The Fascinating Brain

How Brain Development Affects Practise

Day 2 of the Term break and I'm here with fellow #oresome colleagues, to learn about the brain from Nathan Wallis.   Face-to-face learning - which according to Nathan, has a far greater impact on the brain than learning alone.

Interesting that prior to the 90s, research was always on the dead brain; making it quite difficult to understand the living brain.  We now have 25 years of research to support the understanding of why the early years of a child have a huge impact on how that child will perform in their adult years.

Watch:  'Why am I?"

What are the 'risk factors' that a child has been exposed to which could have a detrimental effect on the outcome of that child, e.g. is the home life stable, does the child's parent stay at home to look after the child, will the parent not smack the child, will the child learn two languages, will the child learn to play an instrument, does the parent tertiary qualification?

The first 1000 days (from conception), will be a data-gathering time which will inform your brain of what it will need for its lifetime.  It's therefore important to identify the factors that a child is exposed to in these first 1000 days.   The first year is the golden year.   For example, two children adopted from an orphanage: the 3 year old girl who was looked after by her grandmother until the age of one, will have a greater chance of being successful, than the one year old boy who was put into the orphanage at birth.

Mother/Baby Bonding

The language that the mother uses to speak to the newborn and infant is the language that counts when that child begins to speak.   The baby is 'intuned' with the mother, not the environment in which the mother communicates with.  In other words, if the mother speaks to the baby in te reo, but speaks english to those around her, then it's more likely that the baby will speak te reo, when it begins to speak.

By the age of 3, your outcomes will not be governed by your genes, but rather what has 'triggered' the brain.  So it's not a case of nature vs nurture, but instead, the relationship that nature (genes) has with the environment.  The human brain is designed to evolve according to the environment that it encounters.   The brainwaves of a baby do not become independent until around the age of 18 months.  So any brainwaves that the mother has during pregnancy and early years, do have an impact on the baby.  This will, down the track, have an impact on the risk and resilience factors.

The quality of the relationship between mother and baby will have a huge impact on how that baby forms relationships later in their life.

Brain #4 - The Frontal Cortex

This is what sets us apart from the family pet.   All the skills that we develop, e.g. reading, writing, etc. are due to having a frontal cortex.   Research currently suggests that this part of the brain is fully mature at 18-24 for females and males are up to 22-32 years.  

The first born child will most likely reach maturity at the earliest stage of the scale.  Therefore, if a boy is born first, then he will seem to be at the same stage of development as the girl that is born second.  On the other hand, if the girl is born first with a boy second, then he may appear to have quite significant delays in development than the girl, however, it's really just a reflection on their state of development of the frontal cortex.   

To support this research, Nathan suggested to have a look at the statistics: which gender and birth position (first or second born) has the highest number of suicides, imprisonment, employment opportunities.

Brain #1 - the brain stem.   It's our brain for survival

Brain #2 - the sports brain.  Supports our movement.  

With these two, you have a reptilian brain.

Brain #3 - emotion.

To be a mammal you need all three of these brains.  This is what sets the pet dog apart from the pet lizard.   These three brains are compulsory to us.   However, brain #4 is not compulsory for survival and its development is largely dependant on the data that it gathers in the first 1000 days, including what the baby will hear while in the womb in the third trimester.

The only way to get to brain #4 is through brains 1-3.   Without a connection with the child through brains 1-3, it would be difficult to support their learning with brain #4.  

What is the relationship between brains 1 and 4?  

To be using our cortex, we need to be calm.   If we want the child to learn, then the child needs to feel safe and calm - a result of developing an understanding and empathetic relationship.  It's like a set of scales.  If brain #1 is on one side, we would prefer that it weighs less than the other side of the scale which has brain #4.  

An example of how these two brains work would be in an earthquake.   When this happens, our brain #1 will more than often take over;  the scales tilt and no longer is our brain #4 taking control to support our thinking and direct us to take cover... instead, we freeze.

My Wondering...

So, how do we support learners in the class when we meet them well past their 1000 days of data gathering?