Recently, I spoke at a wonderful Saturday-morning-gathering of learners, parents and educators. My topic was the three networks of the learning brain. In this three-part blog post series, I share with you, my blog readers, my notes from that presentation.

 

 

 

I’ve been told the Happiest Place on Earth is in Orlando, Florida. But I disagree. It’s not Disney Land or Disney World. I know the happiest place on earth is in the kindergarten classroom.

 

Kindergarten is the Happiest Place on Earth:

 

Go with me to a time before STAAR tests and the far-reaching arm of the state mandated high-stakes testing. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the history and the benefits of state mandated testing. But for purposes of illustration, I invite you to imagine being 5 years old and going to kindergarten. Your mom walks you to the door. You are greeted at the door by a nice lady who smells like oranges and is wearing apples on her ears. She gently takes your hand and leads you to a table just your size, where there are other children working on puzzles and introduces you. The room has a table with sand, another table with play dough, there’s a corner with dress up costumes, and a huge easel in another corner with chalk and markers. In the middle, there is a carpet with big letters where your nice teacher who speaks with soft tones asks you sit crisscross-apple-sauce. And you earn a sticker on your forehead for putting your hands on your lap. You go outside and run and play. Then you have a snack and rest time. At the end of the day, your mom picks you up and asks you the question all moms ask their children at the end of a school day, “What did you learn in school, today?” to which you respond truthfully, “Nothing, we just played.”

 

Oddly enough, at the end of the school year, you know math, science, social studies, literature. And you probably know how to read. Kindergarten teachers know what all parents of young children know.

 

The learning brain learns best in a happy environment.

 

Part Two, the Learning Brain: Affective Networks (Feeling Brain)

 

Feeling Networks:

Our affective networks are located in the center of the brain. These networks are comprised of our limbic system. The primary structures within the limbic system include the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, hypothalamus, basal ganglia, and cingulate gyrus. The amygdala is the emotion center of your brain. Your hippocampus plays an important role in making memories, it’s like the save button on your computer screen. Now you don’t need to remember these names, I’m just saying these words to impress you.

 

Your limbic system (or your feeling networks) isn’t conscious, the way we think of conscious. This is your non-thinking brain.  Your feeling networks are responsible for your knee-jerk reactions, your gut feelings, your intuition, your hunches. How does that work?

 

First let’s talk about neurons.

 

Our brain houses approximately 86 -100 billion neurons (depending on which research you read.) Each neuron can grow up to 15, 000 dendrites. Dendrites look like tree branches. One branch holds one idea (or word or concept). One neuron and its dendrites can hold all the information you would learn in your senior year of high school English. When sensory input enters your brain through your senses, the message is carried through electrical and chemical activity to the outer cortex where all the dendritic trees are. We are looking for something that looks familiar. Do we know anything about this piece of sensory input? All the info from the dendritic trees is processed in less than a second. People who study the brain call this neurological activity “the breeze through the trees.” The message comes back to the limbic system as an emotion because this process is faster than our language center. It’s so fast we can’t put it into words. We feel a hunch, an intuition, or a gut-feeling.

 

 

Sometimes the breeze through the trees results in the message “Danger. Danger” and we go into survival mode. This limbic system response to our environment allows us to stay alive in the face of danger. It triggers our fight, flight or freeze response.

 

We see the limbic system take over at the movie house. When we are watching an action-packed thriller on the big screen, and our heart rate increases, our breathing accelerates, our palms get sweaty. All the while in our conscious minds, we know that we’re in a movie house watching a movie.

 

Another important characteristic about our limbic system is the neurotransmitters.

 

Picture the flight map in the back of an in-flight magazine showing all the cities an airline flies to and from. That’ll give you an idea of the organization of a neurotransmitter system which simply means all the neurons that release or react to a particular neurotransmitter. For example, the serotonin system is all the neurons that release or react to serotonin (just as the Delta “system” would be all the cities Delta connects to). Your brain relies on numerous transmitter systems for different types of processing.

 

Here is a partial list of neurotransmitters and a few of their primary effects:

Serotonin – improves willpower, motivation and mood

Norepinephrine-enhances thinking, focus, and dealing with stress.

Dopamine-increases enjoyment and is necessary for changing bad habits.

Oxytocin-promotes feelings of trust, love and connection, and reduces anxiety

 

The point I want to make is that there is an explanation for your emotions. Your brain has chemical systems, electrical activity, dedicated structures and specific processing patterns that all explain the experience of feelings and emotions. Your emotions play a key role in your learning brain. 

 

Our emotions are encoded in our memory. Each piece of information we have stored in our dendrites has an embedded emotion. Memory attached to previous knowledge will influence new learning. Just as a restaurant can possess an ambiance, so does our classroom or a learning experience around the kitchen table. A positive mood will enhance learning. A negative mood will sabotage learning.

 

 

Quick recap about the learning brain’s affective networks.

• Your limbic system is located in the center of the brain and is primarily responsible for emotions and feelings.
• It is not conscious as we normally think of as conscious. It is not thinking or logical. It is more reactive. More like a hunch, an intuition or gut feeling.
• Our limbic system triggers our fight, flight, freeze response.

 

As teachers, how can we use this information?

 

1. Take frequent breaks.
2. Schedule daily rigorous physical activity.
3. Learn and practice stress management skills.
4. Practice healthy self-care i.e. eat, hydrate, play, rest.

 

I love showing parents and educators about how the brain learns. Learning how to manage stress can be a game changer in productivity and creativity. Contact me ruth@ruthbomar.com about presenting to your group or at your school.

 

Keep reading for The Learning Brain Part Three: Strategic Networks or Your Thinking Brain to be posted soon!!