Arts and Smarts

This article was written by the late Dr. Charles Reichel. His words continue to speak to us.


It really makes “dollars and sense” for each of us to know the basics of “running-our-own-brains.” And, it’s pretty simple to master “Brain Basics 101.” Just as we don’t need to understand all the electronics and details connected to “running” and caring for our cars, just so for our brains. Our brain is an awesome, complex, “parallel processor” (doing many, many, things at once). Happily, for us, when running well, most of this processing is happening beneath our conscious awareness or we would be overwhelmed. Nonetheless, we should, certainly, be aware of how to consciously and most efficiently use our brains in service of our intentional learning goals, invention and creativity. So, teachers, and students review the basics with me and be amazed how simple it is to "run-your-own-brain" with intention--instead of only reaction.

Beginning with this article and in coming weeks, I'll remind you of some vital brain principles that enable us to live consciously. One of these is that all brains learn better when "awake." And, they are awakened by surprise and novelty. Surprise yourself and those around you. Stay awake! Teach by responding differently in the days ahead! If something is not "working," try doing it differently! A lot of surprising learning will happen in, with, and through you and your energy will increase!

This article focuses on positive brain growth through providing children with non-poisonous, enriched environments—beginning in the womb and continuing on.

Have you thought of a mother’s womb as our first classroom? It is. Each person’s brain architecture will be formed in the mother's womb to help that organism best survive in the environment into which it will be born. Thus, if the mother and father live in a highly stressful relationship or environment, the embryo will be continually bathed with stress hormones such as cortisol. The neuronal cells will prepare and build that child’s brain differently from that of a child whose mother, is herself in, and able to provide the child with, a regular bath in the hormones of joy and pleasure--such as serotonin.

As our children grow, from embryos to adolescents, their brains are continually learning from their environments by growing neurons—learning cells. (By week four after conception, in the mother’s womb, over half a million neurons are growing every minute). These neuronal cells soon migrate to their proper places to begin forming what will be the brain. They have the potential to form branches (like a plant’s root system) or cell extensions called axons that join with dendrites at junctions called synapses.

These synapses or junctions are where, literally and metaphorically, we “make connections” and learning is happening. Dr. Judy Willis, M.D., classroom teacher and neurologist (See ASCD book info below), tells us that these synapses reach a maximum development rate of two million per second. While neuron cell growth may stop about age twenty, the growth of synapses and the power of making connections continues for a life-time. The capacity to continually grow connections and learn new things, in new ways, is called the brain’s “plasticity.” This is the brain's fantastic ability to reroute and rewire and relearn even after brain traumas and tragedies.

However, plasticity is coupled with brain “pruning.” The multitude of neurons and connections is pruned (reduced by cell destruction) in the last few weeks before birth and, again, most prominently, around age eleven. Pruning implies the “use-it-or-lose-it” factor. When cells are active and enriched they send messages to the circulatory system to bring food and take away toxins or waste. When cells are not active, waste accumulates in the form of calcium ions and the enzyme calpain accumulates and causes the cells to self-destruct. By the time we are adolescents, then, each brain, through their use or disuse, has selected the neuronal cells for our adult life. (That's why, for instance, it is so much easier to learn another language by beginning in early childhood and laying that language's foundation of sounds and structure prior to age eleven or twelve when a major brain pruning happens. Continued, adult learning of that language is then easier.)

Our responsibility and opportunity, then, as parents, students, and teachers, is to be certain, as much as possible, to always keep our learning environments—wombs and rooms--safe from toxins and creatively enriched appropriately at the right developmental moments. Can the provision of arts-enriched environments—such as a mother who sings and makes music during her pregnancy--make a positive difference in the child's brain circuitry and learning development? From my own life and family experience and awareness of research, I certainly think so. We do know fromearlier research, such as the Champions of Change study posted on our website, that the grades, test-scores, and school affinity of students actively involved in the arts increase.

That, is, in part, is why the National Creative Society exists. We seek to join with others to help keep young artists honored, nurtured, and encouraged. We are already firmly convinced that the "arts and smarts" are vitally connected. Deep-learning, academic, and test-taking success, creativity, invention, and the arts are interwoven as whole cloth! " . . . You can't have one without the other!"

However, seeking evidence of still deeper connections, the Dana Arts and Cognition Consortium commissioned cognitive neuroscientists from seven universities in the United States to use the best brain scan technologies to see what they could see--"under the hood." Their first reports, recently released (and available to you) seem to suggest some early sightings of synapses. More research is, of course, called for.

Find Dana's available reports (http://www.dana.org) to see what you can see there. The first necessary step for all intentional learning is to "get curious." So, check out the Dana links and the many practical resource links posted on our NCS website! The second necessary stop for learning breakthroughs is to "get frustrated." May such curiousity and frustration lead to many enriching and surprising breakthroughs for you--for the sake of all! We each make a world of difference--in different ways--when we're on-purpose!