The systems are composed of complex specialized cells called neurons that are different from any other cells in the body.  They are able to receive and transmit information inside and outside of their population that numbers close to a billion cells.  One specialized feature of the neuron is the hair like structures that grow out of the cell wall and are sensitive to impulses that modify and restructure the cell.

Two types of cells, sensory and motor, populate the nervous system and connect the three segments to each other and to the body in general.  Both types fall under the heading of neuron and both have axons.  Axons are long extensions of the cell that communicate with receptors either to change the cell or to send messages to other cell groups.  These communications change these cell groups as well.  Sensory cells are specialized to gather impulses from sensory receptors posited throughout the sensory system.  These messages or impulses are communicated first at the synapse[i][iv].   Millions of these connections are made every second and provide a barrage of data that have to be discharged or directed throughout the body.  These synaptic firings are the essence of the nervous system.  The motor neuron receives information from sensory cells and activates (stimulates) the motor system of nerves, muscles, body parts, glands and supporting tissue.  Motor cells are involved in all harmonious bodily functions including balance, rhythm, sequencing, and fine and gross movements.

As you see, these cell activities are critical to both formal and informal cognitive processing.  The entire neurological system must be integrated and synchronized precisely to acquire and retain information produced internally and encountered externally.  The assumption of all teaching must be that the neurological system of each child is balanced, synchronized, and integrated.  If the assumption is correct, the brain goes about its business normally and is in a position to acquire and retain what it learns.  If, however, the assumption is incorrect, the child will experience difficulty to extreme difficulty in his/her efforts to learn.

Understanding Brain Function

Teaching to the brain is a different proposition than teaching to the child.  To teach the child implies that one instructs the “whole child” with all of the values, social structures, and environmental differences that make each child interesting and markedly different.  The mantra of elementary education for years has been to “teach the whole child”---and a good slogan it is.  Good teaching has to consider all of the exigencies of the child’s life and all of the many perspectives from which she sees the world.  This perspective is implied in all teacher preparation.  Typically, however, only the social, pragmatic perspective is taught.

For quality teaching to occur there is another concern to develop prior to achieving the global understandings of wholistic education.  The brain potential of each child must be known.  Although this is not a new idea in education, brain potential has been assessed according to IQ test results that suggest appropriate expectations to hold for each child.  This test does measure important learning qualities such as language development and experience.  Scores are normed so that a child can be compared to other children in her chronological age group.  The IQ test is valuable when the results are understood in terms of providing an educational perspective of potential.  They are not sufficient to determine educational destiny.  Given that IQ is created by the functioning of the brain and that the IQ score may suggest what a brain can acquire, the caveat has to be that the assessment is valid beyond the time of the assessment if the brain continues to function as it functioned at the time of the test.  Brain function is susceptible to change---particularly in acquisition and retention.

Teachers are far better served to know the actual uniqueness of each child’s brain.  Teachers receiving minimal training in how to understand some primary fundamentals of brain function ought to give greater consideration to the child’s sensory system (the activity of the sensory cortex), the vestibular system (the activity of the motor cortex), hemisphericity (the cerebral hemispheres), acquisition and memory, (the Diencephalon)[i][v], and dominance patterns (cerebellum).

These five functions are critical to learning.  Failure in any area can cause levels of dysfunction that range from minor to major disruptions in the child’s education.  Consider the Diencephalon.  This group of structures is related to the limbic system[i][vi] where interpretation and comparisons are made of both old and new stimuli.  One of these structures, the hippocampus[ii][vii], retains sensations and signals neurons in the cortex to excite or inhibit activity.  The neurons in the subsets of the Diencephalon are essential to memory, recall, and comparisons of “then and now”.   It is here (in the amygdala[iii][viii]) that emotional states are organized and signaled throughout the entire brain.

It is not difficult to conclude that this function of the Diencephalon is crucial in patterns of learning and remembering.  It is doubtful that classroom teachers ever consider the possibility of serious dysfunctions in this brain region as a cause of catastrophic learning failure.  Should teachers become aware that there were problems or layers of problems emanating from the Diencephalon, what could they do to help the child?  There is a set of fairly accessible literature that could help in the design and support of activities to assist the child in coming to know (Hannaford, 1995; Kranowitz, 1998).

Children of poverty are sometimes judged to be unable to learn when unreliable, time-honored excuses such as she is lazy or lacks models for good learning habits are accepted.  While there is no question that some kids from poverty are emotionally damaged by the circumstances of their lives, they certainly are able to learn if the learning environment and instructional methodology are adjusted to meet their needs.  They do show important differences in the ways they acquire and integrate information.  Meeting these uniquenesses is a challenge, but not beyond the scope of what is known about appropriate cognitive practices.

Within the past several months, data have begun to accumulate to strongly suggest that all learners---especially children of poverty---learn and retain more effectively if a strong aesthetics emphasis is in place that is both parallel with and integrated into all curriculum and teaching activities.  From a neurocognitive perspective, these findings are consistent with what has been suspected for some time.  The limbic system, one of the most fertile segments of the brain, has a propensity for learning based upon the emotional climate and responds with alacrity to stimuli that are rhythmical, patterned, and emotionally instructive.  If this is so, teachers and schools serving kids living in poverty have the responsibility to provide experiences to feed their cognitive need to grow and their neurocognitive need for aesthetics.  Then teachers must translate these experiences into the child’s world and bring them back out again to buttress an ongoing effort to form a consciousness of broader perspectives.  This is not easy.  Many teachers who teach poverty children, especially in rural schools, are sometimes struggling to afford to be “in the world” themselves.  While avoiding a deeper discussion of the anatomy of these conditions, the reality is that teaching children with limited to very limited experiential backgrounds makes teaching a level up in difficulty.  Brain function depends on having references from which to weave new patterns and when the references are missing or distorted teaching must seek new language for entering the constructs of the learner.

The Classroom         

A kindergarten teacher told me that when she put Sam’s name on the “Birthday Board” Sam came to her and asked why his name was on the board.  The teacher explained to him that children who were on the Birthday Board were sung to on the Friday of their birth week.  Sam asked her if it was bad that he had “that” birthday.  He was told “no,” and that “Friday would be fun.”  With obvious emotional concern, the teacher told me that she had not further explained the experience to him.  Sam did not come to school that Friday because, as his brother confided, “He was frightened of his birthday.”  One might conclude that the teacher had miscommunicated or, in this case, that Sam had no experience with birthday celebrations so commonly celebrated in mainstream culture.

Sometimes there is a social and cultural disconnect when working with older children who are living in poverty because the kids have become “street-smart”.  The content of street smarts can range from unacceptable language to values that are inappropriate and threatening.  Often street-smart kids are sexually active in spite of their immaturity and are advanced with regard to an expected, accepted range of behavior.  Upper elementary subject matter is uninteresting and often rejected unless it is revised to fit the lives these children are living.  The problem of reading material is of particular note.  Books of interest to these children are too difficult for them to read and comprehend; books and materials written at their reading level are silly and uninteresting.  We strongly urge the work of Gloria Lapin (2001).  Her reading material for damaged readers is a wonderful resource.

Depression

Since hearing the story about Sam’s birthday, other teachers have shared that they have had similar experiences with times of celebration and that many of the children with whom they work are unfamiliar with the tradition of celebrating birthdays.  That is not too surprising since being poor does not offer much to celebrate.  Some have suggested that peasants all over the world have had traditions in their culture and that they were famous for their celebrations.  The answer to that is that there has always been some romance about being poor by those who are not poor but even more to the point, peasants have had some means for being self subsistent as the American rural poor did at one time also. Those times are past as the sheer cost of trying to be productive with the numbing effects of poverty are a root cause for depression and an attitude of surrender.  In fact teachers who teach children of poverty often report that the common techniques for motivating children are generally ineffective in their classrooms.  It isn’t that they do not want to succeed; it is that they have few models for success and have lost touch with those feelings if they ever had them.  Since depression is only now being better understood, it is becoming clear that it plays a pivotal role in the lives of poverty children.  With no access to diagnosis or treatment, depression has become chronic in that population and the numbers are increasing.

When children are depressed, not only are they distracted by the condition; they also have difficulty making connections from what they are being taught to material they have learned previously.  In laymen’s terms, depression is described as a chemical imbalance in/of the brain.  There are few studies on how that “imbalance” impacts learning, but there are studies that show that it does have a negative effect on memory. The limbic system helps to produce connections so that there can be a smooth flow for recall and for forming memory tracts that establish an ease of recall; therefore, associated dysfunction in this region may impair emotional well-being and memory.

Teachers who teach children of poverty have to be especially sensitive to the integration of what is being taught into what has already been learned.  This is a sophisticated brain activity and requires tutoring under ordinary conditions.  Reviewing and summarizing, using analogies and metaphors that are familiar to the children, and making every effort to keep the stress level low in the classroom will help.  There are many studies that show that listening to Baroque[i][ix] music during intense teaching just at the level of intrusion will lateralize the brain and engage the “whole” brain during learning/teaching sessions.

My own observations of children in classrooms using these methods support their general effectiveness.  They are by no means a silver bullet.  Every child will not have a positive reaction to them.  It is clear, however, that reducing stress may be a very positive first step.  For teachers who are teaching troubled and depressed children this may be challenging as kids who fit this profile are often difficult to manage.  They are easily distracted, not highly motivated, and often have limited vocabularies.  There is no easy redress for these characteristics, as they require persistent and consistent treatment by the teachers.

For a time in recent educational history there was a movement toward what was then called “compensatory learning”.  The mind of this movement was to help bring African American children into a better position to compete with Caucasian children in the newly integrated schools.  The intentions of the movement were sound but it had political baggage with it that it could not overcome.  The idea that some children have to have additional support even to the place that they may need specialized teaching makes perfectly good sense.  The problem is that it is nearly impossible to get teachers to come to rural schools and impossible to get them to come to rural schools that serve poor children.  So it is virtually impossible to consider having specialized teaching or compensatory support.  What is possible is to give teachers a set of protocols, like the ones discussed above, to use as an alternative way to organize their classrooms and to affect their teaching.  If the objective is to meet the needs of individual children and to secure their foundations for successful learning then all teaching must be directed toward that end.

In brain appropriate learning we have found that whole group instruction is an insufficient organization for sound instructional practice.  Recent research suggests that when being taught in an instructional group of twenty or more, less than fifty percent of the learners are attending to the teaching.  In the early years it is easy to see that phenomena happening; but as children get older, they become quite competent at feigning attention and it is not as obvious that they are not attending.  Young brains are particularly distracted by peripheral distortion.  Intensive teaching and learning is best done in groups of six or fewer children and classrooms and curriculum activities ought to be organized for these protocols.  These protocols are compatible with effective brain based teaching and they will reduce stress in the classroom, minimize behavior problems, and also give the teachers time and place to do careful analysis of the learning and comprehension problems children are having.  There is no substitute for teaching being done as close-up to the child as possible.  Thirty minutes of intensive, close-up teaching is as valuable as several hours of whole group instruction.  Again, the brain is easily distracted and having eye contact with the teacher keeps the brain focused on the task at hand.

Organization might not be everything in effective teaching but it is an extremely important part.  Setting the stage, as Seymour Sarason (1999) writes in his book Teaching as a Performing Art, describes how instruction will be prosecuted and offers unconscious insights as to what it is that the teacher values.  Rooms that are over decorated with extraneous materials send a message that this is not a serious place to come and learn.  Teachers should think of the classroom as a laboratory where the business of teaching and learning is taken very seriously.

The Art of Diagnosis

Given that the child of poverty has a set of deficits that she brings to school with her everyday that include insecurities about food, care and shelter and an incomplete experiential image of herself in the world, other troubling issues may be overlooked. Children of privilege often have peer relationships that are helpful in orienting them to their own individual self-image.  These relationships are sometimes a mixed blessing as there is a harshness that children who are different or appear to be less competent have to endure.  But along with the harshness goes an awareness that there might be something that is correctable or can be compensated for.  Mixed blessing, because the harshness itself can be a burden and harmful to the child’s ability to “get along” with others.  It can also define a problem that the child might have some inability or trait that is inconsistent with her peers.  “Mainstreaming” children with physical or social challenges is sometimes helpful because it does provide a mirror through which the child can get a look at those to whom they are compared.  For better or for worse, children can see themselves as they appear to others.  These protocols have to be handled with sensitivity and care as they have risks involved with them that must be attended to by professional insight.

The child of poverty certainly is not exempt from peer harassment, be it good-natured or damaging.  The same risks are involved with being a child among children whenever children come together in a group.  But there is a difference.  The child of poverty may not experience other children who are free from the daily defects that are generally experienced among poor children.  There may be no so-called “star” students who consistently do well in reading, for example.  Not that there are not children who outperform other children; clearly there are.  The difference is that in that milieu there may be less attention paid to children who are different or somehow challenged because there is an expectation for more identifiable differences.

There is another issue here that needs to be discussed. In under-resourced populations there is sometimes an ongoing problem with mobility.  There are schools where no child is enrolled on the last day of school that was enrolled on the first day.  For a variety of reasons, a population of under- resourced families move frequently and school attendance is not a high priority.  This adds to the difficulty of the consistency of instruction and also makes it nearly impossible to track the child’s progress.  Standardized testing is invalid in these populations, especially if they are used to determine the quality of instruction a child receives in a given school.  Further, this coming and going of the population makes sound diagnostic procedures almost impossible.  A part of the diagnostic process is to be able to observe a child’s progress over a period of time and also to have frequent contact with the caregivers who are involved.  Without this advantage of “time” many opportunities are lost to see the child and her “real” problems.  In any diagnostic process there is no substitute for meticulous observation that is often dependent on being able to see the child in many settings and under as many conditions as possible. We strongly urge the use of videotaped or DVD recordings as a way to see behaviors that are significant but not apparent in direct observation.  Anything less carefully recorded and studied has the potential of becoming “just” gossip.

What this means operationally is that careful records must be kept.  Whenever possible, they should accompany the child to his/her next school.  Many times that is not possible, but the records ought to be attended to nevertheless.  My experience is that sometimes the records themselves are troublesome.  Care should be taken to simply report what is known.  Hearsay, gossip, and even observations that are “events” rather than typical behaviors should be screened out.  It is wise to keep the anecdotal records succinct.  Voluminous writing is often ignored, as the reader hasn’t time to “read the whole thing”.

Working with children of poverty is a calling as well as a profession.  Meager resources, insufficient support, and children in great need make the work especially challenging.  It seems to me that it is here that teachers have to be at their best.  It is here that it may be appropriate to focus on the brain as an instrument of acquisition and to be less attentive to the social/cultural impediments to learning.  Sometimes the social/cultural problems are overwhelming and paralyze teaching as well as learning.  Intensive instruction that is brain based and sensitive to the qualities of the brain that are intact regardless of the child’s circumstances are called for with children of poverty.

The following list of suggestions from a brain perspective may be a place to begin rethinking the teacher’s role in an under-resourced environment.  Please take them as suggestions made to professional educators who are committed to doing the best possible work for kids who need just that.  They each require study and work.

• Design your classroom to be as physically stress-free as possible.  Lower the overhead lights, have alternative seating, limited decorations, and ready access to hydration.  Play Baroque music at the level of intrusion at least 75% of the instructional day.
• Be sure that children have several sessions of “patterned movements” everyday. These sessions should last 5-10 minutes each time.  Movement can take the form of BrainGym, coordination exercises, ordination exercises, folk dancing, or free movement to music or drumming.
• Meet every child in a group of no more that six children for a minimum of 30-40 minutes everyday.  During these meetings, take careful note of the children’s ability to attend and to be comfortable with eye contact.  Diagnostic profiles can be applied to each child to determine not only why they are not learning, if they are not, but also “how” they are learning when they are successful.
• Be certain that children who are “under performing” get at least 5 ounces of orange juice before intensive learning.  Keep notes as to whether this is helpful in supporting their memory and their speed of recall (approximately 30% of that population will be positively affected).  Think glucose and memory.
• Provide a constant flow of aesthetic experiences and projects integrated into the curriculum. All of these aesthetic experiences ought to have hands-on components and feature some level of cultural harmony.
• Keep the culture of your classroom as positive as you are able.  Respectful exchanges need to be taught to the children and practiced by all of the adults who work with the children.  When children violate classroom expectations, they should be spoken to in a modulated voice.  Care should be taken to have direct contact with that child.  Blanket, whole class, criticisms ought to be avoided.
• When it is possible parents, grandparents or caregivers should be updated as to the child’s needs and progress.  This is work that requires great sensitivity.  Many parents or caregivers are fearful of any official who represents the mainstream of the culture.  They need to be assured that your interest is localized to the child and focused on the improvement of the learning of that child.  Any ancillary advice or suggestions need to be carefully offered or perhaps offered by the principal or social worker.
• The teacher needs to care for herself and her own cognitive capabilities.  Being sensitive to personal hydration, being on the cutting edge of social and scientific research data, and having professional relationships with other educators regularly is important.  Teachers of poverty children often report that they feel terribly lonely in their work.  Make friends with colleagues.
• Make a list of books that you need to study and, when you are able, read them in part or whole.  Critical selections listed on the bibliography will be suggested to you.

Epilogue

Becoming a quality educator requires careful study, patience, and subject area competence.  It also demands a working knowledge of neurocognitive functioning.  That is an important assignment for professional preparation and practice.  Acquisition and retention of information is a “natural” organic activity in the brain.  The brain is organized to facilitate basic acts of existence and maintenance of life.  The assignment that teachers must take forward is much more than the facilitation of existence.  It is the task of adding to and giving the person the capability of bringing meaning to life.  This process is engaged by acquiring the language skills that bring community to the person and communion with the aesthetics of this life.

Teachers have a sacred obligation that dictates fair and equal treatment of all children who come to school.  These children are entitled to our help in establishing and building a platform for their personal lives and their responsibilities for the lives of others.  Every teacher the child meets might be the one who encourages her to become all that she may within the protected space of democratic experience.

The brain is a democratic organ.  Genes can be educated and arranged to form a life richer and more meaningful than that of their progenitors.  This not a natural act; it requires teaching, guidance, and faith.  This is where teachers stand in the life of the child.  Nearly all people who achieve their life’s goals or climb to a place of prominence attribute their having done so to a teacher.  That is a fact that educators can and should celebrate.  They are of a noble profession.

Torah teaches us we must, too, be cognizant of opportunities missed and always improving the skill and sensitivity of the “sentinel on the watchtower of our lives”.  From their watchtowers, educators view their successes as balm for the hours of relentless work and dedication.  As well, they can see the teaching that is undone or incomplete.  From that view, they must learn to be smarter, wiser, more tolerant, and skillful.  “If you are searching for the noblest man in any nation look for where the children are and there you will find him teaching.”  (Heraclitus, 535 b.c.e.).

References

Baroque music.  (n.d.).  Available: http://www.baroquemusic.org/

Dewey, J.  (1938). Experience and education.  New York: The Macmillan Company.

Dreisen, J. L.  (1998-2004). Neuropsychology and medical psychology resources.  Available: http://www.driesen.com/index.html

Furr, D.  (2000). Reading clinic: Brain research applied to reading.  Maryland: Truman House.

Hannaford, C.  (1995). Smart moves.  Virginia: Great Ocean Publishers.

Heraclitus.  (2001). Fragments: The collected wisdom of Heraclitus.  (Trans., B. Haxton).  New York: Viking.

Kozol, J.  (1991). Savage inequalities: Children in America's schools.  New York: HarperPerennial.

Kranowitz, C. S.  (1998). The out-of-sync child.  New York: A Skylight Press Book.

Lapin, G.  (2001). Sight word stories.  Torrance, CA: Fearon Teaching Aids.

Nieto, S.  (2002). Language, culture, and teaching: Critical perspectives for a new century.  Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum.

Sarason, S. B.  (1999). Teaching as a performing art.  New York: Teachers College Press.

Torah.  (1981). Yerushalayim: Devir.

Vendler, H.  (2004). The ocean, the bird, and the scholar.  Jefferson Lecture.

© 2004 Dr. Fritz Mengert