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Educating Our Children: a mind-body perspective

By Barry Bittman, MD

Did you ever ask yourself if there’s a better way to prepare our children to remain competitive in our global society?

After all, children today are expected to learn far more than in the past. Yet, when we consider setting the bar to a higher level, it is only logical to rethink, or perhaps, redefine our nation’s fundamental educational process.

I’m convinced that the information age is behind us, as access is no longer a formidable problem. Electronic communication, computers, virtual libraries and the internet have opened doors and eliminated obstacles to information sharing for the masses. Our ticket to global data is rapidly becoming more affordable and readily available in homes, schools and libraries throughout the nation. The phenomenal expansion of the home computer market over the last decade tells the story. Yet, despite these advances, it’s obvious that our failing quest to remain competitive on a global scale requires far more than just accessibility.

In fact, it’s more obvious than ever before that access is not the panacea for the educational problems our nation faces. When one considers the myriad of information that literally exists at our fingertips, new challenges surface¾ to explore, prioritize and synthesize the most valuable information that can be stored within our limited memory banks. These evolving processes must be integrated into our children’s educational experiences in order to ensure their potential for future success. Unfortunately, these objectives are easier to define than to master¾ a fact that is clearly demonstrated by current educational trends.

A report released in February 1998 from the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) concerning math and science performance revealed that US 12^th graders outperformed only Cyprus and South Africa; 2 of 21 participating countries. In response to the NCES data, Richard Riley, US Secretary of Education, commented, “This is unacceptable, and it absolutely confirms what the president and I have been saying, that academic standards must be raised dramatically across America.”

Most would agree that such a challenge is more easily said than done.

Yet, is there a means to shift our educational paradigm in a direction that makes sense in the long run? I’m convinced there is, and my belief supports the contention that the way in which we learn is the ultimate key to optimal performance. As demonstrated in last week’s column, our research has shown that a particular mind-body state (body-relaxed and mind-alert and interactive) correlates well with significant learning advantages.

A few years ago, we built upon our original research base utilizing the Mindscope^® biofeedback system. Through a project performed with Duquesne University in cooperation with the Crawford Central School district, we studied the effects of “body-relaxed and mind-alert and interactive” learning in 4^th and 5^th graders who were matched according to age, sex and Iowa verbal & reading comprehension scores. We used the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test and the Boder Test of Reading-Spelling Patterns.

Subjects were tested before and after using the Mindscope system. This is a technology that enables human physiological control in the form of heart rate, blood pressure, muscle tension, brain waves, or skin resistance to control a multimedia environment. As the subject becomes more relaxed, a scene shown on a large screen television comes to life. If tension builds, the images lose their realistic quality. In order to fully enjoy the presentation (in this case a calming underwater odyssey), subjects had to remain relaxed and mentally focused.

And here’s the bottom line. Students who used this approach attained overall test improvements that roughly doubled the scores for the control group. More strikingly however, while reading comprehension scores improved just 10% in the control group, students who used the interactive technique improved by more than 91% over baseline!

You’re probably asking yourself, where this information is leading us. The answer is simple. Rather than just providing more information for our children, why not focus our attention, as a nation, on the learning process itself? Let’s teach our youth to balance mind and body in order to enjoy the phenomenal advantage of learning and stimulating our minds in a relaxed, yet focused, and interactive state. Let’s begin, as a nation, to set our educational standards higher by enhancing the way in which we learn.

In essence, our journey through life is paved by countless obstacles and opportunities. The richness of our experience is not based upon the territory we cover, but rather by the way in which we travel. In a similar manner, the educational experience that allows each of us to grow is not predicated upon the vastness of the resources that are available to us. It is rather the process of learning that can be imparted to our children as one of the greatest joys in life¾ Mind over Matter!