005: Transcript - Does BrainGym Help Students Learn?
Katierose:
Edyou is a podcast by teachers for teachers. We do the hard work so you don't have to. Digging through the research, covering the big topics and teaching and finding out what that means for us. In today's classroom, hosted by Katierose Deos and Sarah Gilmore. Edyou brings education research to you and your classroom.
Sarah:
Hi and welcome to today's episode of edYou podcast. In this episode we are investigating brain gym, which to quote their website is a "program made up of 26 activities that help address balance, posture and coordination skills associated with daily life success". They claim it will "synchronize your system for better comprehension, focus, organization, communication and emotional health". Today we'll be investigating the accuracy of these claims and whether brain gym belongs in today's classrooms. We'll be digging into the research about brain gym and interviewing Dr. Mark Carter, associate professor of special education at Macquarie University in Australia. I'm Sarah Gilmore.
Katierose:
And I'm Katierose Deos and this is edYou, bringing education research to you and your classroom.
Sarah:
So this has been a topic on my list of research ever since we even started thinking about doing this podcast. Because I was taught to do brain Joe when I was a new teacher and I never really questioned it because at that time it was actively endorsed by the UK department of education. And I figured like why would that be the case if it wasn't something that was actually educationally worthwhile. And then I left the UK in 2009 and I sort of never really thought about it again until recently when I started to wonder how many things I do and we all do because we think or we trust that because you've been told to do them, they must be good when actually maybe they aren't. Katierose, did you know anything about brain gym before we started researching this episode?
Katierose
I did. My first job was a one-to-one assistant at a school in Maryland and I was working with a student who had social emotional learning needs, very complex family structure and he was a first grade student and I was hired just for the end portion of his first grade year to just be a one-to-one. And I, I basically followed him around and managed his meltdowns. And my principal at that time was very very much a proponent of Brain Gym. And so he would be having these meltdowns in the hallways and she would, you know, crosses midline and presses head and, and do these different things that I, I was never trained to do and I was never told to do it with him. But this was like her first go to and I remember exactly where we were standing in the school and wondering like, will I ever be doing that? I don't, I don't, I don't know. What are you doing and why are you doing it? It wasn't the time to get into that conversation because there were other things happening but, but you know, like how some images just are implanted in your memory. That is one; that is one. And so while I had never done it I had never gone to a workshop for it or anything like that. I had seen it used.
Sarah:
Well I didn't do a workshop for it or anything, but it was one of those things... It was just kind of, I feel like floating around in the UK at the kind of 2008, 2009, 2010 kind of time. And it was just like a thing that everybody was doing. And I remember being kind of taught a few exercises at school and it was really interesting because when I told my husband that we were doing this episode, he actually had to do Brain Gym as a student at school in the U S he's like, Oh, I remember having to like press my brain buttons and doing hookups and all of this kind of stuff. And that was kind of crazy to me because I just, I, like I said, I haven't thought about Brain Gym since literally about 2010 but apparently it's been affecting everybody I know, maybe long time.
Katierose:
And you know, I have to be honest, when, you know, in that moment, as I was watching this happen I didn't understand it. And then I asked once like, what is this Brain Gym? And they're like, "Oh, it's just, it's just about incorporating movement in the classroom" and I can totally get on that wagon! I, me, myself, I really enjoy movement and I enjoy exercise and I find I get a lot of ideas. And I, you know, it's a release for me. I'm totally, totally on board with that. But there was all these other pieces that I could, I just couldn't quite buy into. And so, so, so for me a big part of this was finding out what exactly is brain gym, what is it? And and it's funny 'cause most of the articles that we've read or, or broadcast that we'll share with you, they always start with asking the audience, are you pressing your brain buttons?
Sarah:
I know. I think it's because it's such a funny thing to say, right?
Katierose:
Well especially cause they're not on your head, which is where I expect them to be.
Sarah:
"Are You pressing your brain buttons? And if so, are you doing it in public? Maybe you shouldn't be."
Katierose:
Imagine if we all started conversations like in the staff room, "Are you pressing your brain buttons?"
Sarah:
Hang on, I need to, I need to press my brain button. Anyway. What is it? What does it mean, pressing your Brain Buttons? S.
Katierose:
So apparently this is, this is uh like one of their, like the hookups, the cross crawl and the brain buttons are kind of, their big, um their big exercises and this is to kind of get the blood flowing and activate your brain and you press the soft tissue below your clavicle bone and you put your opposite hand kind of on your belly around your naval region and you take deep breaths. And this is supposed to activate... So that way you can have your optimal learning situation happen.
Sarah:
And is it just, is it just those three exercises then? Or like...?
Katierose:
No, not at all. So so this Brain Gym is actual product and it's sold by Brain Gym International. And as you said, it includes a set of 26 specific movement exercises. And I'm going to read directly from the teacher's manual here and it says, "The primary focus of this book is the Brain Gym vision for classroom education, a vision of children moving, speaking and physically interacting with adult mentors in order to learn how to learn." "To learn how to learn". Yeah. And so again, this, this got me really, really interested and it goes on to say that, and I quote, "While any physical education may wake up the brain, the 26 further foster a flexibility, eye teaming and eye hand coordination that allow learners to thrive in the classroom along with the ability to live happily and creatively amid the stressors of modern life.
Sarah:
That's a big claim.
Katierose:
That's a big claim! It's big, right?
Sarah:
That's bold.
Katierose:
Yes. And I thought, no. And and the, the two individuals who kind of, I was, I'll say I came up with this program, I wanted to know, gosh, if they met my son, they, they might not make this kind of a claim to, to say these 26 exercises are going to give you all that. That's big. That's really big. Uand so it promises to improve everything. You might expect these exercises like coordination, balance, but also reading ability, recall and tests, computing skills, overall academic performance. And teachers are using these exercises in the few minutes between classes to refocus kids or before a class or before a test. And it's supposed to be, to him, "it's empowering the learner to use movement activities to draw out innate potential". That's a quote, that's a quote.
Sarah:
That makes me feel really uncomfortable for some reason. That innate potential thing like drawing... I dunno, it just seems...
Katierose:
For me it just it just, you know, sent off all these warning signs. These are really big statements. And we as professionals in the classroom, we are constantly trying to draw out innate potential for sure. And to think that all we had to do was 26 exercises. Why haven't we been doing this sooner? Seriously.
Sarah:
Well, lots of people have been of course, but you know, I'm not sure that five minutes here or there is gonna draw out that much innate potential, I suppose. I love that you have the handbook. I mean, I feel like our listeners need to know, I feel like a straight up investigative journalist that we have this in our possession. They're like, it's here and then NPR next stop This American Life.
Katierose:
And I do, I do have to say, I do have to say that the, the coworker that offered me this handbook is a dedicated professional and she is constantly trying to fill her toolkit. So that way when a student comes into our classroom, she's ready to give them exactly what they need so that that way they can access the learning that's going to happen. And so by no means am I am I, you know, taking the piss, for lack of a better word out of this, but it, it just goes to show you how keen we are to try and do the right thing. And in this, and as I was reading this handbook, the handbook is really well written and it cites research. It cites retreats such as the work. It talks here about "Forward thinking, medical doctors and neuroscientists such as John ratty, Daniel amen, John Medina and Bruce Perry now concur that such movement activates the brain, optimizing learning and helps in the management of stress and performance anxiety". And my question is, okay, that's great. And I agree with that. But the research doesn't say that the brain gym exercises explicitly do that. They're saying that all physical activity has the potential to do that. And that's the piece where through this whole manual it's very, very general.
Sarah:
Well, the other, the other thing that makes me uncomfortable about Brain Gym and in manual is that it says lots of things like for example, that activates the brain. Well, the brain is already active. You know, it's, it's clearly active due to how I'm alive. What do you mean it activates the brain? It seems like such a simple thing to say, but it doesn't really mean anything, you know?
New Speaker:
Well, yes, and this is, and this is where I'm, I do have a little trouble swallowing, pun intended everything that it writes about drinking water. I am a huge proponent of staying hydrated and drinking water. But when I'm having a stressful moment, taking a sip of water and swishing it around in my mouth and swallowing it slowly, it's just not going to get it done.
Sarah:
And why did they say to do it? Just because of stress or what?
Katierose:
Oh, because it, you know, it rehydrates it reignites it replenishes all things that you can't argue.
Sarah:
So well, you know, according to Ben Goldacre who's a doctor and a writer for the guardian and for his own website called Bad Science, he says that Brain Gym at least used to tell people that they should hold water in their mouths for a few seconds before they swallow it because that way it will be absorbed through the roof of your mouth and into your brain to hydrate it better. So there's that. And he doesn't give a specific reference though for where he got that from. So don't sue me for that specific statement, Brain Gym. You can sue me for all the other things.
Katierose:
Yes, I can see, I have not read it cover to cover, but what I have come across about water it, it, it, I didn't find that it could very well it could well be true. I don't know. And so Brain Gym talks about different categories of movement to organize, to focus, to communicate, all things that have to do with encouraging energy, deepening attitudes, lengthening activities, midline movements all these different types of, of activities. But nowhere in the, in the manual does it talk explicitly about research that supports these 26 um exercises.
Sarah:
Well, and I think the reason why that is will become clear as we move through this episode. It makes me laugh a little bit because I like to involve something from Twitter in every one of our episodes. But I don't know if you notice that I, I tweeted about this episode that was upcoming with the hashtag Braingym and a company that actually uses Brain Gym as their product liked our tweet. I'm not convinced they're going to like the episode as much as they like the tweet once the actually listen to it.
Katierose:
Well, you know, I, and, and we both, we both went into this, into this research, you know, very skeptical, having a lot of questions. And, and we've learned a lot which we're going to share, but we also really like movement, movement, play, all these things are important in the lives of children. And that's not to be compromised.
Sarah:
Absolutely. And I would say that we did go into it skeptical, but I'd like to think we're skeptical about most things, but we also went into it pretty open minded, you know, I expected to find, you know, the kind of nuanced educational research that we find about most topics. You know, that, that yes, it works sometimes, but not other times or it works for this thing or not for that thing. Or it works in this way, but not in the way that you think, you know, because education research is very rarely black or white in terms of like, is this or is that, you know, because education is really complex. And so I was expecting to find a more nuanced body of research about brain gym. And I was surprised that that was not the case, but maybe we could talk a little bit briefly about kind of the history of Brain Gym and how we've gotten to where we are now.
Sarah:
It was created by Paul and Gail Dennison in the 1970s in California and I have to say when I first heard that phrase, it was created in the 1970s in California, it did conjure up some images to me about what to kind of expect, you know, but they called it more broadly "educational kinesiology" or "eduK". So that's kind of the scientific pseudo-scientific name. The underpins the product that is brain gym and essentially it's based on two main theories called the cerebral dominance theory and the psychomotor patterning theory also called the Doman-Delacato technique. In the interest of time, I'm not going to go into detail about those theories here, but you can read all about them in the deep dive in the blog post for this episode. What you need to know is that the bigger concept underlying these theories that brain gym draws most heavily on is the idea that you can use physical movement to train your brain.
Sarah:
And the reason why so many of the exercises involve crossing the midline of the body is that the aim is to strengthen the connection between the two hemispheres of the brain. And the thing is that is based on some actual kind of scientific evidence in the sense that musicians, for example, where they're using lots of different parts of their brains simultaneously, but there's a big difference between learning to play the violin for example, or the piano and touching your right hand to your left knee for like two minutes. And vice versa. You know, like when you practice an instrument, you do it for like an hour, a day for years, and it's much more complex. So one of the things that Brain Gym does is it takes real scientific theories, (not necessarily truths but theories) and then extrapolates from them wildly to say that, well, if this is true, therefore the thing that we're saying must be true. It is not significantly different than saying that, so as humans, we need oxygen to breathe. It's the most important part of the air that we breathe, even though it's only 21% of the air, the rest of it is nitrogen. Water is 89% oxygen. So therefore, you know, the optimal way to breathe is to stick your head in the lake and take a nice deep breath. You know, it's, it doesn't follow. No, they don't. It's not true. But that's how Brain Gym's science essentially works.
Katierose:
You hit on an interesting word there. Within the manual, it also talks about how in the 1970s and eighties that they were familiar with this research and that led them to extrapolate and that's like a direct quote. "Extrapolate The information into quick, simple tasks, specific movements that can benefit any learner".
Sarah:
Urgh, that's just not how it works!
Katierose:
Anyway. So for us, the big question is, does Brain Gym actually do what it says it does? Does it help students learn? We thought the best person to ask about this would be Dr. Mark Carter from Macquarie University in Australia. Mark has contributed to the field of special education for over 30 years as an early interventionist, special educator, teacher, educator and researcher. He is currently an associate professor in special education with a range of research interests including educational issues in autism spectrum disorder, evidence based practice in special education and controversial practices. We hope you enjoy the interview.
Sarah:
Thank you so much Mark for joining me today and for talking to us about Brain Gym. And you've done a lot of research on brain gym. Is that correct?
Dr Mark Carter:
My research area is controversial practices in general. But I've certainly, I've worked with colleagues who have investigated Brain Gym and and looked into to the issue and a fair bit of depth.
Sarah:
So when you say controversial practices, I guess that should tell us something about brain gym. Would you say that the evidence, is there evidence about brain gym? Is it credible?
Dr Mark Carter:
Look, I think the, the short answer to that question is no, the long answer. Is there several reasons why it, it really shouldn't be considered credible. Certainly there are appear to be a number of theories that underpin Brain Gym relating to such things as cerebral dominance and, and physical patterns of movement that are proposed to change the brain. These uh aren't recent, these go back many, many decades and they've been examined and and discarded by science. So the, the underpinnings of, of Brain Gym aren't really very convincing. People often think of, of, of Brain Gym as a relatively new intervention. And in fact, it really isn't. It's actually a part of a class of interventions called perceptual motor training. And these go right back to the 1960s. And the, the basic idea that underlies all of them is that if you train motor and perceptual skills and movement skills, teach children to perceive things like an object, a figure against a, a ground then the idea is that these will have a generalized impact on processing in the brain and on learning.
Dr Mark Carter:
And despite the fact that these now go back, as I said to the 1960s and many of these approaches had been examined, none of them actually have been able to provide us with any replicated quality evidence that they can actually impact on, on learning. So I think if you're looking at Brain Gym and you look at that class of interventions, they've got a really poor track record. So we'd be looking for some really impressive research before we would would recommend inventions of this, this type. The research on Brain Gym is completely underwhelming. Most of the research is actually published in their own in-house journals and there's very few articles in, in peer refereed journals, and those that do exist are poor quality, so they often have irrelevant measures, like how long the child can stand on one leg, and they don't measure the treatment integrity. That is whether the treatment was, was implemented, uh well and there's often a lack of, of, of control there. So basically the most important reason why the, the Brain Gym isn't really credible is really, there's no convincing evidence it actually improves learning.
Sarah:
How is it that something like Brain Gym can come to be endorsed by governments and education authorities around the world? I ask, because I remember I was actually trained to use Brain Gym as a teacher and as a young teacher, I trusted that if the government was telling me, "Hey, do this thing, we've spent taxpayer funds on it", that it must therefore be, you know, worth doing. So how, how does this happen?
Dr Mark Carter:
In terms of why, Uh it's endorsed by educational authorities. I, I probably won't be popular for saying this, but I guess one of the, the, the key issues is that that the reason we do scientific research is that humans have lots of systematic cognitive biases. So in general, we see what we want to see and we selectively remember what we want to believe. So so, so I think that, you know, that that sort of is a, a key factor in those sorts of, of decisions. I guess in terms of why educational authorities tend to endorse Brain Gym? I think unfortunately, education doesn't really have a still a history in terms of basing the, the techniques we employ on empirical evidence. We often see incidences where educational authorities or schools will walk over the, the, the bodies of, of evidence based techniques in order to employ techniques that are, are, are fashionable and based in theory but not really based in, in evidence.
Dr Mark Carter:
And I think also in education in particular, we have a tendency to confuse progress with change. So teachers and schools are often rewarded for, for cutting edge and interesting innovations that are sometimes unproven and untested. And, and not so much from a more prosaic sorts of intervention and teaching strategies that might actually be effective. A characteristic of humans tends to be that we don't learn very well from past experience. And Brain Gym, as I mentioned is only one in a long lineage of these types of programs. And they're periodically repackaged and sold as a brand new cutting edge innovation. And, and educators and systems tend to, to jump on those bandwagons without really realizing that we've actually been here a lot of times before.
Sarah:
Do you think that part of that is that teachers are under so much pressure to kind of do something that works, you know, they feel that they have to grasp onto anything that that comes along, particularly if it's endorsed?
Dr Mark Carter:
Yeah, I guess so. I think also we probably don't equip our teachers very well to, to make decisions based on evidence. And we've done some research over the last few years and looked at our final year teachers in Australian universities and they, they struggle to distinguish between practices that have a strong evidence base and those that don't they tend to perceive everything as working. So I think we could certainly do a much better job of equipping teachers to make those of judgments to distinguish between good quality research and poor quality research. And also to make judgments about how to interpret research in terms of its implications for practice.
Sarah:
Some of this research that you were talking about that isn't credible or, or high quality comes from teachers themselves who are saying that they see improvements, you know, in the classroom from their students who are using brain gym. What might that be attributed to?
Dr Mark Carter:
Look as, as I mentioned before we conduct research studies because humans have lots of, of biases. We came to misinterpret information. People still believe in astrology and homeopathy. In fact, millions of people believe despite there's overwhelming evidence that had actually work as, as advertised. So I think that, that, that, that people often don't realize all those biases exist. And as I mentioned, that's why we, we do controlled research because we're all prone to accept explanations that are consistent with our prior beliefs. I'm always amused when people have political discussions cause you're often discussing exactly the same facts that they agree on but have totally different interpretations of those facts. So I think there's, there's all those sorts of biases that exist in the human nature. And I think particularly with Brain Gym, one of one of the characteristics actually claim they can improve a very wide range of skills and they include such things as reading, writing, spelling that communication focus or attention organization, emotional health, et cetera.
Dr Mark Carter:
So I guess when an intervention is claiming such a large range of effects, a teacher can, can really look at any improvement in a child and say, "Oh, that's because of Brain Gym". Whereas it may be because of something else the teacher was doing or it may simply have been maturation in the child. So I think it's very easy to ascribe any improvement you see to an intervention, particularly if you're enthusiastic about that intervention and you've been say to a professional development program with a very good presenter who's,uwho's,uusold the intervention, then it's very likely that teachers might look and see any interventions in any improvement in a student and say, well, that's a result of this particular intervention where in fact that may not be the case. And that that's the reason we do controlled research because it helps us filter out those biases and really establish whether the changes we're seeing are a product of the intervention that we're implementing.
Sarah:
Do you think that there's anything that teachers can take out of something like Brain Gym, not brain gym itself necessarily, but that can be good for children without having to buy into the product? You know, for example, breaks from work, stretching, meditation. Can things like this be helpful in a learning environment?
Dr Mark Carter:
Look, I think, I think potentially as long as people don't go overboard in terms of what they're doing there's certainly some evidence that that movement breaks or having short periods of, of break and stretching or moving a bit can be useful in, in the classroom and can assist in the short term on improving attention and classroom behavior. Now, as I, I'm, I'm not as convinced to some people about that evidence, but certainly there is some evidence to suggest that might be the case. Probably not much in the way of longterm evidence or effects on cognition or academic performance. But you probably wouldn't really expect that. And there's also a fairly good body of evidence that suggests if you distribute or you space practice over time, so short bursts of practice as opposed to a single long burst of practice that can improve learning and retention of performance.
Dr Mark Carter:
So it's certainly plausible that, that, that that sort of short movement breaks could actually assist with with concentration and certainly increasing children's activity isn't a bad idea anyway. So, so I wouldn't have any problems with teachers doing that, having a movement or a stretching base break every once in a while as long as it ain't go overboard or expect that that will have any major effects or impacts on academic performance. I think teachers just need to be a bit skeptical about these sort of interventions, particularly interventions like brain gym, that that is, that is forms part of a long lineage that has really been ineffective over an extended period of time. So I think we would need some really convincing evidence to change our mind about whether brain Jim's inappropriate program to to be used in the classroom. And certainly that evidence doesn't exist at this point. So I think teachers should be skipped to call and and certainly I wouldn't be suggesting people invest any significant amount of time on interventions of this type.
Sarah:
Thank you so much for joining me today on edYou podcast. It's been wonderful talking to you, Mark.
Dr Mark Carter:
Been my pleasure. Thank you.
Katierose:
The the thing I love about the interview with Dr. Mark Carter is how to the point he is. Yeah, I think he really just put it so beautifully. And the one piece that that stuck with me, and this also goes back to when we had the interview with Guy Claxton, is the need to kind of elevate teacher training programs. Our teachers, myself included, are not equipped with the knowledge and skills to evaluate research, endorsed programs, and initiatives.
Sarah:
Yeah, it's so true as well. Like I said to you when I was kind of hearing about Brain Gym for the first time was kind of 2008 and I was fresh out of teacher college then and when I say teacher college, I mean that was Master's level education. You'd think I would be in the mindset at that point to be critical and research-led. And it never even crossed my mind to question whether this was evidenced-based.
Katierose:
No, I was absolutely in the, in the same boat. And you know, I'm, part of it for me naively was for me, I didn't see the profession as such a marketing giant at that point. And I think, and I don't know when that started, but I feel that presence more and more and it's, it's programs or interventions such as brain gym that really make me feel like we live in a market focused industry all of the sudden.
Sarah:
Yeah. And I think that we all assume and believe that when we're being told to do something from above, you know, like our, not just our bosses, but our governments that that's gonna have been, is coming from a place that's purely about evidence and what's best for the kids. But of course there's more to it than that, you know? And we also need to then be in a place to have a critical mindset about what we're being asked to do. And I think that it's important to make the point though, that a critical mindset doesn't mean that you're necessarily hostile to change.
Sarah:
You know? It's not about saying no, I don't want to do more stuff. I don't want to do new stuff. But when something new comes along saying, okay, well I'm going to, I'm going to look into this for myself. And like Guy said, you know, feeling empowered to go, not just to Google but to Google scholar and read the papers that are there. You know? And you know, even if you just read the abstract, it gives you a general idea of of what's, what the paper's going to tell you. Often when I'm reading papers, not for this podcast, I promise I just read the introduction and the conclusion. Then I know, you know, if I need to read more I'll read more. But you know, you get the idea from that. And I think that's important to say that we have the right and the responsibility to be critical about what we bring into our classrooms.
Katierose:
Yes, without a doubt. I think we owe that to our students. And like anything, the more people that are questioning it and reading about it, the more educated a decision we can make as a whole profession.
Sarah:
And one of the other things that he mentioned that I thought was really worth coming back to was this idea of the broad claims that brain gym makes, which is one of the things that makes it so difficult to utterly refute. Because when you say that it helps just about everything, then it's going to be an awful lot easier to find some evidence to kind of back you up.
Sarah:
You know, like especially if you're saying, oh, like, it helps mood. Oh, okay. You know, if you ask people how they feel about Brain Gym and then they tell you that they liked it, you can count that as evidence in your favor, I guess. You know? And so that was interesting to think about.
Katierose:
And I think too, they're at, when we, I hesitate using the word evidence, but it's more testimonials and teacher testimonials and us as teachers, we want things to work and so I do feel like sometimes there's this self fulfilling prophecy and that and it is such broad claims and the classroom is so complex, you can't really isolate Brain Gym in a way that you could really pinpoint. Okay, yes, the brain buttons helps with reading comprehension. It just, it just doesn't work that way. But us as teachers, we make that connection because one, that's what the manual is telling us to see and to, I think we actually really want to see it.
Sarah:
Absolutely. We want to see improvement. Yeah. And that, you know, those testimonials are important because we do have to, again, like Guy said, we should be trusting ourselves. We should be respecting the intuition and the experience that we bring to our situation. If we see that something is being enjoyed by your students or that's helpful for something, there's value in that. Not everything has to be, you know, randomly controlled trials and you know, blind tested and things like that. But some things do have to be evidenced like that when you're making claims like, it helps, you know, reading comprehension or tests. When you're making those kinds of claims, you do need to have evidence for those kinds of claims.
Katierose:
Well especially, and if, if I just go back to this from when the manual states, and I quote...
Sarah:
I love that you have this manual and you're just like "Wait!" Holding it up: "And I Quote!!"
Katierose:
"As a not as a nonprofit educational organization, Brain Gym International welcomes and publishes materials contributing to the cultural conversation on effective learning but doesn't conduct research on its own methodologies."
Sarah:
Well do you know I read something on the internet for this research for this that said, and I haven't been able to find where this was quoted from cause I think they've updated their website since, but they know that they have their own journal, right? The Brain Gym Journal, the Global Observer. Did you know that?
Katierose:
It's right here... In the manual. Yes, I know that. It's the next paragraph!
Sarah:
Well, one of the things, one of the things they apparently claim is that the reason why they don't have anything that could be peer reviewed is because that would require there to be a control group who don't get the Brain Gym intervention and that it would be unethical to deprive students of the benefits of Brain Gym.
Katierose:
Oh yes. I mean we, the way the manual is written, they want this to reach into homes, into after-school activities. Brain Gym should be something that we are doing throughout our day as adults, as children, across the board. So that does not surprise me at all. But I do want to go back to just one thing that Mark, Dr. Mark Carter said because, and I'm going to include you in this statement as well, Sarah. I want to be clear that we appreciate movement in the classroom.
Sarah:
Absolutely, totally.
Katierose:
And we do not deny that at all. There is a large amount of research out there that shows the benefit for children to move and the importance of play, which we fully endorse.
Sarah:
Absolutely. 100%.
Katierose:
And so I just, I just have to bring that back up because I, and I'm hoping that we'll do a, maybe an episode on play in the classroom and all this kind of stuff, but that that in itself is not something that we question. It's more the productization... And I don't know if that's a word.
Sarah:
I like it though.
Katierose:
Isn't that nice? Of, of what brain gym is selling?
Sarah:
Well, it's like I was thinking before when you said Brain Gym's a not for profit organization. Well... somebody is making a profit, that's for sure. Somebody is making money, otherwise it wouldn't exist. And the reason why I'm so snarky about Brain Gym is not because it's got kids doing stretches in the classroom. I'm all for that. What I'm snarky about is that it's it's commercialized doing some stretches in the classroom. Somebody is making money off of the idea that taking a break is good for you and tying up with a whole bunch of of pseudoscience with it.
Sarah:
And I'm not the only person that feels this way. In this 2008 BBC news night segment, here's what Sir Professor Colin Blakemore, he's a knight, Katierose. A knight of the realm.
Katierose:
This amazes me. I love it. Like Sir Ken Robinson.
Sarah:
I know, I love him.
Katierose:
I love it.
Sarah:
Well, Sir Professor Colin Blakemore, knight of the realm and professor of neuroscience at Oxford university. He was interviewed back then and here's what he had to say about that
Professor Colin Blakemore:
By dressing up what might be actually very useful, little distracting classroom exercises with this dogma or almost cult-like, ritual-like a dogma of pseudoscience is a great pity. And the residual misperceptions that that will leave young children and teachers with could be as damaging, perhaps much, much more damaging than the consequences of the exercises themselves.
Sarah:
So we did a lot of reading for this episode and all the credible published research agrees that there is no evidence that Brain Gym improves academic performance. But what harm can a bit of stretching and calming down between classes really do? As we've said, we are all for moving. So why does it matter if teachers do Brain Gym? Sure. It's not helping academic performance, but that's not the only thing that matters in school. So does Brain Gym do any harm?
Katierose:
Well, well it's a product. Brain Gym is a product and so it has a cost. And Guy Claxton did mention this in our interview when we, he asked us when we find these programs or the intervention, how much does it cost and what are the opportunity costs. If schools are spending money on training teachers to do Brain Gym, then they aren't spending money on something that well could actually help the student or is proven to help the student like books.
Sarah:
And I must say that I did a little bit more investigative journalism in the run up to this, and I emailed a couple of Brain Gym instructors to find out how much they actually charge. And it's 300 to 500 units of currency, you know, Dollars or Euros depending on who you're asking per person, you know, which is, it's a lot of money to spend as an individual. And when you add that up to an entire school, that's a lot of books. You know.
Katierose:
Yes, it is. And when you have, when Brain Gym is not able to supply any evidence. And the, the, the issue with me too is not so much evidence that it works or doesn't work, but evidence that this is how you should do it if you want it to work. One thing that they, one study that they reference in here it's sites where a special needs student improve balancing on one foot after regular practice with certain exercises. That's great. And I don't doubt that, but, but it doesn't say anything that there is any link to academic performance or reading comprehension or any claims like that. Just that this special needs student improve balance by standing on one foot regularly.
Sarah:
And presumably no control special needs student who practiced standing on one foot differently using a different product. I would imagine anybody who practices standing on one foot will improve at standing on one foot.
Katierose:
Well, this is what I'm saying, but, but that, but within this manual, that's where it's so brilliantly done because there is this research from all over that they're pulling in and they're tying together to create a package or the illusion of what Brain Gym can do when in actuality we're not really sure if it can do that.
Sarah:
And I think another way that it matters and that it does harm is even a little bit more insidious than that because Brain Gym is built on, on pseudoscience, it contains a lot of pseudoscientific vocabulary and explanations such as claiming that processed food doesn't contain water or that the two halves of our brain need our help to be connected. And that stuff filters through to the kids. So here's, listen to this excerpt from that news night report and Brain Gym where a group of students talk about what they think that brain gym has done for them:
Child 1:
Well, Brain Gym gets the blood pumping into your brain.
Teacher:
You think so? Hmmmm.... That's an interesting one.
Child 2:
I like energy yawns because it like helps to get your left and your right brain connected and it helps you learn easier.
Teacher:
You believe that, do you?
Child 3:
Say you're doing a test. Any kind of test. Just do a little bit of Brain Gym such as... Say you're stuck in a maths test per se. You do a little bit of energy yawn and you find the answer just like that.
Katierose:
And that was like totally mind blowing for me. It made me feel so bad.
Sarah:
I know. Crazy, right? And I love the fact that in that, the head teacher is sitting with them and she's the one who has been teaching them these exercises. She's the big proponent of Brain Gym and you can see her, she says a couple of times like, "Oh you think that do you", "Is that what you believe?" You know? Very kind of like trying to let them know that they're saying the wrong thing. But yes, they think that and yes they believe it because you've been telling them to every morning for goodness knows how long. So yes, they think it.
Katierose:
What they're saying, it's not even reasons why they feel it's good. They just talk about, Oh, if I do this, it'll increase blood flow to my brain. Which is not something that the average third grader would say about pressing their brain buttons.
Sarah:
And neither should they. Yeah. Because here's what Professor Colin Blakemore Knight of the realm has to say about that idea.
Professor Colin Blakemore:
Yes. Brain Gym relies on a lot on massaging various points on the body and brain buttons are particularly well should we say amusing. I think, I think what you have to do is, is press around here somewhere on the side underneath the clavicle while rubbing the navel with the other hand central part of the procedure. And this is apparently supposed to change blood flow into the brain and therefore improve the integration of active in their brain. Well, you know, a bit like trying to regulate your central heating system by pressing on the wall of your house because the pipes are behind them. And the notion that pressure here is going to alter blood flow to the brain is just so implausible. And then beyond that, the view that somehow minutely changing overall blood flow is going to alter the particular distribution of activity in the brain and therefore improve learning. It's just nonsense.
Katierose:
So then how did Brain Gym get into our schools and our classrooms in the absence of any evidence to support it? And how has it stayed there for so long in spite of all the evidence that's come out against it?
Sarah:
Well, like I said, I think in the early two thousands it was actively endorsed by numerous educational departments like in the UK for sure. Australia, the US and although it since been you know, unendorsed by those governments, it's not like there's an access all teachers like, like bulletin that goes out like "Dear teachers, we no longer believe in Brain Gym". And so all the people that have been taught this and and told about it haven't necessarily heard that it's no longer something that's considered, you know, worthwhile to do in the classroom. And I think that that's an important point to keep in mind, that we can't always trust that these educational policies and initiatives are going to prove to be worthwhile in the long run, even when they're kind of handed down to us from our leaders.
Katierose:
And I think there's an important thing to consider there is that our leaders are human too. Yeah. And then they make mistakes and they want, they want to make a positive difference. And it's not so much that they're looking for the easy answer, but when you see something like Brain Gym and you think, Oh, it's some movements, it can't do that much harm. But then if you look over time, how much energy and money and time has been invested in something that may not be fulfilling its promise. You know, you have to question that, and so I, I do think that we need always be questioning, but, but also understanding that our leaders, they're trying their best, but they're, they're human as well.
Sarah:
Yeah. And I think that, you know, we, we are in a situation where we want the best for our students. Everybody does. Even Brain Gym. You know, when I hear what you're saying about the manual and I read their website, I don't feel like any of this is coming from a bad place. You know, I feel like, you know, Paul and Gail Dennison created this. I mean, from what I understand, they created it because Paul Dennison himself had learning difficulties in school and he was interested in finding ways to overcome that for other children. You know, that's a laudable goal and I think that what we're all looking for is a solution to a very complex problem, which is how do you help kids in this, you know, complex organism that is the classroom and it's not really set up to support individual learning in the way that we wish that it would be.
Sarah:
And so our leaders are looking for a solution. We are looking for a solution. We want simple answers to extremely complex problems. And unfortunately, often simple answers can't solve complex problems. And I think that this is one of those times.
Katierose:
So if you're doing brain gym in your classroom, you can keep the things that are good about it. Like the stretching or the breaks or having your kids have a water bottle on their table.
Sarah:
Or moving around.
Katierose:
Or moving around! All these things are great, but you can do all this without giving your money to someone or misinforming students about how their brains and their bodies work. Stick to a little bit of meditation. Take a stretch, take a breath. You don't need to have the pseudoscience along with it.
Sarah:
So thank you for listening. Next time we'll be talking about behavior charts. You've almost certainly seen them and you might even have one hanging in your room right now. These are the visual public behavior management tools many teachers use and have been using for years to let their students know how they're doing. You know, for example with traffic lights and named clothes pegs that move up and down.
Katierose:
We want to find out whether and how these systems work and whether they are the best choice for students in the classroom. So tune in next time to EDU podcast when we will be bringing more education research to you and your classroom.
Sarah:
If you've enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to keep up to date with our news, upcoming episodes, and more. Follow us on Twitter, or like our Facebook page edYouPodcast. You can also continue the conversation, share your thoughts, ask a question, or connect with likeminded teachers by joining our Facebook group. To learn even more about the research behind today's episode, visit our website edyoupodcast.com. Thank you for listening. We will see you again next time when we bring more education research to you and your classroom.
