September 2001

Welcome to the Alite newsletter, September 2001

Welcome back to a new term and a new year. If you work with both boys and girls, or if you have boys and girls of your own, you'll be interested to read our first item. We also bring you information about recent research into motivation, thoughts on a boffin-friendly culture, and information about foetal brain development.

Boys and Girls come out to play

We have been overwhelmed by the number of people who have contacted us following Alistair Smith's appearance on the BBC programme Women on Top. The issue of gender and how we learn is clearly of great importance to the Accelerated Learning practitioner. If you'd like to read more about the subject, our list of top 3 recommended texts can be found at the end of this article. For the very keen, further suggestions feature on our website at www.alite.co.uk.

To reflect further on the issue of gender and learning, consider this task:

In your head, go through the alphabet and count the number of letters that end in the sound 'ee'. Including 'e', how many are there? Now go through the alphabet again, and this time count how many capital letters there are which have curves. Do it in your head. How many are there?

Your score may be affected by your gender. Females, on average, tend to do better on the sound task. Males, on average, tend to do better on the shape task .

Females, on average, perform better than males in skills that require the use of language. These include verbal fluency, speed of articulation, and grammar. Girls in the West tend to speak earlier than boys. Their vocabulary is larger earlier. Statistics quoted light-heartedly by memory researcher Marylee Springer suggest that women in the West use about 7,000 words on average daily and men about 2,000. Which leaves the question, what do you do when you are with a man and his quota is met?

However, parents in the West contribute to the phenomenon by talking differently to their sons and daughters and by having different expectations around behaviour and about social interaction and play. This leads to the heart of the issue. Ontogyny reflects philogyny. The organisation of your brain reflects its interactions with its environment. If you constantly interact with the world around you in patterned ways, and all of your forebears who have provided you with your genetic structure have done the same, then who is able to say if your brain has shaped, or is shaped by, those interactions? Are the differences innate or have they been learned?

If you missed it in last month's newsletter, the list of recommended books for anyone wanting to investigate the subject in more depth is repeated below:

Raising Boys by Steven Biddulph
Sex and Cognition by Doreen Kimura
Brain Sex by Anne Moir and David Jessell
Men are from Mars, Women are … just joking!

Baby boomers

If you are pregnant you may not know that during every minute of the nine months of pregnancy your baby's brain gains another quarter of a million brain cells. The brain is genetically hard-wired to produce a staggering total of around 100 billion neurons and a trillion glial cells which provide all the necessary support and protection. This will lead to a multi-trillion network of connections capable of performing 20 million billion calculations per second. At birth the architecture for supporting vital functions like seeing, hearing, breathing, touching, smelling and tasting is largely in place.

Stem cells improve memory

Stem cell research provides one of the brightest rays of hope for the treatment of conditions such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Disease. Aged rats with poor memory improved their recall after human stem cells were implanted in their brains.

The research, at the University of Illinois in Chicago, tested rats on their ability to remember the way out of a "water maze". Older rats tended not to perform as well at the task compared to younger rats. However, after the laboratory-grown stem cells were implanted in their brains, their performance improved radically - in one case, the older, memory-impaired rat was able to exit the maze faster than the younger counterpart.

Stem cells are the body's master cells, having the ability to "differentiate" into a wide variety of different cells used for different purposes in the body. If the way the cells differentiate could be controlled, scientists believe they could prove a potent way of replacing certain types of cell - such as brain cells - previously thought irreplaceable. However, the idea of inserting new cells to replace old ones received a setback recently when transplanted neural foetal tissue failed to help Parkinson's patients in many cases.

However, the latest research, along with dozens of other projects, uses stem cells which have not yet differentiated into a particular cell type. Lead researcher Kiminobu Sugaya said that this "malleable" quality meant that it could be easier for them to migrate to the part of the brain where they were needed most, and change into the necessary cell types. Examination of the rat's brains after death showed that the cells had differentiated and grown dramatically in areas associated with spatial memory.

Lead researcher Sugaya said: "The transplanted stem cells may have helped both directly and indirectly. Previous studies have failed to produce working brain cells from transplants of stem cells." However, there remains widespread concern about the safety of stem cells transplantation in humans, although early human trials have so far revealed no direct cause for concern.

It's Cool to be Clever

At Alite, we strongly encourage Accelerated Learning practitioners to foster a culture where achievement in every field is recognised and valued, and academic success has 'street cred'. 'Boffin of the Week' is a great accolade in the Alps schools we work with, and children are eager to earn the title. So we were interested to hear Laura Hibbert, the winner of the recent TV show Britain's Brainiest Kid, explain that in her school in Hampshire, "it's cool to be clever".

Motivation matters

Research done with monkeys by Michael Merzenich showed how connections between brain cells were dramatically enhanced when a reward system was built into a task. On the cortex there are regions of the brain responsible for touch. Using scanning technology, the cells were mapped as the monkeys played with a slowly spinning wheel.

Then Merzenich added an incentive. When the monkeys responded to a pattern and speed of spinning and pressed a buzzer they were rewarded with food. As they became expert, the neurons devoted to recall of the task proliferated. Neural networks close by were also recruited. The incentive had played its part in enhancing the recall. It mattered to the monkey therefore it was tagged as significant, neural investment was made and the process was remembered.

Proof positive that motivation matters in learning.

Just for fun!

Think you want to be a teacher? Take this test first.
Part Four: September 2001

1. Take books, personal papers, training shoe, packet of pins, CD with cracked cover, unopened letters from six month period, cheese and pickle sandwich (partly eaten) and stuff into small space 8 inches by 8 inches. Return to small space frequently to add more items.

2. Sit with work colleague and pass pointless remark. Remain seated as he/she bursts into tears and becomes hysterical.

3. Practise pulling faces: start with consideration and concern before quickly going to outrage and disbelief.

Think you want to be a parent? Take this test first.
Part Four: September 2001

1. Buy yoghurt or similar foodstuff. Wear boxing gloves whilst standing on your head unaided and attempt to force yoghurt into your mouth using small plastic spoon.

2. Enter war zone as under-cover agent. Get caught. Experience bright lights shined into face at irregular intervals throughout the night. Have no sleep worth speaking of. Speak gibberish. Promise anything if allowed to go back to bed

3. Buy newspaper and go with this and coffee and croissant into living space. Put on classical music, sit back relax and savour - for the last time.

Twilight Accelerated Learning sessions

Would you like your staff to learn more about Accelerated Learning, but find it difficult to get cover for a full INSET day? We are now able to offer 2 hour twilight sessions in some areas of the country. The sessions cover the essentials of AL, as well as giving practical examples of how to use AL tools and techniques.

To learn more, please contact Melanie on 01628 810700, or email office@alite.co.uk

Beat !t: music to accelerate learning

Have you ever craved an easier way to teach times tables, spellings or basic scientific principles? Do you need a good and instant way of calming your class? What about an energiser for changing your room layout?

Following a concept developed by Alistair Smith, composer and performer Philip Davis has put together 74 minutes of music for learning. On the CD you will find 39 original pieces for your home or classroom. Each track has been tried and tested with groups of schoolchildren. Improvements in recall have been breathtaking!

The CD is available at £12.95 via the website, or by email to office@alite.co.uk