmother.  When you really look at what selections were in these old books it is surprising.   My great grandmother’s Fifth Reader from the late 1800’s, contains rigorous selections of both fiction and nonfiction in a variety of genres. There are short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne,    an epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poetry by W. B. Yeats, essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and presidential speeches and one of William Shakespeare’s plays.  After each selection there are study questions that ask the reader to find details from the selection to support a positon.   The variety of different genres, the difficulty of each selection and the strategies in the new Core Curriculum are not all that different from this text, except this is a fifth grade text and the selections and the learning goals appear to correspond with the current ninth grade curriculum.

                Why are teachers claiming the new Core Curriculum requires students to read more difficult literary selections and the rigor is overwhelming to their students?  The English Language Arts Curriculum had deteriorated over the decades.  When I began teaching forty years ago, the curriculum in Language Arts, or as we used to call it, English, was very similar in difficulty to the new Core Curriculum.  Then adolescent literature was born.  Students loved these action-packed pieces of Pablum that can be digested in one or two sittings.  Why not!  I loved Mad Magazine and Archie Comic books when I was a child and my parents allowed me to read all I wanted.  I just couldn’t write a book report on them and get credit at school.  That was still no problem.  I just hoofed it to the local library, checked out a real book and read it as well.  When teachers learned they no longer had to fight students to get them to read, they put away William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens and handed the students S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders.   At first these adolescent literature books were used for grades fifth through eighth and the students still got to read the classics in high school.  The standards continued to deteriorate and soon students in seventh grade were reading fourth and fifth grade books and students in high school were reading S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders.  Finally students were actually writing book reports and getting credit for comic books, now called Graphic Novels.  What a wonderful place, America is!  This is beginning to remind me of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.  At this rate, soon students won’t be required to read at all. Just watch the movie.

                Suddenly reality set in when the United States discovered it was scoring lower on standard examinations that our friends in Europe.  Now, some people are ready to throw away textbooks and novels and settle for a series of on-line reading selections with short quizzes and essay questions.  Hold on there, grasshopper. That may not be what we need.  Bill Gates, not really Bill himself, but the Bill Gates Foundation collected a group of outstanding educators ( I know this because one of my good friends worked with them) to develop units that incorporate all of the learning goals of the new Core Curriculum while still teaching real pieces of literature.  Mind you Bill Gates and his team did not write the learning goals.  That was a group of educators and their governors.  The wonderful thing is they even added some ideas from the affective domain or what we used to call Character Education.  This is like a blast from the past, theme based units synthesizing writing skills and reading skills and using genuine literary selections like To Kill A Mockingbird  by Harper Lee and Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. 

                Speaking only as an old English (Language Arts) teacher, before you criticize the Common Core, compare it to the Readers, textbooks, our grandparents used and the curriculum that was taught forty years ago.  The Language Arts Curriculum is not that different.  I suggest you look at the Gates Foundations’ Units as well, because they combine the curriculum with character education especially in the 9^th and 10^th grade.  To those who want to toss out the great pieces of literature and depend solely on computer generated activities to teach skills, I leave you with a quote from William Butler Yeats, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."