There’s a great big world out there that is trying to grab our attention, to lead our eyes to a new spot on the page, to entice us to follow the video movement into the storyline or tickle our senses in a way that makes us want to Buy This or Go Here or Be This Way. Images and sound in all their forms pour out of all the screens that are now a huge Read More →
Emotion cannot be separated from cognition. How a child feels about himself, his ability to think and learn, the subject he is studying, his teacher—all impact his thinking and learning. Moreover, when we, or our children, are in the middle of a strong emotion—fear, anger, grief—we are literally not reasonable. We cannot think. Our brains and bodies are flooded with feeling—we cannot think straight. The time to think about how to manage emotion is when Read More →
I recently read this post: “I’m a primary school teacher and completely understand how frustrating and stressful it is not to be listened to. I can almost guarantee that, after explaining a lesson in great detail, there will always be one or two kids that trot up and ask, “what have we to do?” Grrr! I also find I get very stressed at work by the constant barrage of questions, arguments, complaints, so forth that Read More →
Sometimes as parents (or teachers) we are tempted to offer rewards to our kids in order to get them to behave the way we want. Rewards can vary from an immediate, “Good job!” to a piece of candy to the promise of a party. But the brain research shows us that rewards are only helpful for low-level responses and actually interfere with higher-order thinking, problem solving and creativity. However, there are some “real” rewards that Read More →
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