Committee for Children Blog

Movement to Learn

Puget SoundThis week's blog entry comes to us from Senior Program Developer Bridgid Normand.

I recently attended a conference called Learning and the Brain. It was subtitled Focused Minds: Enhancing Student Attention, Memory, and Motivation. It was quite a treat, because I am fascinated with information about our brains that is emerging as a result of new brain imaging techniques, such as the fMRI. These technologies allow researchers to peer into the brain in action and understand what is going on during learning tasks. And although their findings are exciting, they can be disconcerting, too.

Perhaps the most disconcerting thing for me to learn was how important movement is, not only to the health of the brain, but to the learning process itself. Research clearly shows that increased physical activity leads to increased academic performance. It also shows that there is a huge overlap between the mental and motor parts of the brain. When the motor parts of the brain are better coordinated and functioning at a higher level, it is reflected in the mental parts of the brain. In addition, exercise stimulates the growth of new brain cells and the production of BDNF (brain-derived neurotropic factor). BDNF is vital for learning, memory, and higher thinking. Now there's something we all need more of!

There is so much more to tell about research into movement and learning, but the critical message is get up and move! We all should move, especially children. Faced with a rising tide of childhood obesity, the elimination of recess to allow more time to sit still for hours of reading and math, and the omnipresence of sedentary screen activities (TV, video games, and Internet) in children's home lives, this message is one everyone who cares about children should be shouting from the rooftops. A coworker even passed me an article this week entitled “Your Office Chair Is Killing You.” It discusses the fact that human beings were never made to sit for hours and hours, and if we do, it has clear negative consequences for our health. One wonders whether children’s school chairs killing them too.

So what am I going to do about this research? On a professional level, as a program developer here at Committee for Children, I'm going to challenge myself to find ways to integrate movement into any new program development. On a personal level, I have started riding a bike again after 23 years as part of a bike to work program the Committee for Children has joined. In fact there are upwards of a dozen of us who ride bikes as part of our work commute every week. But my fondest wish is that this research finds its way into our schools so that children are no longer sentenced to sit for hours and hours in the name of learning.