Dear Families,
Stretching the Developing Brain
The psychologist JoAnn Deak describes two categories of learning: ”natural neurologic tasks” and “artificial neurologic tasks.” She defines natural tasks as activities that the human brain evolved to accomplish, whereas artificial tasks are those we teach our brain to do over time, but for which we do not have specific evolved capacities. Most of the activities we consider “academic” are in fact artificial, in that the human brain did not evolve specific centers devoted to accomplishing them. Our brains, for example, did not evolve to be able to read. Many different parts of the brain have to be activated and coordinated in order to accomplish this artificial task. Reading requires auditory processing, visual processing, memory, expressive and receptive language, focused attention, and perspective taking, among many other functions. Each of these discrete areas represents a “natural” neurologic task—something our brains did evolve to be able to do—and each area needs to be strong in order to coordinate the “artificial” or academic tasks later.
During the first few years of life, the young child’s brain experiences more rapid growth than at any other period in life. New connections are developing at a rate so intense it is sometimes referred to by neuro-psychologists as “explosive.” It is tempting, therefore, to try to condense as much learning as possible into these first few years, when children seem so primed for acquiring new skills. And yet the most significant development that is occurring at this time is in the brain’s capacity for four key types of natural tasks: 1) sensory processing, 2) motor coordination, 3) language, and 4) social emotional connection and regulation. Development in these areas readies the brain for the artificial tasks that will be asked of children later in school, in which each area must be strong enough to coordinate with other areas effectively, when engaged in complex, whole brain learning activities. Jumping ahead to the artificial tasks before strengthening all of these domains is like trying to compete in a triathlon before learning to run, swim, or ride a bike.
As teachers invited parents into our classrooms last night, adults engaged in the kinds of activities that comprise the majority of the young child’s preschool day, painting, shaping clay, building, using dramatic play props, and playing games. These highly sensory, highly social, playful experiences, for the young child, muscularize the areas of the brain that will work together throughout life as increasingly integrated thinking is necessary. They provide the critical building blocks for all future learning. As educator Vivian Gussin Paley noted in her book, A Child’s Work, “When our concerns about academic progress in the early years cause us to minimize play, we may end up mourning the loss of many other worth developments.” For these later developments, upon which we often place so much urgency, are in fact dependent, on a neurological level, on the strengthening of the natural areas of the brain that occurs most readily through hands on, social play in the early years.
Thank you for playing with us!
Shabbat shalom,
Alicia