Engaging All Primary Years 35 Learners

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Engaging All Primary Years 3-5 Learners An
excursion into the brain of a child in the
primary years
PYTA 2007 Annual Conference
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The Very Young Brain
In the first 30 months of life, the brain trebles
in size, to about three quarters of its adult
weight.
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The Very Young Child is a Voracious Learner The
young brain is wired to learn things necessary
for survival movement, language, spatial
skills These experience expectant learnings
have sensitive periods that vary among learners
(up to 3 years in many cases)
Greenough, 2000 Social interaction is a critical
factor for stimulation and growth of the young
brain.
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Brain Change is Less Dramatic in the Primary
Years
At Birth 6 Years
14 Years
Rethinking the Brain, Families and Work
Institute, Rima Shore, 1997
The brain grows only another 15 per cent between
21/2 and 10 years, reaching 90 per cent of its
adult weight.
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These are the Years of Use it or Lose it
The cerebral cortex thickens or thins, depending
on the level of mental stimulation.
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The Primary-aged Brain Begins to Bottom
Out At age 2, the brain is at peak metabolic
activity At age 8-10, sugar use
declines Synaptic pruning means the brain loses
some of its plasticity There are brain growth
spurts at 6-7 and again at 11-12 these mark
the emergence of new mental capacities Age 8-10
is a time of relative stability (although
synapses continue to form to cope with
stimulation and are pruned if not
needed) Primary-aged children need plenty of
activity and stimulation
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Most Learning In The Primary Years Is
Experience Dependent Persistence, guidance
and clear frameworks and models are needed to
support learning. Variation in pedagogy helps
learners build versatility in their approach to
learning.
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Characteristics of the Learner in the Primary
Years Move from dependence to growing
independence Move from magical thinking
towards logic, reasoning and problem
solving Growing physical stature
Approaching the threshold of sexuality
Growing skills and interests A key period for
future interests and performance neural
sculpting at its peak Increasing awareness of
others, including social trends Improving
coordination Flourishing imagination
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Myelination
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Primary years learners require added stimulation
to maintain the learning pattern established in
the early years. What does this mean for your
classroom practice, in terms of the learning
environment the learning tasks you design
the level of responsibility taken on by each
learner?
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What About Gender Differences?
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There are no blanket rules about childhood brain
development, but there are trends that allow us
to make some generalisations.
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The Hemispheres
physical
logic number sequence linearity analysis listing w
ords
rhythm colour imagination daydreaming sensory spac
e Gestalt
L
R
corpus callosum
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• Developmental Differences
• In general, the female brain matures more quickly
• e.g. myelination is completed earlier
• Girls take in more sensory data than boys
• Girls can acquire more complex language skills as
  much as a year earlier than boys
• ? often read faster and with larger vocabulary
  often speak with better grammar
• Girls tend to have better verbal abilities
• ? rely on verbal communication boys tend to rely
  on non-verbals
• Boys tend to develop better spatial abilities
• more at home with Mathematics and Science,
  Geography and map reading
• Boys are more likely to show natural aggression

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Structural Differences
Parietal Lobe More data through in females
males better at zoning out
Brocas and Wernickes Areas More efficient in
females
Occipital Lobe Different responses to light
sensitivity
Cerebrum Females use more volume and particular
areas to do same tasks
Corpus callosum Larger in females
Cerebellum Stronger pathways in female brain
Hippocampus Larger in females
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Coping with Challenge
Basal Ganglia more responsive in the male brain
Pituitary Gland more rapidly engaged in males
Amygdala larger in males
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Chemical and Hormonal Differences
Melatonin likely higher concentration at times
in females
Serotonin females have more
Dopamine problems more common in males
Oxytocin females have much more
Estrogen females have much more
Testosterone males have much more
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• The Influence of Hormones
• Males receive 5-7 spikes of testosterone/day
• moods may vacillate between aggressive and
  withdrawn
• Female estrogen and progesterone levels rise and
  fall during hormonal cycle, causing mood swings
• Some boys high-testosterone, others
  low-testosterone
• In adulthood, men can have between 20X and 5X as
  much testosterone in their body as females
• Competition causes rises in testosterone level
  for males and females
• Girls tend to do better with tests when estrogen
  is high
• Boys do best with spatial exams (like Maths
  tests) but poorly with verbal tests when
  testosterone is high (Gurian, 2001)

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Functional Differences Boys use right
hemisphere more girls left Boys brains
lateralise Boys move emotive material down
from limbic system to brain stem girls move it
to the upper brain Girls generally have better
memories Girls have a greater sensory
intake Boys have an advantage in spatial tasks
and abstract reasoning Girls generally hear
better than boys
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Processing Emotions The female brain processes
more emotive stimulants, through more senses, and
more completely than the male brain Boys
sometimes take hours to process emotively Boys
can be more emotionally fragile than we think
because they have fewer brain functions available
to help process Because girls process so much
more emotively, they can be overwhelmed at
times Girls tend to move emotive content upwards
from the limbic system boys predominantly use
the limbic system and brain stem
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Look at Me When Im Talking to You!
Eye contact is an important social skill in most
western cultures it indicates that we are
interested in other people and are attentive to
what they are saying Boys brains and eyes are
programmed to be more attentive to moving
objects than peoples faces Requiring a boy to
look at your face when he is in trouble may cause
him to freeze emotionally It may even be more
productive to allow them to fiddle (with a
stress ball or the like) while talking through an
issue with them Talking and walking, or parallel
talking, may work better for boys
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Peer Nurturance It is natural for young people
to nurture one another this is driven by the
tending instinct Girls tend to use empathy
nurturance e.g. talking endlessly about their
feelings and their friends braiding each others
hair touching and preening .. If someone is
hurt, a female response will be along the lines
of, Are you OK?
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Peer Nurturance Boys will tend to use
aggression nurturance e.g. bumping into each
other prodding and pushing each other
rough-and-tumble activities wrestling
competitive games aggressive non-verbal
gestures put down terms . If someone is hurt,
boys tend to respond with, Youre OK, so get
up. They are more likely to say, Get out of my
way, than Lets talk about it. When boys
nurture each other, they are looking to build
strength, focus, attentiveness and hierarchy.
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Aggression Nurturance
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Bridge Brains the Exception to the Rule

• Possess nearly equal qualities of both female and
  male brains
• Are a bridge between male and female cultures
  because their brains are the most bi-gender
• Brain processing usually favours female side of
  the scale
• Boys may
• take fewer physical risks and avoid competition
• tend towards empathy nurturance
• prefer sensuality to principles and abstractions

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Girls and boys have some clear differences in the
way their brains engage with life and
learning. What are the implications of this
information for your classroom learning
environment the learning tasks and activities
you design behaviour management in the
school? What would you now like to know more
about?
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The relationships between teacher and student is
at the heart of teaching and learning . But
what does that mean?
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The Neuronal Basis of Attunement
A key to any relationship is the emotional
attunement between two people this is the
foundation of belonging Belonging is essential
to engagement and wellbeing Attunement appears to
be strongly influenced by mirror neurons
observation
action
Rizzolatti et al, 1999 Ramachandran, 2000
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Behaviour Can Block Attunement
behaviour
The outside kid
The inside kid
thinking
emotions
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Emotional pain registers in the brain in the
same place as where physical pain does. Anglia
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Adult-Child Attunement Can Be Difficult
Adults react to children in pain
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Tit-for-Tat Mirroring Negative Emotions
YOUNG PERSON
ADULT
logic
logic
stress
stress
actions
actions
emotions
emotions
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A Classic Case of Tit-for-Tat
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Over-riding Tit-for-Tat
When we respond to needs, rather than react to
behaviour, relationships are strengthened and
engagement is enhanced.
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Monitoring Rancor and Respect
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Engagement is supported when learners feel they
belong. What are the implications of this
information for your classroom learning
environment the learning tasks and activities
you design What would you now like to know more
about?
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Some Useful References