Learning with the brain in mind

This post is a nod to my friend and mentor Karen Boyes who I remember talking about the comfort and learning zones at a conference a long time ago... I loved the concept and intend to share this with our class this term as we continue to learn about our brilliant brains. 

I recently shared a post about considering the brain with behaviour management and shared some tools I have used to help explain the brain to the children I have worked with. Using Glenn Capelli's magic brain model to help describe behaviour has been effective and so using the same model I intend to focus on learning with the brain in mind (see below)... it could be said we are able to learn our best when we are in the Learning Zone which in the model below is in the blue thinking room.  

Here is a little reminder of Glenn's Magic Brain model: 

1. The blue thinking room- where we have heaps of choices and this is where heaps of our learning happens 
2. The glitter room of emotions (Glenn talks about this being the multicoloured room)- this is where our feelings are and when we are feeling big emotions or lots of emotions it can get pretty messy in here which makes it hard to the get to the door for the thinking room so we need to calm the glitter down 
3. The red room of limited choices- often when we are afraid or angry we end up in the red room where we really only have 2-3 choices... fight, flight or freeze,  when the brain stem is engaged then the cerebral cortex is offline

One way to define a concept is by defining what it isn't so to explore what a Learning zone looks like I'll first establish what it isn't by looking at two extremes of a continuum... the Comfort zone and the Danger zone and what some internal dialogue relating to this might be.  

Comfort Zone	Danger Zone
This is easy I don’t even need to think about it I am so good at this Yawn…	This is probably going to kill me!!!

So the Learning zone sits in the middle of these two extremes but it isn't there alone... the Fear zone is also there  so our continuum now looks a little like this... 

Comfort Zone	Learning Zone		Danger Zone
	Fear Zone

When we are faced with a learning challenge, depending on our personal expectations, self talk and prior experience among other things, we will either enter the Learning zone or the Fear zone. 
Below is some internal (and even external) dialogue learners might have when they are in the Learning and Fear zones. 

Learning Zone	Fear Zone
This is challenging (the brain loves challenge!)	This is too hard
This might be fun	This is stupid
I can’t do this, yet	I can’t do this
Mistakes are part of learning	Mistakes are bad
Oops, I got that wrong this time	Getting things wrong is bad
I don’t know this, yet	I don’t know this
This reminds me of something else that I know	This doesn’t relate to anything I know at all
Asking for help is part of learning	Asking for help means that I am stupid or dumb
I am a learner	I am a failure

The Learning zone lets us into the blue thinking room of the brain whereas the Fear zone takes us through the glitter room of emotions and sometimes into the red room of limited choices. 

If our learners go into the Fear zone when presented with something new then the chances of them getting as much out of it as they could is really limited... unless we can help them to identify what is happening in their brain at the time and find ways to access the blue thinking room. Please note: I am not suggesting we try to remove emotions from learning at all, in fact emotions are powerfully useful in learning just not so much when they stay all shaken up and are keeping the door to the blue room closed, so we need to find ways to keep that door open. 

So how can we help move into the Learning zone if we find ourselves in the Fear zone? Well this is one of the questions we'll be discussing in our class at some stage but in the meantime here are a couple of suggestions that I can offer: 

• Think about another time when you learned something and it was really hard and then it got easier... often learning something new is hard at the start and that's normal.  
• Relate to children learning to walk... they don't try once, fall over and then based on that experience decide that clearly walking isn't for them! They try and try and try again, persistence is a key to learning. Making mistakes, getting things wrong, falling over is part of learning. 
• Remind yourself that it is OK to make mistakes... as a teacher you have the ability to support this mental framework so how do you make sure your learners know mistakes are OK? 
• YET is a powerful word, it supports developing a growth mindset. 'I can't do this yet' is empowering where just stating 'I can't do this' is limiting. 
• Remind ourselves that the brain LOVES challenges. Challenges help to form new connections and keep things interesting for the brain. 
• There are strategies we can use to help make learning new things easier, here are a couple: 1. scaffolding- by relating the new material to something else we have done or learned in the past; 2. break it down- see if you can break the new learning down into it's parts so we are learning one smaller thing at a time rather than something absolutely ENORMOUS!  
• Stop, Breathe, Think, Do works here too... when we hear ourselves saying that we are dumb or stupid or can't do this then that is a sign we need to STOP (have a break) and breathe. Then think about what we can do: perhaps ask for clarification or help if we need it; or have another go; or try a new strategy.

This work is designed to help make brain science accessible to our learners and I hope that as we work together the children will develop it further in ways that I can't predict, and that they will become more curious about their own amazing brains. For me the more I learn about this, the more I want to know and greater my appreciation for the magnificence of the human brain and our potential becomes. 

This is about empowerment of the learner, supporting them to better know themselves so they can unlock the potential within and shine which I figure is a big part of our role as parents, caregivers, teachers, school administrators, educationalists. I do appreciate your feedback and suggestions as I continue to build on these concepts with our children and hope that something in here might be useful for others as well. 

Some links that you may find interesting: 

From this blog: 

Managing difficult behaviour with the brain in mind (+some poetry and lesson ideas) 

Supporting at risk students- reflecting on teaching practices to support students

Why we need mindfulness in our schools- a few thoughts about mindfulness in the classroom

Karen Boyes: 

Effort vs Accomplishment - a summary around fixed and growth mindsets

Everything is hard before it is easy- looking at this aspect of being in the learning zone 

Brene Brown: 

The power of vulnerability- exploring the feeling of vulnerability and seeing the powerful and positive that can be found in it (great for our own learning and development) 

Managing difficult behaviour with the brain in mind

Last week I attended a course hosted by Compass Seminars entitled Distressed or Deliberately Defiant. Dr Judith Howard presented from a research, neurobiological and personal perspective which was powerful and at times profound. Her book covers the content of the seminar and although I am going to share some of what I learned from Judith here, if you are interested I would recommend reading her book to get the big picture. 

The focus was on children who have suffered significant, chronic trauma that has caused neurological pathway differences due to an interruption in normal attachment development (WOW that was a huge mouthful!) 

Initially we looked at neurobiology and attachment theory so there was a basis for the discussion that followed. This was recommended as the approach we were to take if sharing with colleagues which I agree with completely, if we don't know what we are dealing with then we will struggle with implementation. The basics of this fit well with the magic brain by Glenn Capelli and the glitter jar concept that I have been working on lately with my class (with the exception that breathing is often not a good first strategy for these particular young people because they can't quite control that in the heat of the moment) - see below for some information and teaching ideas I have used with our class this year. 

The big take home neurologically is: when these kids kick off we are not dealing with someone choosing to behave badly, we are dealing with a brain stem and some disfunctional pathways and in that time and space there isn't reasoning, the cerebral cortex is offline because the brain stem is running the show! 

So really behaviour management at this time is about helping these kids find a safe place to calm down and supporting them to regulate first. When we are stressed we have two neurotransmitters going off- explosive adrenalin which spikes and abates and then the slower to rise and slower to drop cortisol... often we go in to 'talk' about the poor behaviour when the adrenalin has dropped off but the cortisol is still rising and so they then kick off again as they have not regulated properly yet. This all takes time and the key to success for these vulnerable young people is RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS. 

Long term we are actually performing external brain surgery... we are aiming to rewire the brain, building strong positive pathways where there are only weak ones, if any at all. The strategy discussed at the seminar is quite similar to the one outlined in this blog post http://www.thedistractedmom.com/why-punishments-dont-work/ - yes it comes from a parent perspective about ADHD but the strategy is useful to consider and is in alignment with strategies shared by Judith. 

In addition to the strategy above some other aspects are as follows: 

• Ensure that the child has a mentor (not the classroom teacher) 
• Have a team that work together around the child... meet and talk to each other
• It is OK for you to have a bad day as a teacher, it is OK for you to ask for help 
• School policy needs to reflect that common practice behaviour management strategies may work for the majority but that for some the strategies we employ need to flexible so we can best meet the needs of the children concerned and ensure safety for other children and staff as well 
• These kids will test your love and care, they don't trust easily... they will push back... they will not make it easy but if they are giving you a hard time it is possible that this is actually a complement in a strange way, they think you are worth it to test the relationship 
• Reframing your own internal dialogue when working with these 'tough' kids is a really helpful, mentally healthy strategy 

The thing we need to come back to is that the science is there, and as Judith stated emphatically, we cannot afford to ignore it... the science can and should be informing our practice and what works for 80% of our kids is great but we need to ensure that we do what we can to support the 20% in ways that work for them. This relates to the at risk learners as well. 

SOME TEACHING IDEAS TO SHARE:
I am passionate about the human brain and how it works. It is fascinating and as a teacher I see this as vital to know as it can inform my practice and help my students become more self aware learners. 

This year I have had several sessions (not enough by far but it is a start) where we have worked through some 'stuff' about our brains. What I figure is if we have an awareness of how our brain might be working then we are better able to manage ourselves and if nothing else be more aware of our own behaviours so in time be better self managers. 

Now if you haven't seen this clip I recommend it, it doesn't take long and is useful for ourselves if nothing else. I have shown this to my class and played it again for individuals and they really get it (please note: our students are 7 years old). After watching this we spoke about how it felt when our glitter jar of emotions were all shaken up and how we can help to calm them down. I then used this analogy of the glitter jar and teamed it with Glenn Capelli's Magic Brain concept. 

Initially I drew this on the board as we talked about it and then later made the visual as a reminder for us going forward. There are three rooms in our Magic Brain: 

1. The blue thinking room- where we have heaps of choices and this is where heaps of our learning happens 
2. The glitter room of emotions (Glenn talks about this being the multicoloured room)- this is where our feelings are and when we are feeling big emotions or lots of emotions it can get pretty messy in here which makes it hard to the get to the door for the thinking room so we need to calm the glitter down 
3. The red room of limited choices- often when we are afraid or angry we end up in the red room where we really only have 2-3 choices... fight, flight or freeze, when we are in the red room we can't get to the thinking room very well at all (and this relates back to Judith's work around when the brain stem is engaged then the cerebral cortex is offline)... we need strategies to help us get from the red room, through the glitter room and up to the thinking room so we have got more choices 

It impressed me how the children seemed to understand this concept. So we moved from here and using the just breathe video as inspiration created this simple strategy for the class (and please note: this is for all students in the class but as stated earlier it doesn't necessarily work for all) 

This is here as a reminder for all of us to help when we get stuck in the glitter room of emotions and the red room of limited choices. It gives us a visual cue. The stop button is really helpful, when things are getting out of control the first thing we do is stop and if we can do that earlier rather than later then everyone benefits. For our disregulated children there needs to be an extra step and that is finding a safe 'place' to calm the adrenalin and cortisol down, then breathing and thinking before deciding on a course of action to remedy the situation... and as I said earlier, that takes time! 

So far these simple tools have had some positive effect for a few of the children in the class and as a teacher I need to model this more obviously as well. It isn't only the children that feel like their glitter jar is a bit shaken up from time to time :) 

Below are some poems I have also shared with our class when talking about the brain: 

My growing magic brain

Megan Gallagher

Guess what I have between my ears

That changes and grows all the time

It’s my magical wonderful brain

And it’s all mine, all mine, all mine

Trying things that are hard or tough

Helps connections grow

The more I try, the better I learn

And the more I get to know

So I will help my magic brain

Make links and learn and grow

By being kind and trying hard

And giving new things a go!

Growing and Changing

Megan Gallagher

Egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly

Changing and growing fast

My brain changes when I try

I practice to make it last

A seed becomes a plant or tree

Branches grow like brain connections in me

When I try and have a go

My brain connections will grow and grow

I keep trying and what do you know

I change and grow and change and grow

Growing and Changing 2

Megan Gallagher

A baby changes and learns a lot because they try and try again,

An egg becomes a butterfly by changing and then flying.

A seed becomes a giant tree by growing a little every day,

And I grow and change as well by trying when I learn and play.