Half a Brain Is Good Enough

In the category 'truth is stranger than fiction', a young girl has been thriving on just one half of her brain. To stop life-threatening seizures doctors removed one half of the three year old's brain, and years later she is thriving.

I was amazed by the story so I did a Google search and found more than a few similar stories. Here's another.

Will Mozart Music Boost Your Child's Intelligence?

In the latest issue of the journal Intelligence, University of Vienna researchers arrived at completely different conclusions about “the Mozart Effect” than UC Irvine professor Frances H. Rauscher and her colleagues reported in a 1993 issue of Nature magazine.

Gross misinterpretations have lead to exaggerated claims -- the “Mozart Effect.” So, we were encouraged to play Mozart in math and science classrooms.

Is it fact or fiction?

…for more see www.ScienceMaster.com

Is the 19th Century Agrarian School Model What Our 21st Century Kids Need?

Today's schools face challenges light-years away from hiring “hands” and producing crops. Shouldn't we be more focused on answering the question, "How do we develop the best minds during a child's elementary and secondary school years?" That is the new window that parents, educators, and policymakers should be looking through to create a 21st-Century school model.

What can we do?

…for more see www.ScienceMaster.com

What Do All Learners Need?

All parents and teachers need to remember "S.A.I.L." when working with learners of any age.

The environmental preconditions that should be experienced by students prior to initiating formal instruction include:

S afety
A cceptance
I nclusion, interactions and involvement.
After satisfying these vitally important prerequisite neurophysiological and hierarchical conditions (Abraham Maslow's research), only then are students neurobiologically ready for...

L earning

An environment dominated by fear is one in which learning and development are guaranteed to be among the first casualties.

…for more see www.ScienceMaster.com

Brain Care: Preserving the Most Diverse of All Organs and Your Greatest Asset

There are over 150 different kinds of cells in the human brain rendering it the organ with the greatest amount of cellular diversity in the entire human body.

The neurons that we are born with are the very same neurons that we must rely on for the balance of our lives --80-85 years! So, the important care of each brain cell and system, "brain care," is virtually impossible to overstate.

…for more see www.ScienceMaster.com

Should We Wait Until High School to Teach Foreign Language?

At birth, each brain comes fully equipped with the capacity to learn any of the 6,000 languages spoken on earth today. However, the “window” for language learning begins to close with the onset of puberty. After that point in his/her development, learning a second language will become more difficult and will typically accompanied by a mild to strong accent.

Why do we still insist on teaching foreign language in high school?

…for more see www.ScienceMaster.com

Neuroplasticity: Nature vs. Nurture

Author Joseph Epstein stated that "We are what we read." Neuroscientists would delare instead that “We are what we experience.” This second statement should drive all activities planned by parents and educators.

Experience drives brain development and directs all of our neural traffic.

…for more see www.ScienceMaster.com