The human brain shares many similarities with muscles. On a cellular basis, brain tissue and muscle tissue are very different. In their reactions to certain types of stress, however, they are very similar. I recently read a few articles on the brain that confirmed a theory I have long wondered about.
Many years ago (maybe 10), I began to wonder if my high degree of intelligence was due to some natural luck, or if it was maybe the result of a strong desire to be intelligent. When I was 14, I took an electronic IQ test, and I scored 136 on it (100 is average, 136 is very high). Discussing the results with others, I learned that most electronic IQ tests only go up to 140, which means that the closer to 140 a person tests, the more likely their IQ is to be far over 140. I have not taken an IQ test since, though I managed to pass a Mensa entry practice test (I do not plan on joining, because I am unwilling to pay dues just to be part of a "smart club"). Anyhow, this experience got me thinking about intelligence. When I was very young, I was extremely curious. My parents, instead of discouraging curiosity or blowing it off, encouraged me to be curious, and they often taught me about things I was curious about. My mom also taught me many things I was not as curious about, as a sort of game. By I was 5, I knew the technical names of nearly all of the major bones in the body. When we moved back to the U.S. (we were in Germany because my dad was in the military), we lived with my grandparents for a while and visited them fairly often after moving out. My grandparents encouraged my curiosity even more. As a present once (maybe for a birthday, I forget), by grandfather bought me some wire, a bolt, and a lantern battery and showed me how to make an electromagnet. For Christmas, they often gave me Technic Legos or other toy sets that could be used to build mechanical devices. In short, I grew up in an environment where learning and curiosity were encouraged. This has given me a lot of motivation to learn. As such, I have spent a great deal of effort on learning new things that I find interesting.
Thinking about all of this has led me to the question above. Am I smart because I was born that way, or am I smart because I want to be smart and have put effort into becoming smart? The more I learn, the more I believe the correct answer is the second. Even my extremely good memory can be attributed to things like my mom playing memory with me starting at a very young age. Recently, in conjunction with a pair of college classes, I have learned even more supporting my theory. For my math class (linear algebra), we were required to read and comment on a pair of articles about brain function. These articles discussed studies that showed that intelligence is a learned trait. One discussed a study done where the students in a poorly performing highschool math class were separated into two randomly selected groups. One was given a short course on study skills, while the other was given a short course on brain neurology. The brain neurology course focused primarily on how the brain forms new connections while learning, and it asserted that by expending some effort, even people who are "bad at math" can teach their brains to be good at math through practice. The grades of the two groups were compared at the end of the semester, and it was discovered that the group who attended the brain course did significantly better in the math class than those who attended the study skills course. Why? The study attributed the success to motivation. Common wisdom (in the U.S.) tells us that if we are bad at math, we can never improve. The students who were taught study skills still believed that no matter how hard they worked, they could not improve, because they were born bad at math, so they had no motivation to apply the newly learned skills. The students who were taught about the brain learned that the common wisdom is wrong and realized that hard work would not be wasted. So, they were more motivated to work harder, because they could see a clear benefit.
Now, there is a second thing I learned, from a computer science class. The textbook, a book for learning the Java programming language (called "Head First Java"), begins by discussing how the brain works and how the book takes advantage of this knowledge to improve the pace of learning. Note that all of the information presented is considered common knowledge in neurology and psychology. The strongest focus is that the brain craves novelty. This is far more complex than it sounds. A better way of putting it is that the brain is not built to focus on one thing for long periods of time. In ancient hunter/gatherer societies, survival depends on awareness, and awareness depends on being able to rapidly switch focus between different things. If you miss the predator following you, you will become lunch. Likewise, if you miss the berry bush off to your left, halfway hidden behind a tree, you might starve. In modern society, we do not need such a high level of awareness, but our brain is still wired to notice and focus on new or unusual things. What this means is, we are easily distracted. The textbook tries to take advantage of this knowledge by using multiple learning techniques and by providing novel distractions that still teach Java. It does this by using more natural language than typical text books, including images with captions, and having a lot of asides with interesting but pertinent information. Put together, not only do these help retain focus, but they also teach using multiple methods, which has also been found to improve learning retention.
What is the use of all of this brain information? I have frequently asserted that there is little real research on education and that the research that exists is summarily ignored by both our education system and our government. The above is some of the research that exists, but is ignored. Why is it ignored? I do not have a clue, except maybe because it supports the idea that the formal classroom model is a poor teaching method (though it can be applied effectively even in a classroom model). How can we take advantage of the above information? Well, there are many ways of doing this.
First lets look at a corollary to the above that is rather important. We have discussed how the right kind of stress can help the brain grow, much like exercise and muscles. We have not discussed that the brain can be injured by excessive stress, again much like muscles. Injuries to the brain due to over stress can be found all over the U.S. In fact, our current educational system is the primary cause of such injuries. Studies in New Zealand (I'll write more on this later) have determined that the optimum age to learn reading varies between 4 years old and 9 years old. This is a huge range. The U.S. educational system tries to force all children to learn to read by 5 or 6 years old. Different rates of brain development result in different receptions to this. Children who do not yet have the necessary brain development find learning to read at this age difficult or impossible. This results in two related effects. The first is a subconscious reaction causing the brain to reject learning to read even after sufficient development has occurred. The second is that the child hates reading, even after finally learning to do it. This hatred of reading is the result of the subconscious reaction, not something that the child consciously decides to do and is thus extremely difficult to overcome. This also happens with math and nearly every other school subject. The end result is that children learn to hate any kind of academic learning, and their brains reject learning in academic environments. This leads to a hatred of learning that extends outside of academic environments. The result is that the typical American claims that they cannot do math (consider how you would react if a supposedly educated American told you, "Oh, I just can't read"; math is no less important or valuable than reading in modern American society). Our education system is awful, in a large degree, because it destroys motivation. Using the knowledge gained from the research I have discussed, the U.S. education system could overcome a lot of other shortcomings just by increasing motivation to learn. We can do better though.
First, we need to get over the misconception that if you are not good at something, it is genetic and there is nothing you can do about it. Many Americans have difficulty reading, due to genetic conditions like dyslexia. Most of them find some way of getting around it. Even dyslexics who have great difficulty reading learn to read and put the effort into doing it when absolutely necessary. In our society, it is nearly impossible to get by without some reading ability. That said, most people who have difficulty reading can blame poor schooling. It is not uncommon in many areas of the U.S. for students to graduate from high school with poor reading skills. Many of these students slowly improve their reading skills through necessary reading in everyday life (though they typically never overcome their dislike for reading). From this, it is clear that through effort ability can be improved. It should be pretty obvious that the problem is not capacity for learning but rather how the subject is taught. There are occasional people with actual disabilities that affect reading, but there is no evidence that this is a significant percentage of the population. If we can teach students that they are capable of learning and overcoming difficulties (even people with dyslexia can learn to read, with enough effort), then we can destroy the common misconceptions that often lead to lack of motivation.
Second, we need to quit trying for force learning down children's throats before they have had sufficient brain development. As I mentioned, this causes psychological injury that ultimately makes learning more difficult and often leads to dislike of learning. Now, I am not saying that we should increase the age at which we teach things. There seems to be an optimum level of brain development for learning different things. For reading this is typically between 4 and 9 years old. If we wait too long, the subject will become less interesting, and the lack of novelty will reduce motivation, making it harder to learn. This is where my problem with the classroom model of teaching comes in. For reading, there is a 5 year range where sufficient development may occur. So, which grade year do we teach it in? Common wisdom in the field of teaching would probably say the middle year, 6 or 7 years old, because that is the average. Unfortunately, this is too early or too late for a majority of students. In other words, this is unlikely to improve the situation at all. Ideally, we would teach each child to read right at the time when they have achieved sufficient brain development. The U.S. education system will tell you that this is impossible, because there are too many students to effectively teach each one separately. The system used in New Zealand is evidence that this is a lie. This is a shortcoming of the traditional classroom learning system used in the U.S., not a generally impossible task. In New Zealand, most of elementary school is spent with the same teacher. Classrooms have many age groups. Subjects are taught in a less formal way, especially reading. Reading is taught primarily through motivation. Each school day, a significant amount of time is spent on reading but not necessarily on teaching reading. As students become interested in and ready to learn to read, they are taught by specialists. The result is that students enjoy reading when they get out of elementary school. They also tend to have far better reading skills that the typical American. Most other subjects are similar in many ways. For instance, math is often easier to learn at older ages than U.S. schools start at. The result here is that many students feel that they are just "not good at math," when the real problem is lack of sufficient brain development. The problem this poses is that once they think they are genetically predisposed to be bad at math, they loose motivation to try to learn it. As with reading, the more informal classroom setting has clear benefits, as students can be allowed to work at a pace that fits their brain development.
My third solution to this problem is based on the idea presented in the Java textbook: the brain craves novelty. The human brain is designed to adapt quickly, which poses a problem in a society where adaptation is not as necessary as during less prosperous times. Our brains are very well suited to learning many new but unrelated things, in quick succession. This does not mean that several short classes a day is the optimum way of learning, however. The problem is this: when we learn something small, then immediately learn something totally unrelated, we have a very high probability of forgetting the first thing. Our brains do this to avoid wasting space. If we learn something, and then use it, the brain recognizes it as important, and it is more likely to store some of that information in long term memory. Still, one record in long term memory will still not last very long, especially when we are presented with something totally unrelated directly after. So this problem is this: Our brains retain information best when we immediately use that information, a lot. So, for best retention, we should focus on one thing for an extended period of time. This is the best way to permanently store information in long term memory. Now, on the other side, the brain gets bored with this strategy. Too much study of a single subject typically becomes rather mind numbing. The brain begins to see no point in remembering the information, because it is constantly available. The lack of novelty results in a lack of sufficient stimulation, which can actually cause you to fall asleep while studying. Studying one thing constantly often becomes extremely difficult in a fairly short period of time. In short, to keep the brain interested, we need to vary what we are learning, but to retain what we are learning, we need to study a specific subject for an extended period. These seem to be diametrically opposed. How do we study one subject without interruption but still have enough interruption to keep the brain focused? The answer is actually not that complicated: use different teaching techniques. My Java book uses conversational language, because the brain is more stimulated from conversational language syntax than formal text book language syntax. It also intersperses interesting images throughout the text, with captions attached. It includes asides with useful information that also provide a short break. The result is that the brain has the opportunity to regularly change focus, but the subject being learned remains the same. Also, in the different things, overlapping information is presented, which helps to reinforce important points. Learning using multiple different styles helps to ingrain information in long term memory better. Varying learning techniques not only helps improve focus, but it also improves retention.
Now, let's look at some ways of implementing these ideas. Getting over the misconception that learning ability is entirely genetic is fairly easy. This misconception is often spread by the actions of teachers and parents. For the math class in the study, the misconception was effectively destroyed with a simple two week course on the neurology of learning. For younger students, teachers could easily just tell them that learning is determined more by motivation than genetics. The other two can be most easily handled by using a less formal classroom system. The less formal classroom allows for learning paced for the student. It also happens to be more conducive to increasing novelty. If there are many students studying at different levels, students will be exposed to more parts of a subject at one time, allowing them to learn and focus on the things that they find most interesting at the moment. This will produce an environment that encourages motivated and effective learning.
There are some additional things that could be used to increase novelty, even in a traditional formal classroom setting. These are things like alternate forms of teaching media. For instance, in 5th grade (before I started homeschooling), I had a teacher who would occasionally do a Jeopardy-like game, covering the subjects we were learning. Well designed games provide a break from traditional learning and are also very engaging. If the subject of study can be worked into the game, then it will also facilitate learning. Students that are engaged in learning are much more likely to retain what they learn. In addition, things like videos, pictures, and even audio clips can be used to provide breaks and add variety to the learning methods. Music can also provide a break, and music has been shown to improve learning, giving another extra boost to retention.
One last thing I want to look at improving is the problem of rapidly switching subjects. Going through four to six one hour long classes per day, with totally unrelated subjects, is a recipe for learning a bunch of stuff that you will forget by the end of the day. Instead, it would probably be better to stick to two or three two hour long classes per day, or even just two three hour classes. Instead of having the same class schedule every day, each day of the week would cover one or two different subjects. So, on Monday, there might be three hours of math and three hours of science. On Tuesday, the first three hours could be English and the next three hours might be history. The rest of the week would be similar. For a subject as important as reading, there might be three days with a three hour block of reading, or reading might even be an everyday thing. Note that for long class periods, there should be breaks or times during class where students can leave their seats and wander a bit (blood clots in the legs are most likely to develop during long periods of sitting). During breaks may be a good time to play music or watch an entertaining video. Short distractions like this will not interfere with retention but will still give the brain a needed break. Breaks may also be a good time to answer students' questions in an informal setting (and when a student is curious about something is often the best time to learn that thing).
I am not saying that the above will work for everyone or even that it will work. I expect it to work, based on the scientific knowledge behind it. Like I have said many times, there is not much we could do to make our education system worse, so the odds that this will improve it are pretty good. Some of the techniques I have mentioned have been used with great success in other countries. In New Zealand, the less formal classroom setting has been very successful. In most oriental countries, the culture encourages the idea that learning capacity is based on motivation and not genetics, and we have clearly seen the positive results of this (in fact, it has resulted in a stereotype that all Asians are extremely smart). While the novelty thing has hardly been used in serious education, presenters have been using it for years to keep their audience interested. Similarly novelty is one of the biggest driving factors of the video game industry. People will go to great effort to learn the mechanics of games like World of WarCraft (Wow) and Minecraft, because the games are engaging and motivating. Nobody learns to play a video game in a formal classroom setting. The games are so motivating that the players seek out the knowledge for themselves. Wow contains more knowledge than the average college class and covers at least as many subjects as the typical elementary school (you can even find books in the game about the history of the imaginary world the game takes place in). People learn this information for fun, using resources like the internet to find it. If we could make school this motivating and engaging, students would begin to allocate part of their free time to studying school subjects, possibly instead of playing games (nothing against games...). We have the knowledge to do this, now we just need to apply it.
