In some of my school INSET workshops I often ‘play devils’ adviocate when it comes to discussing some of the more recent classroom activities which ‘Accelerated Learning’ Gurus have writen widely about.
The idea that teaching according to the ‘specific learning style’ of the individual pupil for example.
We all learning in different ways, with different modalities in different contexts. The last of these citeria seems to me to be the most relevant.
I may have a VISUAL learning style preference in one situation and a KINESTHETIC preference in another…
I may need to be encouraged to explore ‘different ways’ of learning for different situations…
BUT in order to be an ‘empowered learner’ I would benefit from having access to a wide range of learning strategies and not just the one which some spurious questionnaire defines.
The widescale adoption of Brain Gym, which developed from something called Educational Kinesiology, is one of those ideas which perhaps need to be critically assessed.
In most schools Brain Gym is a movement based activity which is said to improve concentration and educational performance. Now whilst I agree that he use of ‘structured’ physical activity can provide a useful ‘break state’ within a learning session as well as inspiring a sense of fun and group participation (valuable things within he learning environment), it is some of the more ‘far-out’ claims made by “Brain Gymers’ that need to be questioned.
In many way Brain Gym has a pseudo-scientific feel about it. Appeals to ‘neurology’ through vague generalisations about left and right brain ‘connectedness’ and more concerning the idea that physical movement ‘frees the flow’ of some non-specific and mystical sounding ‘energy’ are of real concern.
When asked about the ‘research’ that has been conducted into the effectiveness of Brain Gym we are told that:-
Does Brain Gym® International have research on the effects of the Brain Gym activities?
Yes, we offer three primary publications that summarize our research: (1) A Chronology of Annotated Research Study Summaries in the Field of Educational Kinesiology, on the braingym.org website, offers summaries of research studies done by a number of our instructors through the last twenty years. (2) The Brain Gym Observer , formerly the Brain Gym® Journal, published three times yearly, offers in-depth articles as well as reports of an anecdotal, statistical, or theoretical nature, written by instructors about their use of the Brain Gym program in diverse settings. (3) The Research Packet offers expanded abstracts of some of the studies in the Research Chronology.
Internal research (anecdote) shared by in-house or certified practitioners – certainly lacking peer review. Dare I say ‘potential bias’ creeps into these reports?
Again I’m not challenging the notion that structured physical activities could punctuate learning activities in a useful way, but any claims beyond that can and perhaps should be questioned.
For example this kind of statement:-
For more than 30 years and in over 80 countries, we have been helping children, adults, and seniors to:
- Learn ANYTHING faster and more easily
- Perform better at sports
- Be more focused and organized
- Start and finish projects with ease
- Overcome learning challenges
- Reach new levels of excellence
These are claims which surely need some clarification and evidence.
Of course the promoters of this approach have a mechanism for how it all works…
Brain Gym, we are told, “focuses on the performance of specific physical activities that activate the brain for optimal storage and retrieval of information, Focus is the ability to coordinate the back and front areas of the brain…Centering is the ability to coordinate the top and bottom areas of the brain… Brain Gym movements interconnect the brain in these dimensions.”
Sounds good eh?
Ben Goldacre in Bad Science reports these interesting jsutifications for Brain Gym activities…
“you wiggle your head back and forth because that gets more blood into your frontal lobes for clearer thinking; you contort your fingers together to improve some unnamed “energy flow”; they’re keen on drinking water, because “processed foods” – I’m quoting the Brain Gym Teacher’s Manual – “do not contain water.””
Ben Goldacre, who has written much on this topic, was again forced to comment in his blog (June 4th 2011) because of the following…
“This week I got an email from a science teacher about a 13 year old pupil. Both have to remain anonymous. This pupil wrote an article about Brain Gym for her school paper, explaining why it’s nonsense: the essay is respectful, straightforward, and factual. But the school decided they couldn’t print it, because it would offend teachers in the junior school who use Brain Gym.”
Surely in an educational setting we should not only be encouraging students to question, but also question the very things that we do as educators.
If we want students to ‘question’ then we should ‘model questioning’…
Now, and before I get too many emails in protest, let me state again that Brain Gym activities, in my opinion, have a value as a ‘break state’ or ‘fun activity’ within a classroom setting and can promote ‘engagement’ in the same way that ‘visualisation’, ‘meditation’, ‘role play’ or any other shared task would. But to make some spurious claims about ‘hemispherical balancing’ or improving ‘energy flows’ surely demands the application of critical thinking.
Alan
Bad Science Blog
http://www.badscience.net
