The future of learning

I look back on my childhood with my parents, barely out of their teenage years, having to take care of me, their firstborn. I do not remember nights when my parents read children’s books to me before I slept or if I got a special toy that was meant to reinforce or accelerate my learning. What I had where parents who talked to me like an adult and encouraged me to speak up but not before thinking it through. Their budget only allowed for a remotely located house that turned out to be so ripe for enriching a child’s imagination. Also, they surrounded (am not sure now if intentionally) me and my siblings with interesting characters — friends and relatives who played music all the time, in tune or not. That was the basic learning background I had as a child.

I do not remember being tested for anything monumental at an early age. At three years old, my parents stuck me in nursery school because I think my mother thought I was a lunatic and did not want the neighbors to notice. If at all you could consider this a test, I have to disclose that I had to recite “Jack be nimble/ Jack be quick/ Jack jumped over the candlestick” in front of a nun to qualify for Grade 1. Next thing I knew, I was being dressed up in uniform and entering a school with a very long name. If they tested my brainwaves, would it have helped me in coping with learning challenges I encountered later on?

Maybe, and soon, these brainwave tests may just be available as part of the process before children even start formal education. I learned this from the article entitled The Science of Better Learning by Gary Stix latest issue of the Scientific American (August 2011). A 15-year study at the Infancy Studies Laboratory in Rutgers University led by April Benasich points us to this possibility.

Their studies have shown that there is really a spike in the brain’s electrical activity that registers when an infant or toddler learns something new. They knew this based on a sound test where the children wear electrode caps (caps embedded with electrodes that when worn, record the electrical activity of the brain) while they listen to an initial tone and then introduce tones of different pitch. The children’s brains react to this change and this is shown as a spike in brain activity. They noted this and observed these children through the years. According to their study, those who were slow in responding or whose spikes were weaker were more likely to have learning problems later on. Thus, in its most basic picture, learning is a spike in your brain.

If this study were definitive, kids could undergo interventions before they even start school so they can be more prepared for formal schooling. In a perfect world, we could just stick electrode caps in our childrens’ heads right before they start school so we could figure out if there is something wrong. But unlike ads that boosts “brain power” from foods or “brain-training” that are so sure of themselves, the scientist who spearheads the studies admitted that there is a lot more research needed to be done in order to devise the best test and consequently, the best intervention. As always, commerce could always move with much less integrity in terms of scientific evidence.

What I also appreciated in the article was a reiteration of brain myths. I have written countless times about these myths but given how much these myths are quoted even by influential people, this week’s column as any other before, is always a good chance to remind readers again what scientists studying the brain have uncovered and debunked about how we learn.

1. It is a myth that humans only use 10 percent of their brains. You use what you need. There is no evidence that if you learn more, you use the parts of your brain that were inactive when you learned less.

2. It is a myth that there are “right-brained” and left-brained” people. You use both in all mental activity. Creativity does not solely reside on the right hemisphere and logic is not only dictated by the left.

3. It is a myth that you must learn one language before you can learn another. You can learn two at the same time as a child and in fact, get a more complete picture of language as a whole early on.

4. It is a myth to say that the brains of males and females differ in determining their learning abilities. No evidence has emerged that in general, network of neurons required in learning are activated differently depending on your gender.

5. It is a myth that there is such a thing as “multiple intelligence.” This myth was busted in a study published last year that had actual studies failing to prove that one kind of learner relying on a particular sensory input learns better than one who relies on another sensory input.

Right now, this is what the scientists say they can see about the future of learning. They think that brainwave tests like the one mentioned here would be useful but it will be done in combination with traditional psychological methods as well as genetics.

Once again, music was ahead of science when it was written to play: “I hear babies cry/ I watch them grow/ they’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know.” 

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