Conclusion

           Can brain-based learning truly nurture the “acorn” within our students so they grow into mighty oaks? With commitment, knowledge, practice and perseverance, I say YES! This project has been one of the most delightful, frustrating, yet enlightening endeavors of my teaching career. While I was learning vast amounts of technology, at first failing miserably at its implementation, my students were teaching me. While they were helping me I was unfolding lessons that they enjoyed and excelled at. Better yet being told “this class is the only reason I like to come to school” certainly gives a teacher a sense that something is being accomplished.

            Were lessons effective in learning and retention? At the beginning of the semester I had several students failing Biology. I have not been able to cultivate all the acorns, some remain resistant: however, all passed the course. Based on the superior work all accomplished with their final project, outlined in Question 8, if brain-based teaching and learning had been the protocol from the beginning, I believe all lethargic and combative attitudes would have been quelled immediately. Two students, both in foster care with enumerable issues and absent more than attending, produced superior projects. Due to their accomplishments I was given permission to pass them in the course, despite their failing averages prior to the project.

            Win Wenger (1999) in his article, Opportunity for CPS (Creative Problem Solving) in Schools and Education, asks to consider some thoughts which, I believe, summarizes whole brain learning. The following are taken directly from his article:

• What matters is what is learned, rather than what is taught.
• Learning-with-understanding is an associative process. We comprehend present stimuli mainly on the basis of previously-experienced stimuli.
• Each student has her or his own unique wealth of associations to draw upon, to engage and understand what they are being taught. It’s by far the best, to have the student make and draw upon her/his own associations for what is being learned.
• We learn more and better through what we ourselves express and gain feedback on, than by what we are directly taught.

The other side of this equation is the teacher. One can promulgate all kinds of research and philosophy, but if a teacher is not fully engaged in the process all is for naught. And teacher attitude, upon entering the classroom, has everything to do with student outcome and for that matter teacher outcome.  Dean Radin, a physicist and researcher, spends his time studying the mind and its relationship to the quantum field. An unassuming man, he is adamant about being able to prove questionable phenomenon. One of his fascinating books, Entangle Minds, researches “psychic abilities” between individuals and among groups (2006). One experiment stands out in my mind, as pertinent for teachers. The following illustrates that one’s intention (attitude) has a profound effect on outcome.

1.           Cultured human brain cells were place into sealed flasks, each with nutrients to keep cells alive.

2.           Johrei practitioners, Japanese spiritual healers, focused healing intentions on selected experimental flasks for three days.

3.           Focus sessions were in 25 minute blocks, repeated four times daily and practitioners did not touch flasks.

“Repeated exposure to Johrei resulted in increased cell growth. The odds against chance for the increased growth trend in treated cells as 1,100 to 1.” Radin’s book is filled with a multitude of experiments proving our intentions are “entangled” with those around us. I know my attitude has everything to do with how well my students perform and conversely how well I perform. Over the years, my beautiful students have taught me to look at all of them as wondrous seeds just waiting to grow. It is up to me to water and nurture them without judgments, or preconceived notions save one… know they can do it and do it well.

I close with an excerpt from Dr. Amen’s, Magnificent Mind At Any Age referring to grasshoppers:

If you place a grasshopper in a jar with a lid, you can learn a powerful lesson. A grasshopper in this kind of captivity behaves as many people do throughout their lives. At first, the imprisoned grasshopper tries desperately to escape from the jar, using its powerful hind legs to launch its body up against the lid. It tries and tries, and then it tries again. Initially, it is very persistent. It may try to get out of its trap for several hours. When it finally stops, however, its trying days are over. It will never again try to escape from the jar by jumping. You can take the lid off the jar and have a pet grasshopper for life. Once it believes that it cannot change its situation, that’s it. It stops trying.

May we as teachers lift our students out of boxes that have been created for them before they stop trying?