Keith,
Your ideal classroom sounds pretty good. Throw in the out-of-doors, love
and encouragement at home, and the world will be a better place. I don't
see such a classroom as being expensive, since sharing facilities would
be inevitable, but even if that is the case, an investment in well
rounded experiential learning should not result in a loss.
You are describing something somewhat similar to the public school
system we grew up with, though far more enhanced and comprehensive. We
were offered many more subjects and activities, obviously due to
available funding. Today's kids usually have to get their parents to
finance subjects that made our programs more conducive to learning. It
wasn't great, but it was way better than what's in place today.
Apart from the elimination of many mind-expanding subjects, today's
children are subject to a number of stressors we never had. Double
income parents, bad daycare, bad T.V. and video games, diminishing
natural environments, more toxins, more drugs, legal and illegal for
both parents and themselves. Far fewer jobs, greater competition, very
realistic fears for survival which they cannot control without a great
deal of effort to change global consciousness about a range of
challenges. They need to learn what will not only develop their minds
and individual talents; they need practical solutions taught for what
they are now facing. They aren't being given the tools, nor the hope
that government will exercise the option to employ the tools. They need
hope that their generation will be different, but they are being
programmed to think about money. They know this isn't right, and their
cortisol levels are surely sky-high. Even math and reading can prove
difficult under such conditions. Just as individual cells in a Petri
dish retreat from toxins and are attracted to nutrients, 50 trillion
celled communities which evolved into something known as children are
growing more depressed about irresponsible controlling elites.
Very interesting, mirror neurons. This is an expansion of research
around learning by example, which took in, amongst other topics, video
influence on neuronal activity. Learning by example is the greatest
early teacher, yet it doesn't explain why it is that some knowledge will
stick, while some will not -- ever. Another memory comes to me from
learning about the post nuclear testing off of Anatole Island. The
Americans wanted to do some research on recovery of various species,
focusing on the chimp. They taught one to wash its coconuts before
eating the irradiated fruit by example. This spread one by two to one
hundred over time, then suddenly, overnight, all of the population,
1000's, were washing the coconuts before eating and drinking of the
fruit. The affect was not achieved by mirroring after the first 100.
There's more than visual/iimitational learning to consider.
Your example of the Bach family speaks to clear environmental influence,
which would provide the necessary knowledge and encouragement for little
musicians to thrive. Simply mirroring has not really encouraged
air-guitarists to pick up an actual instrument. Obviously, mirroring and
modeling scales must go hand in hand, as well as the individual's desire
to experience the mastery process, which involves personal exploration
for which mirroring could only provide some grounding. In my youth,
without the benefit of any model, I began to draw faces quite well.
There wasn't even so much as any great art around to influence me. What
would account for such a gift? As far as I'm aware, it didn't run in the
genes either, though perhaps further back than my parents were aware.
Music, yes, that we could account for, primarily because my mother was
always singing beautifully. My father was tone deaf. One brother played
piano beautifully without the benefit of lessons, while I played violin
in grades 7 & 8 by ear alone. I was taught ballet, but only enjoyed
dance after I explored it on my own. Mirroring takes you so far, even
late in life, I guess.
Epigenetics has been doing some fascinating research. The most
interesting for me, lately, has been focused on the cell membrane's
receptors. Both Candace Pert's Molecules of Emotions and Bruce Lipton's
Biology of Belief, whose ideas most freshly in my mind follow here,
explore cell complexity. IMPs -- Integral membrane receptor-effector
proteins are "perception switches", linking reception of environmental
stimuli to response-generating protein pathways. Simultaneous
interaction of 10's of 1000's of reflexive perception switches in the
membrane collectively create the complex behaviour of a living cell.
Signal molecules used by individual cells regulate our own physiologic
function, and when released into the environment, also influence
behaviour of other organisms. Early life single cells were not solitary,
as once believed. They lived in communities, sharing awareness,
coordinating behaviours by releasing "signal" molecules. With flight or
fight behaviour happening even for the single cell, it grew
advantageous, 700 million years ago, for singles to cooperate, avoid
long periods of protective system shut down or death. That way some
cells would continue with growth, leaving the worrying to others, and
specialized cells developed for centralized info processing, Individual
cells membranes retained their info processing.
Growth requires open exchange between organism and environment.
Sustained protection response inhibits creation of life-sustaining
energy. Chronically stressed or depressed individuals actually develop a
shrunken hippo campus and prefrontal cortex, and in some cases even get
scared to death. Parents can improve pre-natal environments, and in so
doing, act as genetic engineers for their kids. The "transgenerational
passage of characteristics by non genetic means" observed by Lamarck
conflicts with Darwin's later "survival of the fittest" assumption. The
social world supplies the most important experiences influencing
expression of genes, which determines how neurons connect to one another
in creating neuronal pathways, which give rise to neural activity.
A developing fetus not only gets nutrients from blood, but excess
cortisol and other flight or fight hormones if the mother is chronically
stressed; these affect the same target tissues and organs as in the
mother, and blood flows to limbs and life-saving reflex parts of the
brain, weakening the immune system, and generates a susceptibility to
high blood pressure and poor kidney filtration. Arguments between
parents are going to affect the unborn, as shown on sonograms
(Associazione Nazionale Educazione Perenatale). It has been determined
that up to 51% of potential intelligence is controlled by prenatal
environmental factors. For example, alcohol, smoking and exposure to
lead, resulting in reduced blood flow to brain, decreases IQ. Chronic
stress will dampen it, too. Fortunately, new connections can take place.
Humans need nurture in the form of love and the ability to observe
humans going about their everyday lives. Food, smiles, hugs, unlike, for
example, what so many Romanian orphans experienced. A lack of touching
and attention in poor quality daycares stunted growth and adversely
affected behaviour, Mary Carson observed. High levels of cortisol were
measured in both saliva and blood (Holden, 1996) and (Prescott, 1996 and
1990). Lack of touch can result in Somatosensory affective disorder,
wherein the affected will physiologically be unable to suppress surging
levels of stress hormones, a precursor to violent episodes. (We once met
a very bright orphaned Romanian teen, adopted by her Canadian mother at
about 8 or 9. Quite the handful, with symptoms described here, which
drugs could only sometimes contain. Influence does not begin at
adoption, as many children adopted and adoptive parents will reveal to
you, no matter how young they arrive.)
Zooming in on the cell again, it was learned that every functional cell
in our body is made as a complimentary "image" of an environmental
signal. Without a complimentary signal, the protein would not function,
i.e. compliment to something in the environment, the universe, or to
many, God. We evolved as compliments to our surroundings. If we change
the environment too much, we won't "fit" anymore. (Where to? from such a
point, I wonder!)
The surface of our cells is a family of identity receptors,
distinguishing us from others. Self-receptors, or human leukocytic
antigens (HLA) are related to functions in the immune system. Removal of
these would remove personal identity. If we call receptors "antennas"
downloading complementary environmental signals, reading a signal of
self which does not exist in the cell, but comes to it from external
environment. Your identity is an environmental broadcast received via
antennae. It is not the protein receptor, but what activates receptors
that gives individuals their identity. The broadcast remains, though the
tube may have blown. Once the tube is replaced, the broadcast is
received again. The cells protein receptors are not the self.
With such reasoning, someone born in future might have identity
receptors matching our own. Identity is a complex signature contained
within the vast information that collectively comprises the environment.
Transplant patients apparently report new organs come with behavioural
and psychological changes. Cellular memory/identity receptors are still
downloading environmental information. With the broadcast still on, we
can begin to appreciate the possibility of an immortality or even
reincarnation models.
Well, it's all very exciting, this getting small. Not to be taken as
gospel, please, and kindly direct all protests to the P.H. D's who
published these findings in circles of their peers.
Natalia
On 5/13/2011 10:15 PM, Keith Hudson wrote:
Natalia,
I'd best answer your question by describing what appears to be the key
to real learning -- imitation. By coincidence, an essay I wrote to my
own private list only yesterday ("The kindergarten of the future")
applies here, so I'll follow with it below.
Keith
<<<<
Search for "Bach Gigue" on the Internet and you will find a YouTube
video of a 5 year-old Chinese girl playing a Bach gigue on a Steinway
grand -- and very competently, too. I am sure that J. S. himself
would have been impressed. However, he wouldn't have been as surprised
as I was when I discovered her this morning. Precocious musical talent
ran for generations in the Bach family. Many boy and girl Bachs would
have seen and heard the clavier being played so many times by their
parents or their older brothers and sisters that, as soon as they
could hoist themselves onto a chair at keyboard height, they would
soon have taken to playing as a duck to water.
What enables this talent to arise? Is it special genes? Unlikely.
Each of us has exactly the same genes with the same functions. It's
true that all our genes have variations, sometimes many alternative
variations to suit different occasions, and each of us has a unique
permutation of these. But variations which are rare -- as rare as
genius or precocious talents appear to be -- are invariably harmful
variations, not beneficial ones.
The evidence now gathering thick and fast is that the cause of
precocious skills -- or, indeed, skills of any sort -- are due to
'mirror neurons' in the brain. These were known, but not named or
understood, for many years until their unique character was finally
pinned down by Giacomo Rizzolatti and Laila Craighero at the
University of Parma in 2004 (which will undoubtedly win them a Nobel
prize before too long.). Mirror neurons are those brain cells which
rehearse the decisions that are actually made by motor neurons when
instructing our muscles to perform this or that act. By using MRI
techniques (Magnetic Resonance Imaging brain scanning), what
Rizzolatti and Craighero discovered was that if person A were merely
to */observe/* person B carrying out a skillful act, then person A's
mirror neurons */would also/* be carrying out the same procedures as
B's -- even if A didn't follow through with the same overt actions.
Indeed, at that stage, person A may not have ever tried to carry out
the same actions, Or, if he did, then they would probably be quite
clumsy to start with. Nevertheless, from then on, both his mirror
neurons and his motor neurons would become increasingly well-defined
with further observation and further practice.
This doesn't mean that all the Bach children would be gifted
musicians. For all we know, some of the Bach children didn't bother to
spend much time indoors and wanted to play with other children or to
watch (and copy) the gardener, or the blacksmith down the road or
anglers at the local riverside. The chances were pretty high, however,
that in a musically saturated household the Bach childrens' mirror
neurons would have been constantly observing -- and microscopically
practising -- a variety of the musical skills being carried out around
him.
The discovery of the nature of mirror neurons has been hailed as one
of the greatest breakthroughs in neuroscience. Nevertheless, as per
usual, new ideas, however great, take at least a generation to work
their way through a culture to reach the policy-makers. So what might
we expect in the ideal kindergarten in the future? It would be a
pleasant and airy building, probably a lot larger than our present
typical primary school. It would be filled, however, not so much with
teachers and classrooms, but demonstrators and work rooms -- dance
room, adventure gym, music room, carpentry and handicraft workshop,
artist's studio, a mini hospital and a real baby nursery, computer
room, garden, pottery, tailoring room, video workshop, kitchen, shop,
law court, engineering bay, etc. In short, a miniature version of the
real environment and the real skills that the children will be doing
when adult.
Vastly expensive? Of course. But such an education could be afforded
when individual skills (and incomes) are taken far beyond the average
that now exists -- even to the point that the present highly paid jobs
that are fiercely protected will have to be shared. Occupying a large
area? Of course. But there'll be plenty of space. Western populations
are already close to the point of steeply contracting to much smaller
sizes. All this can happen when mirror neurons come into full use
again -- as they used to be in our hunter-gatherer days.
>>>>
At 00:12 14/05/2011, you wrote:
Keith, you had mentioned to me that money recently invested in the UK
educational system had not resulted in better numeracy scores nor
higher literacy rates. I wonder, how restrictive is the curriculum?
Is it the typical corporate agenda stuff, and if so, would that not
account for the poor showings? Without a well-rounded curriculum,
young minds have no motivation, nor, unfortunately, the accumulated
neural connections to absorb subjects that, although possibly boring
to them, would help further their pursuits in what they do enjoy.
Natalia
MANSFIELD, Pa., May 9 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say a study of 22
U.S. states and a Canadian province shows when funding support for
school libraries rises, reading and testing scores go up.
Researchers at Mansfield University in Pennsylvania say the study
contradicts an article of faith among critics of public schools that
there is no correlation between spending and learning outcomes, a
university release reported last week.
"Quality school library programs impact student achievement," said
Debra E. Kachel, a professor in the School Library and Information
Technologies Department at Mansfield. "The research shows clearly
that schools that support their library programs give their students
a better chance to succeed."
Kachel and a class of graduate students examined school library
impact studies by 22 states and the Canadian province of Ontario, all
of which found positive links between library support and learning.
The study found that increased library hours and group visits by
classes to the library, larger collections with access at school and
from home, up-to-date technology and more student use of school
library services all led to incremental increases in student learning.
"School leaders should to recognize this research and foster school
library programs that can make a difference," Kachel said.
Read more:
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011/05/09/Study-Library-funding-ups-student-scores/UPI-74061304972758/#ixzz1MH6TigrQ
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/05/
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