How do our Brains work?

How could anyone not be amazed at the understanding we have begun to get of our own mind. Through all of the scientific breakthroughs and discoveries that have, I think teachers today are much better equipped at understanding exactly what may be happening inside the minds of the children we are trying to teach. And with that knowledge, maybe we can begin to be a lot more prepared on how to help them achieve their maximum potential.

I can distinctively remember staring down at a list of pre-human ancestors, their Latin names and approximated time of existence seeming a daunting mountain of information. There are times in our schooling when we've had to try to feed our brains a lot of knowledge, where small details and precise data is truly important. Memory, and our ability to master it, is something that everyone needs. In fact, some people can simply be smart with very little effort because they are born with a natural ability to just pick things up and remember them. My mother mentioned a girl who slept during class, but seemed to absorb the information while she slept on her textbooks. She had a photographing memory, and there was very little she could not remember, whether it be a paragraph in text books, or a complete list of dates.

Andy Bell, however, is a man that proves that it isn't always the natural ability that can help us. His technique for memorizing anything, even ten full decks of shuffled cards, is one that does not depend upon your IQ, but on your plan. The true brilliance of that, is that as teachers, we can pass things like this on to our students. Especially in younger years, the earlier we introduce them to these strong concepts that can bring out the best in their brains internal workings, the better they will be able to adapt them into their brains hardware. It's in a post secondary classroom that we're taught about reading strategies, and go over systems of memory encoding, storage, and retrieval, but I would like to find ways to get these into kids subconsciously. I don't think a grade three class could follow this curriculum yet, but they can certainly be guided to use good techniques to make sure that they are storing things in their long term memory banks.

Looking at the five types of encoding in memory we went over, rehearsal, deep processing, elaboration, constructing images, and organization, there are things in each that I want to use as a way to direct class discussions. Make it something that we start off as doing as an in class assignment, thinking deeply, associating the information, helping them relate it to a jingle or by relating the information to looking at your hands while you concentrate on it. Getting those things hardwired into us, having them start that young, is opening the doors for them to adopt those techniques themselves .Eventually, if kids find that these steps help them, it becomes part of their schema, the tools that they learn to depend upon to help them achieve better mental success.

The brain is a powerful tool, and children have the amazing ability to twist and shape theirs much more freely than we do now. If I could help some kid realize a little helpful hint that much earlier, it would be an accomplishment I wish I had learned.