Introduction

            It all began at birth, of course, but this particular journey initiated itself in the summer of 2005. I was on a downward spiral toward, what one might call certain death…literally. Born with a rare genetic disorder of the immune system and years of suffering, which had evolved into a life of  doctor visits, hospital stays, long hours in bed and dragging myself through every day brought me to one of those pivotal points in one’s life. I wanted out. I just “couldn’t do it anymore. There’s an entire story here, but let’s jump ahead.

            I found a school that focused on empowering mind, body and spirit. I considered this my last and final resort to living. In fact, my goal at the time, was to put myself through such rigorous training that the body would give out. It would be over and “what a relief”. That was not to happen, obviously. I’m here typing these words four years later.

            What did happen was a new unfolding of me and a journey into mind/brain research that I had never considered could truly change my “condition”. Nor did I realize that this experience would not only affect me, but all those around me as well.

            Now along the way I was working as a teacher. We all have to work and that was my job. When my condition deteriorated to a point where I was taking so many sick days, I was offered part time employment by an extraordinary superintendent who thought I was worth keeping. I have spent the last four years “healing” and “becoming”.

            So…why did you need to know all that?  Since, I had been immersed in mind/brain research I wanted to find a way to integrate my new found knowledge with teaching.  If what I had learned could affect my health so profoundly, then there must be pertinent research available to accentuate student learning outcomes in the classroom. With the internet as my guide I went in search of a program.  And, of course, I found one. A new journey and evolution were about to take place, although at the time I didn’t realize the impact this work would have on my teaching career.

            I was a good teacher. I had files filled with evaluations that praised my ability in the classroom from three different schools over the course of my teaching tenure, 20 plus years. I had always taught “out of the box”. Project based learning and group work was my signature. It was my intuition that led my lesson plans and the desire for all students not only to learn, but have fun along the way.  I was pretty good at it… then along came my desire to coordinate what I had personally learned with my job.

            I am on a journey, yet again, and loving it. Such passionate words are not usually associated with one’s work, especially in today’s world of teaching with all its pressures and mostly unappreciated efforts. Yet, here I am, the human animal learning and understanding so much more. Why not? If my personal life changed because of what I had experienced at “mind” school, why wouldn’t my work life change? The truth is it hadn’t changed much, until now. Now, I am making the connections, seeing the bigger picture and wanting to get out of the “box” in mammoth ways.

            The next few chapters will address several questions related to brain-based learning and teaching. I am very grateful to Dr. Chad Osborne for giving me the opportunity to pursue my desires while at the same time giving me those PDP’s in order to continue my career. Due to his development of, what I consider, an extraordinary research project, I am becoming a better teacher. Learning is a never ending process. What ever I am is a becoming process. I am no longer a “pretty good teacher.” I am becoming a better teacher/person, day by day, lesson by lesson.

Daniel Amen, M.D. in, Magnificent Mind At Any Age, emphasizes, repeatedly, that in order to understand the many facets of who we are and how we function one must “look” at his or her brain. Our lives are dependent upon how we nourish, exercise or abuse this beautiful organ which orchestrates every detail of our being.  Joe Dispenza, D.C. quotes Susan Blakemore: “In proportion to our body mass, our brain is three times as large as that of our nearest relatives. This huge organ is dangerous and painful to give birth to, expensive to build, and, in a resting human, uses about 20 percent of the body’s energy even though it is just two percent of the body’s weight. There must be some reason for all this evolutionary expense.” With these thoughts in mind along with the plethora of research devoted to how our brain learns leaves me questioning why we, as teachers, have not been given more in depth instruction.

            The brain is structured to learn via several modalities, therefore; we have been equipped with five senses all of which are inter-reactionary. Unfortunately, most schools including “my school” teach from a perspective that restricts the natural way of learning. I am perplexed by this since the knowledge of how we learn is not new. Granted some of it is, but it appears that change is difficult for people to embrace, even when the evidence is clear. However, our children are suffering greatly, which in my opinion is putting our future at risk. There has been a definite increase in apathy, disrespect, drug use and sexual promiscuity among students during my teaching career.  Along with these issues, according to Jenson, in Enriching The Brain, “there have been countless kids that [have] either dropped out or graduated with no sense of competence, direction or joy of wonder about learning”. 

 The following chapters/questions are divided into three parts, research, development and integration.  Research speaks for itself. Who, what, when and their findings. Development relates my personal understanding of the knowledge and how I changed lesson plans accordingly. Integration, of course, is putting the plan into action and most importantly, how the students faired. “We” talk about our theories, experiments and ideals, but how do students truly feel about what “we” are “doing”. They are the one’s sitting in the classroom trying to get that “golden” education that will lead them into a better future. Some of my students, simply do not care, others are tragically apathetic to the learning process. But, the question is whose fault is that…really?

Several appendices are included at the end of this work to illustrate the “evolution” of my classes. I teach 10^th grade Biology and Health. Focus is primarily on Biology due to its mostly traditional format of teaching. I hope you enjoy this journey as much as I did.

Before I leave the reader to this journey I must give an enormous, heartfelt thank you to Rick Paula without whom this work would have never taken the course it did. Rick spent innumerable hours teaching me how to engage and use a multitude of technologies, never before available, in my classroom, Smart Board, Classroom Jeopardy, CPS (Classroom Performance System) not to mention how to navigate a notebook laptop. He introduced myself and students to many and varied software applications that facilitated their creative designs and project development.

Rick selflessly allowed me and my students to use his personal “techno” games (Classroom Jeopardy and CPS), lap top computers, cameras, video recorders, and software so that students could have the experiences I desired for them.