Vision

The eyes are often compared to windows as openings through which you see out and others see in. The muscles around the eyes provide an enormity of information about one's emotions and reactions. The eyes communicate an enormous amount of social information through eye gaze, or what one is looking at, and joint attention in which you catch another's eyes and then look at something together. Eye contact with another person has cultural meaning as well. In some cultures averting your gaze is a sign of respect. In others, averting the eyes communicates deception.

The eyes can tell a lot about your health. Yellow eyes indicate jaundice. blood shot eyes show stress and fatigue. The doctor looks into your eyes to observe the optic nerve giving him a glimpse into your brain. And, for some time now, eye exercises have improved educational performance.

Eye exercises have been prescribed to improve vision since ancient times. Orthoptics is the medical term for eye muscle training procedures which address eye teaming and visual clarity (acuity) only.
Vision Therapy is designed to correct eye movements and visual-motor deficiencies by enhancing the brain's ability to control eye alignment, eye teaming, eye focusing, eye movements, and visual processing. Visual-motor skills and endurance are developed through the use of specialized computer and optical devices, including therapeutic lenses, prisms, and filters.
The practice of NLP or Nerolinguistic Programming has been around since the 1970's. One of NLP core skills is The Eye Accessing Cues which indicate whether a person is thinking in images, sounds, self-talk, or through their feelings. Some NLP experts consider eye movements to be an aid to thinking since they stimulate different parts of the brain.

The latest understanding of eye movements and how they relate to behavior is quite intriguing.
Many years ago I read about a therapy for post traumatic stress disorder. It involved bringing up disturbing memories and performing specific eye movements.

Analyses of scaled self-report data from Vietnam War veterans receiving inpatient treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder drawn during a program evaluation study suggested inpatient treatment as provided by the program resulted in significant improvement in the areas of Anxiety, Anger, Depression, Isolation, Intrusive Thoughts (of combat experiences), Flashbacks, Nightmares (of combat experiences), and Relationship Problems. Comparing the relative effects of the incremental addition of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Relaxation Training, and Biofeedback found that EMDR was for most problems the most effective extra treatment, greatly increasing the positive impact of the treatment program.Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 8, No. 2. (30 April 1995), pp. 337-342.

This therapy has proved so useful that it is used in many kinds of emotional therapy. It is endorsed by the British National Institute for Clinical Excellence.
Vision is closely related to balance, and if the middle ear and the visual system are not in agreement, poor balance and vertigo may occur. The middle ear tells the brain the position of your head based on the force of gravity. This is called the vestibular system. If your eyes are telling your brain that you are moving, and your middle ear is saying that you are not moving your vestibular system is confused. The brain can be trained to rely more on the middle ear for balance, and less on the visual system. Try standing on one foot. Try standing on one foot with your eyes closed.

Some therapies for Learning Disabilities and ADD combine vision and balance. The Dore Program has had great anecdotal success with dyslexia and ADD using exercises requiring the continuous involvement of the cerebellum in balance and coordinated eye movements.
The Learning Breakthrough Program is a system comprised of specialized equipment and activities that use balance, challenge, and sensory integration techniques to stimulate the neural networks in the brain. Bal-A-Vis-X is a series of Balance/Auditory/Vision eXercises, of varied complexity, all of which are deeply rooted in rhythm. The integration of vision, balance, sound and movement improves individual performance and attitude.

Eye Hand Coordination Exercises http://www.disaboom.com/Health/visualrehabilitation/visual-rehabilitation-eye-hand-coordination-exercises.aspx

Vision is an integral part of brain function that, along with balance, has influences on all areas of human behavior.
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Making Meaning at the Ballet

I was at the Ballet today. The Kirov ballet, now the Mariinsky Ballet, performed Giselle this afternoon and I attended.

It was glorious. The impeccably trained Mariinsky dancers performing the story of the frail Giselle's betrayal at the hands of the deceptive Prince Albrect was perfection. And though today's Albrect managed to live through his encounter with the Willis, I like to think that there is sweet revenge for young women who die of unrequited love.

But what sparked me to write was not the joy of the dance. I was inspired by a mother and child sitting near me in the theater. As soon as the curtain went up the questions began. "Who is that?" " What is he doing?" "What does that mean?" "Why did he do that?" This distraction was far enough away to keep me from shushing them, but close enough to set me to thinking about the educational value of the experience for the child.

The story behind most ballets is complex and often ridiculous. Swan Lake defies logic. But the program usually offers up a summary of each act and today was no exception. Additionally, the pantomime in Giselle is rather obvious. Perhaps the mother did not know or have time to explain the story or the meaning of the pantomime. But I wondered what would be a good response to these questions?

I concluded that the child could have been told that the parent didn't know and the child would have to imagine for herself. Answering the questions with facts was not only bad manners but also bad for the child's education.

Ballet is art and as such is open to interpretation. The story behind a ballet is expressed through the movement and the music. The observer brings her point of view to the experience and makes meaning for herself. By telling the child what is going on, the mother deprives the child of the opportunity to make meaning.

So multiple opportunities were lost today. The opportunity to educate the child in proper theater etiquette was neglected both prior to and during the experience. Perhaps worse, was the loss of an opportunity for a child to stretch her imagination.

Putting aside the fact that talking during a performance constitutes a breach of the social contract, there are ways to respond to these questions that will pay off in the long run. Responding, "I don't know, what do you think?" allows the child to follow her own reactions to the art before her eyes. Is this a happy, scary, or dangerous scene? Does the man know the girl? How does the mother feel? How do you know? These questions, instead of answers, help a child develop the kind of thinking that will make art accessible and enjoyable. They point the way for making meaning of the experience.

There are many aspects of the performance that convey meaning in a ballet. The set and lighting convey place and time. Giselle opens to early morning outside a cottage and ends at daybreak in a graveyard. The music adds to the mood and sets the tone. Giselle's theme music is light and lively when she is happy. The same tune takes on an ominous tone when Giselle is betrayed. The costumes communicate who is a field hand and who is royalty. The dance steps, the arrangement of the dancers, the shapes made on the stage bring meaning to the scene. In act one Albrect and Giselle dance a playful hide and seek between the moving rows and lines of the corps. In act two, the corps forms walls and barricades between Giselle and Albrect.

These elements of the dance do not have to be completely understood to enjoy the ballet. The beauty of the dance the costumes, and the music can sustain the audience. There is enough fuel for the imagination. Left to draw conclusions, make connections, and uncover symbols, the imagination will bring fullness to the interpretation of art.

Children should attend the ballet. Undoubtedly questions will be asked and poor manners displayed, that is the nature of learning. Such frustrating experiences would be a touch less annoying if they truly served to open the hearts of the next generation to the glories of the arts.
What do you think?

Move

For enhanced brain power, health, and energy, nothing beats exercise.
Feeling low? Go take a walk.
Stumped? Go workout.
Tired and bored? Grab a ball and play something.

Exercise gets the blood flowing and clears the clogs and toxins. Movement activates the senses which in turn stimulate the brain. Motor performance challenges the brain creating new and stronger connections.

Movement and brain development go hand in hand.
As an infant develops motor milestones such as crawling or walking, parallel changes occur in the brain. Do the brain changes happen first, causing the development of the motor abilities or do the motor skills rewire the brain? Currently we can't say.

One of the first tasks the newborn faces is moving against gravity. The first year of life is all about learning to control the movement of eyes, arms, tongue, torso and legs, in order to focus and follow, reach and grasp, eat and speak, roll over, sit up, stand up and walk.
A baby grabs, shakes, mouths, bangs, and drops a rattle in the process of discovering all of the things this interesting object can do. Sitting up and crawling gives the child a new perspective on the world. A moving child sees the world in three dimensions. Concepts of position in space develop naturally in the moving child.

Asymetric bilateral movement (crawling, climbing, rubbing your tummy and patting your head) grows connections between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. When the right and left hemispheres are better connected higher level thinking can take place.

Why, then, would we put children in chairs for six hours a day and call it education?
How about spelling races and math hop scotch instead? PE teachers should work with classroom teachers to integrate academics with physical education.

Here are some academic movement games I have used.

• Go to another room and find the answer and bring it back. I put number cards out on a table and students had to find two numbers that add up to a given number and bring them back.
• Relay Race in which teams send one player at a time to the board to complete the task and return to send the next player. It works well with math but can be used with any subject.
• Toss a ball with math problems or words to define printed on it. Student solves the one that is facing him when he catches it. He then throws it back or to another student.
• Stations in an obstacle course at which the students must stop and complete an academic task before moving on. This is great for individualizing/differentiating instruction as you can have a different task/worksheet for each student.
• Read it and toss it, in which players read a word, definition, or fact on a ping pong ball then toss it into a basket. You could use pieces of paper and have the students crumple them ant then toss.
• Scavenger Hunt Test in which students search for questions in a defined area. When they find a question, they answer it on an answer sheet they carry with them.
• Spelling Hop - students hop from one letter to another spelling the given word in order. Letters can be chalk on a sidewalk, tape on the floor, or cut from rubber.
  
• Recite times tables while jumping rope.
• Silent reading on an exercise bike.

Sandra Aamodt, editor of Nature Neuroscience, and Sam Wang, a neuroscientist at Princeton University stated on The New York Times’s Op-Ed page, physical exercise “improves what scientists call ‘executive function,’ the set of abilities that allows you to select behavior that’s appropriate to the situation, inhibit inappropriate behavior and focus on the job at hand in spite of distractions. Executive function includes basic functions like processing speed, response speed and working memory, the type used to remember a house number while walking from the car to a party.”

Give Your Child The Gift of Creativity

Time
The greatest gift is always time.
Give your child the gift of undivided attention every day.
Look at your child and listen to him. Everybody needs to be heard.
Keep them talking by nodding your head or saying “Hmmm.”
or “Then what happened?”
or “Tell me more.”
or “I never thought of that.”
or “Wow, what was that like?”


Show your child that you hear what they have to say by saying it back to them. Like this:
“So, are you saying...?”
“What I think you are sayng is...”
“Do you mean ...?”


If you don’t know what they are saying get more information by saying:
“Tell me more.”
“Can you say that another way?”
“What did you mean when you said ...?”
“I think you are saying ...”