Brain Gym Makes Me Sad
January 27th, 2007
Following up on my January 17th post, I attended a Brain Gym training session yesterday with a fellow teacher, Kate, who ranted about the program last week. Mostly, I wanted to be sure she wasn’t being overly critical. She was not. It was the second of two sessions, each two hours long, and I must say that coming out of the class my overwhelming feeling was one of profound sorrow.
I have a student who is always reading stuff on the internet and asking me the next day, “Did you know that…” Occasionally it’s obscure historical factoids or interesting science nuggets. However, more often, it’s something to do with aliens, Nessie, or some similarly pseudoscientific concern. As his science teacher, I have to answer, “Well the evidence isn’t very good for that.” I feel his disappointment, and for a moment I empathize. However, I maintain that not only is the truth preferable to pleasant fiction, it is often times more awe inspiring, amazing, and yes mysterious. Our fictions are so limited by our imaginations and experience. Yet the cosmos is so vast. Perhaps, most importantly, truth is infinitely more useful in its practical application and predictive power.
Kate attended the training session because of a desire to add to her teaching toolkit. She noticed that here students calmed down after an exercise in which they performed directed physical task, much like those employed by Brain Gym. Her hope was they she would walk away with a collection of exercises that she could use in her classroom. This seems perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, the Brain Gym session couldn’t leave it there.
I don’t question that low-impact directed physical exertion may help improve student focus. However, I find the claim that Brain Gym’s 26 trademarked activities are specially suited to improve academic attainment dubious at best, and as the ones making the claim, it falls upon them to argue the point. Unfortunately, Brain Gym International has backed away from this. Why? According to our Brain Gym instructor “it is difficult to justify in their terms,” where their terms are those set by the scientific community.
This is a common sentiment among pseudoscientists. “If only they would listen,” they cry. “I have the answer to it all.” Setting aside the hubris in this belief, it is important to understand that the methods of science are in fact designed to maximize the community’s ability to listen to and then sort ideas. The requirements for consideration are mostly format and rigor. This struggle is examined at good length in Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things. One must first take the time to understand the work already done in a field. The pseudoscientist may retort “Galileo was an outsider,” and this may be true. However, he helped create the framework of modern empirical science by which we now work. Much has changed. Einstein’s revolutionary ideas were not rejected by the practitioners of his time. On the contrary, in a matter of years he was the most celebrated scientist in the world. Good ideas do eventually make rise to the top, and skepticisms is our quality assurance.
Tellingly, our instructor explained that instead of going the science route, Brain Gym was focusing on “what worked.” This is great, but without careful study, can we really say that it was the 26 Brain Gym activities? Would any old low-impact directed physical activity have do the trick? Was it the enthusiasm of those instructors willing to try something new?
As I see it, there are at least two main problems with Brain Gym’s use in schools:
- What justifies the expense of specialized trainers and materials for the use of 26 trademarked activities? Why not simply provide generic low-impact directed physical activities? Where’s the evidence that the council should pay for these specific 26, of which we were only shown 10. For the remainder, we’d need to take more classes. Note: Kate and I are looking into the actual taxpayer cost.
- The dissemination of pseudoscientific thinking to students runs counter to the purpose of public education. We are charged with producing independent citizens capable of critical thought. The Brain Gym dogma will make its way to the children through the teachers. “Brain studies show…” We shouldn’t have teachers teaching students the scientific method in one lesson then spouting pseudoscience in the next.
Lest you doubt the nature of Brain Gym’s claims, let me share a few from our course material, reformatted below.
- Placing pressure on the forehead directly above the eyes will: shift emotional stress and promote rational thinking and release memory blocks. These two points are know as the “Positive Points.”
- Gripping one’s shoulder and turning his or her neck back and forth while controlling breathing will: improve attention and comprehension while also improving access to short term and long term memory. This is called the “Owl.”
- Waving one’s hands in the air in mirrored images of each other will: improve the decoding and encoding of written symbols. This is called the “Double Doodle.”
- Moving one’s outstretched arm in a repeated infinity symbol, overturned figure eight, will: improve improve symbol recognition and reading comprehension. This is known as “Giant Lazy Eights.”
- Yawning while massaging the cheeks: “relaxes the eyes by stimulating lubrication” and it “helps motor control of vocalisation and reading aloud.” This is known as the “Energy Yawn.”
Here is a larger list of Brain Gym activities. It is, however, not from Brain Gym directly as is made clear in this warning found at the top of the page:
Warning!!! Brain Gym is protected by copyright laws! If you want to teach it to your students you first have to ask Mr. and Mrs. Dennison for permission!!! Also, it is very risky for unexperienced people to apply this techniques without a preliminary training which can be done only in the authorized centres. If you want extra information you can visit the official Brain Gym web site. (One click!) These pages are intended only as to furnish some general information on this subject.
It strikes me as suspicious that we are warned of danger should we try these on our own. This would seem to suggest that improper movement might adversely effect our students’ learning or development. Perhaps there’s more than one reason to tell Johnny to settle down and sit in his chair.
Entry Filed under: Debunkery
11 Comments Add your own
1. fscang | April 25th, 2007 at 12:28 am
Excellent commentary. I’m a science teacher in Ontario that has been fighting the Brain Gym fight for years… Saddening indeed. keep up the good work!
2. Kahl Harra | October 3rd, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Wow…this actually disturbs me greatly. I work for a Yoga Studio which focuses mainly on Anusara Yoga (alignment based) and lately the studio owner has been branching out to bring in workshops of varying methodologies (one being Gestalt…but that’s an whole other conversation)…and the most recent addition is an upcoming workshop on Brain Gym. I started researching it because I, firstly, wasn’t sure how this applied to our basic philosophies and secondly, to be able to answer questions. So far…I am not impressed and this only adds to my dimming interest/approval.
I have no say here. The workshop will go on, I am just disturbed that anyone would encourage the us of a method that can hurt these children, and that one requires PERMISSION…as opposed to TRAINING. There is a significant difference!!
3. CK | November 11th, 2007 at 3:12 am
I don’t know whether or not BG is actually effective, but I fail to see how a few gentle exercises can “hurt these children” (comment #2). I have decided to give it a go in my classroom because even if it doesn’t have an effect, the kids will at least get the chance to move around a little and feel like they’re doing something active to make themselves better learners. (I teach special ed and the kids feel quite helpless). So far we’ve just started, so I can’t say whether or not it’s having an effect, but most of the kids do enjoy it. And that alone makes it worth the 10 minutes a day — I want my kids to enjoy being in my class.
4. Pinky | February 14th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
*Sigh* Do some research people. It’s not just physical activity. Braingym is based on and gives credit to Touch for Health and Applied Kinesiology among other practices which are routinely used in medical doctors offices. In fact there is a huge amount of research that simply “crossing over” HEALS students and anyone who is ill. See famed healer Donna Eden who used similar AK techniques to cure her own terminal multiple sclerosis for more examples. It DOES help students tremendously and was founded upon the experiences of Paul Dennison after years of successfully teaching reading skills through multiple centers to profoundly challenged, “given up on” students. I can’t stand reading drivel like the above commentary and comments from teachers too narrow minded and judgmental to TRY something new and innovative with students. If you are a teacher like this do the world a favor and pick another career. You are not helping our youth.
5. James Thomson | May 2nd, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Pinky, you cretin, did you miss the part where Brain Gym made absurd supernatural claims about the precise mental benefits acquired by pressing your forehead, as opposed to squeezing your shoulder?
Absolute rubbish.
OF COURSE a bit of physical activity can be beneficial and fun! We most certainly DO NOT need to pay some charlatan for instructions on exactly what that activity should be, and we MOST DEFINITELY do not want our children exposed to such pseudoscientific claims.
I will be looking into whether my children’s school employs any of this tripe, and will be making big waves if it does!
6. Eugenio Martinez | August 1st, 2008 at 12:20 am
really , brain gym is excellent (sorry by my english ) , you need to know a litlle be about the brain and moving . When you do any exercise your neurons fell hapy , the connection bewen them increase and the learning and habilities are better. For example , when you strech using the brain gym exercises you are connectiing reptil brain with frontal lobe of your neocortex and your comprenhension increase and your habilities to plan get better , why ???? frontal lobe is magic and when you activate the neural way (reptil with frontal ) is the maximum we can do for our brain.
7. Ben Gray | June 30th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
“When you do any exercise your neurons fell hapy”
If that’s the case, and _any_ excercise will do, why do we have to fork out thousands for that particular set?
8. Tereza Andjelic | July 27th, 2009 at 4:21 am
I do Brain Gym on my 8 year old son and I can see the difference in him, when he goes to do his home. The little work that I do do with him, his teacher can see, it in him too.
9. Sienna | July 28th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Brain Gym’s exercises are not just a chance to move around.
We all understand that certain neurons fire in the brain and voilà, the hand moves. What we forget is that when the hand moves, certain neurons fire back in the brain. The deliberately chosen movements and breaths of Brain Gym are designed to affect and co-ordinate the firing of specific areas of the brain.
Reading a brain map, I was able to count seventeen centres which are involved in the process of reading and understanding a passage. To read effectively, those seventeen centres need to be co-ordinated and “turned on.”
It’s easy to see from that that anything which could help co-ordinate the brain’s activity would be desirable.
I use Brain Gym with applied kinesiology for my own health. A few days ago, in the space of about ten minutes, I was able to reduce my blood pressure by twenty points using only Brain Gym – measuring the bp before and after.
It is not magical. It is not mystical. It is looking the other way up the neural street. If a=b, then b=a. Not scary; just sensible.
I agree that the Brain Gym association has not done satisfactory double blind experiments. Now, I don’t know why they say they haven’t done them, but I’ll tell you why I’d be leery of the whole issue.
Do you want your child in the half of the class deliberately excluded from something which could have assisted his learning? Are you going to sacrifice some children’s learning to improve that of others? In the litigious USA, can you imagine the furor from parents whose children were the control group?
And then there’s the matter of all the affective factors that have massive impact upon learning like atmosphere, weather, birthdays, sadness, conflict and so on. How do you filter these out?
How do you control the fact that the child may stimulate his learning on his own that evening in front of the tv, the computer or in his garden? That experience alters his approach the next day, if “only” emotionally.
Precise exactitude in the area of learning is not simple. Hence great holes may be poked in any study. Even educational experts do not agree upon what constitutes a learned fact. Is something learned when it can be recited by rote, or is it learned when the child makes a judgement about it, or is it learned when the learner synthesizes the fact into his world schema and applies it to a new situation or uses it for problem solving? The more complex the expectation, the more difficult it is to gain a clear experimental result.
And how does one measure that, although Johnny got the same mark on his math after Brain Gym, he found it much easier to follow the lesson, write the numbers, or do the computations mentally? Reporting on learning always becomes anecdotal at some stage and as we know, anecdotal notes are not considered empirical research.
But Johnny felt better about his math and the next day, began his math with a more positive outlook born of an expectation of success. Those are two of the most telling predictors of whether one will learn successfully. So, did Brain Gym help? I’d say, “Yes!”
I’m not excusing the Brain Gym organization from completing the best research they can, but in such a multi-factoral area, with such precious subjects, one can see that the challenges are legion.
There has been at least one study done using another exercise component and Brain Gym in two groups. I’m unclear as to which exercises were used in the non-brain gym group, and that is significant. The report which I read stated only “standard” exercises. The results indicated improvement for both groups – roughly similar results. As an educator, I wouldn’t doubt for a moment that general exercise promotes generally better thinking. Mens sana in corpore sano, no? It is the opportunity to target specific learning skills which interests me most.
10. Teresa | August 17th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
People need to go research the check out of Dr Frank Belgau and his amazing Belagau Balance Board called Balametrics also called Learning Break through. He does a fantastic job of explaining the science used to treat mental capabilities in need of t improving cognitive development via physical movement. I love what he says, “Activity changes the Brain.” We know so much more about the brain in the last 10 years! These types of activities, particularly with the balance board do improve all sorts of issues via science to grow brain cells for one example. Research Sharper Mind Centers and Dore who utilize both Brain Gym like excercises because there is a principle that Dr Belgau has noted through Balametrics, as these are on the same pare. It boils down to a fine tuning of the brain, through manipulating the vestibular system and the brain. Physical therapists use these as well. The people investigating this have not gone far enough. You will get so much out of studying Dr Belgau and his work to improve the reading skills of children ( and adults) who need extra help with various areas of life that come easy to some and not others.
Let me be the first to say, as some one who personally used these systems described, for 3 months solid, 1 hour a day, broken into 2 session of 30 minutes, I can tell you the hard work has paid off: The comprehension is increased beyond what I even thought possible, my recall or auditory memory has been improved so I don’t have to have multiple step directions repeated. I retain what I read and don’t have to spend extra time rereading to get the main point and fine details. I have benefited so much, primarily by the Belagu fellow’s board and exercises but also through some Brain Gym as well. I used both. I am picking it back up again as I feel I still have more to benefit from it.
You must do your research. So many books are out details what we now know about the brain and how we can change it, it is not static. These things have been used to help stroke patients bc our brains are amazing!
These things were a godsend when I was at the end of my whit’s needing help for normal things that people take for granted everyday. Today I am a better person for using these tools. They have changed my quality of life. As a culture that is used to testimonials of every sort, may I say that my sincere heart speaks the truth as I have had to live with learning issues my whole life .Everything was 10 times harder for me. I battled to learn to read out of sheer love for learning and desire, but it did not come easy. As I got older it seemed to get more difficult. I sought answers. At the tender age of 27, pregnant with my first and only child I sought help for these issues that plagued my life and seemed to get worse. I found myself in therapy with the only help of “Meditation”, which I did not do. I heard about Sharper Mind Centers, but could not afford their program. But I listened and they talked about Dr Belgau, so I googled him. Because of his work, I am forever changed! At 33, I have seen extensive benefit and owe my deepest thanks to Dr Belgau and his wife for there contributions via the study of NASA based principles that were used to understand these breakthroughs, coupled with the best research out there on the plasticity of the brain.
Who knew that standing on a balance board for one example, throwing bean bags and watching them, could literally and retune and refine your brain and grow a deeper union of function between the two hemispheres and create a new set of possibilities in sequencings, motor skills development, memory and comprehension improvement and a host of other benefits. And he explains it all through scientific principle. There were other exercised to do, but I want people to go research it out and not call it pseudo science. Great for you if you don’t have any issues, but you rob and discredit something that works for those who struggle and NEED IT. I know this is about Brain Gym, but I want to enlighten you to the other product.
Good videos has a 20 some minute video where he talks about this and numerous articles at his sight. He is also on youtube. But Learning Breakthrough has some videos. You should check out the demo of the exercises. I feel passionate about this.
I am not espousing all of brain gym activities except a few that I used like the figure 8, double doodle, the elephant and the skip cross; I think it was called, where both sides of your brain were being used in tandem. If there are New Age principles in any thing else that BG teaches, I have tried to avoid, using the already mentioned group that I felt comfortable with. I did not partake of the muscle tests they encourage or the brain buttons or anything to do with energy, as he does use the word “Spiritual energy” did I did not care for as a born again Christian. But I feel that even if you do not do any of the brain Gym, you can purchase the Belgau equipment and get so much accomplished with I think it is like 5 or more base concepts with variation. I am so pleased!
Thanks,
Teresa
11. esl cafe/songs&hellip | September 15th, 2009 at 10:02 am
esl cafe/songs…
We started off with Mad Libs because my boy liked them (I was in a different place when JellyMan was in first grade- every lesson had to be FUN!) and how much grammar do you really need to know in first grade, anyway? Exactly. In second grade, Scooby D…
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