playthink

“Oh, that is so wonderful! I wish I could do something like that. But… you know.”

“You are such a good person!”

“Those that can’t do, teach.”

“I always wanted to be a teacher. But I also want a certain amount of financial security as I raise my family and build my home.”

Public perception of public school teachers is streaked with an odd mix of admiration, pity, patronization, and guilt. Some people think that those that enter the teaching profession are missionaries or martyrs, sacrificing their own financial self-interest for the sake of others. (Some teachers are guilty of believing this, too.) And because everyone has sat at a desk in a classroom managed by a teacher in a school, a lot of us think we know what it’s like to work in education and (wrongly!) believe we know what it’s like to be a teacher.

Does the salary of a public school teacher contribute to this conception of life as a professional educator? In our society, the esteem of certain jobs is positively correlated with the earnings-potential of that profession.

Would more of the most ambitious and accomplished among us seek a career in teaching if the compensation package was competitive with the salaries offered in the fields of law, medicine, and business?

Would a higher salary attract better qualified, able, and effective teachers?

The Equity Project (TEP) Charter School in New York City thinks that the answer to these three questions is, Yes! And they are doing something about it.

Starting salary for public school teachers at TEP: $125,000 a year, with bonuses approaching another $25,000.

The TEP philosophy is based on research that reveals,”Teacher quality is the most important school-based factor in the academic success of students, particularly those from low-income families.” [Source: Dan Goldhaber and Emily Anthony, “Teacher Quality and Student Achievement,” ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education, Urban Diversity Series No. 115, May 2003: 1]

And their premise is that you have to pay to get good people. So pay they do.

It’s a radical — even revolutionary — experiment, one that I am eager from which to learn the results.

When I look back on my own student life, it was never the content, the format, the curriculum, nor class size that determined how much I engaged with my peers and the material. It was the teacher!

Some of my most important learned lessons — some of my best “life” classes — did not take place in the classroom at all, but in conversations that unraveled over the dinner table, while watching a baseball game, on a road trip, in a dorm room, on the phone, and via email. I am fortunate to be surrounded by friends, family members, and peers who are passionate about discovering and communicating ideas. Sometimes I ask them point blank, because it would be a magical, wonderful site, if they would ever teach. Most say they would like to, used to want to, will when they retire… When the concept of money didn’t matter, when they can dream that money doesn’t matter, when money won’t matter. Then they will teach.

Or, offers The Equity Project Charter School, you can teach now. Because right now, money does matter.

To learn more about the philosophy of TEP and their teacher recruitment efforts, peruse the The Equity Project website.

Play, think…
J.R. Atwood

Me, eight-plus years ago and a month into my freshman year of college: “I’m majoring in philosophy.”

A college buddy of mine, majoring in business: “Uh, what can you do with a degree in philosophy?”

Me: “Well, anything, really. I read somewhere that John Elway and Jay Leno were philosophy majors.”

Buddy: “Yeah, but you stink at football and aren’t funny. [Long pause.] But hey, I bet you can fetch a premium in the marketplace because you have all these deep- and critical thinking abilities and skills.”

Me: “Yeah! Good point.”

Reality: “Uh, see the chart below of average starting salaries for college graduates, by major.”

Me: “D’oh!”

Source: The NYT’s Freakonomics blog.

Play, think…
J.R. Atwood

The points that detractors of Teach for America raise usually fall into one of three interrelated buckets, to which I want to explore potentially effective rebuttals:

Critique #1

Teach for America belittles the profession of teaching

by treating it as a Peace Corps–style rescue mission rather than a true profession, with salaries appropriate to attracting solid candidates. “A frankly missionary program,” wrote Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond in an oft-cited 1994 Phi Delta Kappan article, “TFA has recruiters and advocates who have focused much of their attention on the advantaged college graduates for whom TFA serves as something useful to do on their way to their ‘real jobs’ in law, medicine, or business.” [Source]

Response to critique #1

There are two parts to this criticism of TFA. One: The low-pay of teaching “belittles” the profession. On the whole, I concur with the implied argument that teachers should be paid more. (I think teachers — from kindergarten through high school — should expect a starting salary of $80K, with opportunities to earn upwards of $150K for demonstrating exceptional teaching. But let’s not get distracted by the finances or logistics of such a proposal; we can do that another time. Today I want to look at a few of the arguments in favor and against Teach for America as an organization.)

But TFA is not responsible for the teaching salaries of its recruited teachers. They earn public school teaching salaries commensurate with the salaries of non-TFA-recruited teachers. So the salary argument has no point of entering the debate about the merits of Teach for America as an organization.

The second point concerns the outreach efforts of TFA, which detractors claim — by recruiting the best students from the most selective of colleges and by offering teaching as “something useful to do on their way to a ‘real job’” — belittles professional education.

This argument simply holds no water. For one thing, there is nothing wrong with treating — or even marketing — teaching as mission-based service. This is exactly what teaching is! It is not a job, like auditing; it is a vocation, a calling. Education is not a widget making business; it is a public good, a public service, that shapes the hearts and heads of our children. If teaching is a job, it is a job of forging relationships, shaping minds, and of empowering people to engage in deep, critical-thinking and community action. Nothing could be more of a mission-based service than teaching.

(What is belittling is the false assumption that non-profit, mission-based work only offers meager financial rewards.)

Management consulting firms like Bain, McKinsey, and BCG, along with Wall Street investment banking institutions and international hedge funds, all recruit the best and brightest minds from America’s top colleges and universities. Most of these new employees work “only” for two years in these positions before matriculating to business school or moving on to other opportunities. Some even leave these fields entirely. No one would argue that young recruits in consulting and finance related fields “belittle” these professions.

Critique 2

TFA-recruited teachers “only” commit to two years in the teaching profession. We don’t need a “short-lived import-export system; our schools require more than self-reflexive service for post-college wanderers.” [Source]

Response to critique #2

One-third of all teachers leave within two years [Source]; half of all teachers quit within five years [Source]. This data is for all public school educators! The all-too brief tenure of teaching professionals is not unique to Teach for America; teacher attrition is a national public policy concern. TFA is not an “import-export system for post-college wanderers”; the entire teaching profession is, regrettably, an import-export system for passionate educators.

At least with Teach for America, recruits commit to two full years of teaching in the most dire of all educational environments. Non-TFA teachers make no such commitment; they usually sign a one-year contract, but without the support network of the Teach for America organization, they could (and often do) leave after one academic year; some leave mid-year!

And even though the TFA service requirement is “only” two years, “two-thirds of its grads stay in the education field, sometimes as teachers, but also as principals or policy makers.” [Source]

Critique #3

TFA recruits cannot be effective classroom instructors because they “only” under-go a five-week training program the summer before their placement. “Real teachers,” on the other hand, have to do a certification program, which often takes one to two years to complete.

Five weeks of training is simply inadequate to equip recent college graduates, no matter how high-achieving and well-intentioned, with the pedagogical skills necessary to be an effective teacher, claim critics.

Response to critique #3

Data. From this month’s Primary Sources section in The Atlantic:

The Kids Are Alright

Critics of the Teach for America program, which recruits top college graduates to teach in poorly performing public schools, have long questioned whether the program’s instructors are properly prepared, citing evidence that links teacher effectiveness to experience. However, the first study to examine Teach for America at the secondary-school level, recently released by the Urban Institute, finds that its teachers are in fact more effective than those with traditional training—at all levels of experience. The study measured performance on state exams and found that students of Teach for America instructors did significantly better in all subject areas tested, and especially in math and science. The authors found that even though the program’s teachers are assigned to “the most demanding classrooms,” they’re able to compensate for their lack of experience with better academic preparation and motivation. As a result, the authors say, students are better off with Teach for America instructors “than with fully licensed in-field teachers with three or more years of experience.”

—“Making a Difference?: The Effects of Teach for America in High School,” by Zeyu Xu, Jane Hannaway, and Colin Taylor, the Urban Institute and the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research

Quick thoughts

I am a bit curious by these critiques leveled against Teach for America by certain educators. Their criticisms, while rooted in seemingly intuitive assumptions (Of course a two year teaching program is better than a five-week cram program!), also seem to be motivated, a bit or in part, by ego and insecurity. They seem to want to create/preserve the illusion that teaching is some kind of alchemy, the secrets of which are passed-down by experts in sanctioned institutions and require one to two years to truly master.

Maybe. But this is not the only way that teachers learn to be teachers. It might not even be the most effective way; it is certainly not the most efficient. It’s not even a sufficient way of teaching teachers, just as graduating from an MBA program neither promises nor precludes ambitious entrepreneurs and visionary leaders from opening their own small businesses or serving as CEO of Fortune 500 companies.

Teaching is a skill. But it is equal parts — maybe primarily — an art. The passion? The charisma? The communicative ability to be an effective educator? Can’t be taught. It’s in you… Or not.

Teach for America screens the best and the brightest minds in the country, assesses their passion and ability to teach, and has grown to become one of the largest and most successful teacher recruitment and placement organizations in the country. And they do this not by offering higher salaries, nor cushier teaching positions. No, TFA takes could-be and would-be Yale Law School students, Wall Street wunderkids, and Peace Corps volunteers and places them in the most severely depressed classrooms in the most under-resourced schools in the most fractured school districts.

And the results — better classroom performance by students; an indelible and intimate portrait of a too-often broken education system by TFA teachers — speak for themselves.

Teaching is something we should be encouraging people of all stripes, backgrounds, and experiences to explore, especially among the most successful and ambitious soon-to-be and recent college graduates. Teach for America is at the center of the village it takes to raise a child.

Related reading: “Amazing Teacher Facts,” an editorial in the Wall Street Journal:

This month 3,700 recent college grads will begin Teach for America’s five-week boot camp, before heading off for two-year stints at the nation’s worst public schools. These young men and women were chosen from almost 25,000 applicants, hailing from our most selective colleges. Eleven per cent of Yale’s senior class, 9% of Harvard’s and 10% of Georgetown’s applied for a job whose salary ranges from $25,000 (in rural South Dakota) to $44,000 (in New York City).

Hang on a second.

Unions keep saying the best people won’t go into teaching unless we pay them what doctors and lawyers and CEOs make. Not only are Teach for America salaries significantly lower than what J.P. Morgan might offer, but these individuals go to some very rough classrooms. What’s going on?

It seems that Teach for America offers smart young people something even better than money – the chance to avoid the vast education bureaucracy. Participants need only pass academic muster and attend the summer training before entering a classroom. If they took the traditional route into teaching, they would have to endure years of “education” courses to be certified.

The American Federation of Teachers commonly derides Teach for America as a “band-aid.” One of its arguments is that the program only lasts two years, barely enough time, they say, to get a handle on managing a classroom. However, it turns out that two-thirds of its grads stay in the education field, sometimes as teachers, but also as principals or policy makers.

More importantly, it doesn’t matter that they are only in the classroom a short time, at least according to a recent Urban Institute study. Here’s the gist: “On average, high school students taught by TFA corps members performed significantly better on state-required end-of-course exams, especially in math and science, than peers taught by far more experienced instructors. The TFA teachers’ effect on student achievement in core classroom subjects was nearly three times the effect of teachers with three or more years of experience.”

Jane Hannaway, one of the study’s co-authors, says Teach for America participants may be more motivated than their traditional teacher peers. Second, they may receive better support during their experience. But, above all, Teach for America volunteers tend to have much better academic qualifications. They come from more competitive schools and they know more about the subjects they teach. Ms. Hannaway notes, “Students are better off being exposed to teachers with a high level of skill.”

The strong performance in math and science seems to confirm that the more specialized the knowledge, the more important it is that teachers be well versed in it. (Imagine that.) No amount of time in front of a classroom will make you understand advanced algebra better.

Teach for America was pleased, but not exactly shocked, by these results. “We have always been a data-driven organization,” says spokesman Amy Rabinowitz. “We have a selection model we’ve refined over the years.” The organization figures out which teachers have been most successful in improving student performance and then seeks applicants with similar qualities. “It’s mostly a record of high academic achievement and leadership in extracurricular activities.”

Sounds like the way the private sector hires. Don’t tell the teachers unions.

Play, think…
J.R. Atwood

Worth a read: Our friends in the north, a thought-provoking article in the Economist that explores the policies and philosophies that make the education system in Finland “the best in the world.” 

Finnish schools are compared to schools in Sweden and it’s interesting to read about the successes and struggles of a national voucher model, market-based school systems, personalized curricula, segregated versus mainstream special education policies, and differing beliefs about the purpose of a public education system.

But of most interest to me, and the reason Finnish schools are so good: Teacher recruitment and quality of instruction. As noted by a professor of pedagogy at Helsinki’s teacher-training facility, “The root of the Finnish education system’s success is its extraordinary ability to attract the very best young people into teaching: Only around 10% of applicants are accepted for teacher training.”

At the National Board of Education, I ask Irmeli Halinen what other countries should learn from Finland. The most important lesson, she says, is to develop excellent initial training for teachers. Second, start education late and gently—Finnish children are seven before they start formal school. And she offers a third lesson: “We don’t waste energy or money or time on inspections or national testing.”

The ministry of education is “obsessed” with maintaining and improving the status of educators as an elite and respected group in Finnish society. Says its minster, ”We will do anything possible to keep the profession attractive.”

I’d love to hear the same commitment from U.S. representatives, legislators, and policy makers. But even if we increased teacher recruitment and retention efforts, drawing teachers and administrators from a select pool of the smartest and highest-achieving college graduates, how much more would students learn? Teacher quality, while a necessary (and even if the most important) input for a public school, is just one piece of the dynamic and complicated education puzzle. Students and their families have to buy into and believe in the system… They have to believe that education will empower them to achieve their own best promises.

Do our schools help to lift-up the children of low-income families? It’s a complicated question that the concept of “inter-generational income elasticity” makes a bit more messy. This is “the technical term for the correlation between people’s income and that of their parents.”

In the United States, parental income is a major influence on earning. It is difficult for children to move among — especially up — economic classes. In Finland, inter-generational income elasticity is low, meaning, “Finns trust teachers and schools… and for a reason.” A strong education system makes economic ladder climbing easy. “What Finnish schools do is genuinely effective.”

How is this possible? High standards of success from all students:

“Between-student” variation in Finland is extremely low, meaning a narrow gap between the scores of the most able and least able groups. This trick is easy to pull off if standards are uniformly low, but Finland’s average is the world’s highest, meaning it does almost unbelievably well by its weakest students.

How are high standards achieved? Not by mandated national or state testing. But by getting the best and brightest people to work in education.

Finland’s secret is simple: its teachers are so highly regarded that the very best young people compete for this coveted job. The successful few study for at least five years and are actually taught how to teach (you would be surprised how rare this is on teacher-training courses). And then, once they start work, their students pay attention and work hard (when I asked Finns whether there were some families who despised education and resented schools, they seemed puzzled by the question).

I have seen what works. But I don’t know how my country—where anti-intellectualism is rife, and where, sadly, all too often those who can’t do, teach—could replicate it.

Hat tip to MH for the link.

Play, think…
J.R. Atwood 

In the Mind Matters section of Newsweek’s online health section, Wray Herbert authored an interesting article that introduces executive function (EF) “an emerging concept in student assessment and could eventually displace traditional measures of ability and achievement.”

In EF: The School Skill That Matter More than IQ, Herbert writes:

EF comprises not only effortful control and cognitive focus but also working memory and mental flexibility—the ability to adjust to change, to think outside the box. These are the uniquely human skills that, taken together, allow us keep our more impulsive and distractible brain in check. New research shows that EF, more than IQ, leads to success in basic academics like arithmetic and grammar. It also suggests that we can pump up these EF skills with regular exercise, just as we do with muscles.

Lynn Meltzer is the editor of Executive Function in Education: From Theory to Practice, a compilation of rich essays that explores the science of, and curriculum for implementing, high-order thinking.

Play, think…
J.R. Atwood 

I came across this graph of U.S. education expenditure, in 2001 constant dollars, on the website of futurist and “restless genius” Ray Kurzweil…

Click here to see more of Ray’s charts and to download the Excel spreadsheet detailing yearly U.S. expenditures on education from 1900 through 2002.

Play, think…
J.R. Atwood 

A story out of the United Kingdom provides an interesting complement to my most recent post about Nintendo’s Wii Fit…

A pilot study was conducted at a primary school in Scotland to investigate the potential value of utilizing video games in the classroom — video games that are specifically designed to improve memory, spatial reasoning, and other abstract brain functioning skills.

In the study, students were given a Nintendo DS, which is a handheld video game console, and played Dr. Kawashima’s More Brain Training video game at the beginning of every school day, for 20 minutes a day, for 10 consecutive weeks.

At the end of the trial period, the average math scores of students that played with the brain training video games increased by 10 percent (compared to their scores from a pre-intervention assessment). The time it took these students to complete the tests decreased from 17 minutes to 13 minutes.

Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) is the lead organization for curriculum development in the country; Derek Robertson is the development officer of games-based learning for LTS. In the Telegraph article, “Pupils to start day with Nintendo Brain Training,” Robertson said the initial pilot project of Nintendo’s brain training video games produced “fascinating results.”

Not only was there a marked significant improvement in mental maths, but there was also an improvement in concentration levels, behavior, and self-regulation in the learning process.

LTS is so intrigued by the potential of brain training video games that it is expanding its study to include 32 schools — at 16 schools, students will start their day by playing brain training video games; 16 other schools will serve as a control group.

If the results from this larger study are promising, maybe playing video games will become mandatory homework for students.

Play, think…
J.R. Atwood

It reads like the voice-over script for a doomsday-is-eminent-until-Will-Smith-saves-humanity Hollywood produced summer blockbuster:

Human identity, the idea that defines each and every one of us, could be facing an unprecedented crisis.

It is a crisis that would threaten long-held notions of who we are, what we do and how we behave. It goes right to the heart - or the head - of us all.

This crisis could reshape how we interact with each other, alter what makes us happy, and modify our capacity for reaching our full potential as individuals.

And it’s caused by one simple fact: the human brain, that most sensitive of organs, is under threat from the modern world.

So when does the movie come out? I’m hooked!

Uh, not so fast.

This is the intro to recent article by Susan Greenfield, a neuroscientist and researcher at Oxford University. In “The REAL Brain Drain: Modern technology is changing the way our brains work,” published by the UK’s Daily Mail, Greenfield provides a crash-course about the science of brain plasticity; poses some important ethical questions about the technical and medical advances that allow us to perfect our psychological, genetic, and physical make-up; and ruminates about the unintended consequences of a hyper digital world on our neurological functioning.

Our brains are under the influence of an ever- expanding world of new technology: multichannel television, video games, MP3 players, the internet, wireless networks, Bluetooth links - the list goes on and on.

But our modern brains are also having to adapt to other 21st century intrusions, some of which, such as prescribed drugs like Ritalin and Prozac, are supposed to be of benefit, and some of which, such as widely available illegal drugs like cannabis and heroin, are not.

Electronic devices and pharmaceutical drugs all have an impact on the micro- cellular structure and complex biochemistry of our brains. And that, in turn, affects our personality, our behaviour and our characteristics. In short, the modern world could well be altering our human identity.

Nothing less than our unique self-identities are under threat, says Dr. Greenfield

Her article is a rich and thoughtful written “what if” inquiry about science, technology, psychology, society, and identity. In addition to questions about the search for value and meaning in our hedonistic culture, Dr. Greenfield warns us not to be surprised when the effects of violent video games literally reshape the brains of the younger “games-driven generation.”

Coinciding with the moment when technology and pharmaceutical companies are finding ever more ways to have a direct influence on the human brain, pleasure is becoming the sole be-all and end-all of many lives, especially among the young.

We could be raising a hedonistic generation who live only in the thrill of the computer-generated moment, and are in distinct danger of detaching themselves from what the rest of us would consider the real world.

Throw in circumstantial evidence that links a sharp rise in diagnoses of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and the associated three-fold increase in Ritalin prescriptions over the past ten years with the boom in computer games and you have an immensely worrying scenario.

We are not doomed to become vapid body sacks, however, absent of any original thought, emotion, spirit, soul, meaning, purpose, or passion. More human than human is not (yet) our collective motto. There are significant reasons to worry about the way scientific, medical, and technological stimuli mold our brains, but so long as we are aware of these concerns and engage in the ethical and moral debates surrounding progress in these fields, Dr. Greenfield is hopeful about our individual and collective futures.

I think it possible that we might one day be able to harness outside stimuli in such a way that creativity - surely the ultimate expression of individuality - is actually boosted rather than diminished.

I am optimistic and excited by what future research will reveal into the workings of the human brain, and the extraordinary process by which it is translated into a uniquely individual mind.

For now, though, it’s probably best to drop the video-game controller and head towards the public library to reserve a copy of Dr. Greenfield’s soon-to-be-published book, ID: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century. Leave your iPod at home.

Play, think…
J.R. Atwood

Fluid intelligence (abbreviated Gf) is the ability to understand novel situations and to solve otherwise new-to-you problems by drawing relationships from concepts. In short, it is abstract reasoning — the ability to think and to do without relying on past experience.

Until recently, many psychologists believed that fluid intelligence was a genetic trait. Everyone has some level of fluid intelligence, but just how much is pre-determined by one’s biology.

A fascinating new study, however, hints at the promise that we can increase our fluid intelligence.

Published this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), “Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory,” is an article that: (1) explores the relationship between working memory and Gf, and (2) details how improving working memory can increase one’s fluid intelligence.

(What is working memory? Good question. It’s a kind of short-term memory process that allows for the temporary storing and manipulation of information. Just how short-term? Think seconds-long. For example, it’s the kind of memory we use when asking a gas station attendant for directions. We remember “turn left at the third light, stay straight for two blocks, then make a right at the intersection of Jones and Geary” just long enough to process it. But these details do not enter our long-term memory.)

The NYT has a great summary of this exciting research. In “Memory Training Shown to Turn Up Brainpower,” Nicholas Bakalar summarizes and offers highlights from the NPAS journal article:

First they measured the fluid intelligence of four groups of volunteers using standard tests. Then they trained each in a complicated memory task, an elaborate variation on Concentration, the child’s card game, in which they memorized simultaneously presented auditory and visual stimuli that they had to recall later.

The game was set up so that as the participants succeeded, the tasks became harder, and as they failed, the tasks became easier. This assured a high level of difficulty, adjusted individually for each participant, but not so high as to destroy motivation to keep working. The four groups underwent a half-hour of training daily for 8, 12, 17 and 19 days, respectively. At the end of each training, researchers tested the participants’ fluid intelligence again. To make sure they were not just improving their test-taking skills, the researchers compared them with control groups that took the tests without the training.

The results were striking. Although the control groups also made gains, presumably because they had practice with the fluid intelligence tests, improvement in the trained groups was substantially greater. Moreover, the longer they trained, the higher their scores were. All performers, from the weakest to the strongest, showed significant improvement.

“Intelligence has always been considered principally an immutable inherited trait,” said Susanne M. Jaeggi, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at the University of Michigan and a co-author of the paper. “Our results show you can increase your intelligence with appropriate training.”

Why did the training work? The authors suggest several aspects of the exercise relevant to solving new problems: ignoring irrelevant items, monitoring ongoing performance, managing two tasks simultaneously and connecting related items to one another in space and time.

This is the abstract from the NPAS journal article:

Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory
Susanne M. Jaeggi, Martin Buschkuehl, John Jonides, and Walter J. Perrig

Abstract

Fluid intelligence (Gf) refers to the ability to reason and to solve new problems independently of previously acquired knowledge. Gf is critical for a wide variety of cognitive tasks, and it is considered one of the most important factors in learning. Moreover, Gf is closely related to professional and education success, especially in complex and demanding environments. Although performance on tests of Gf can be improved through direct practice on the tests themselves, there is no evidence that training on any other regiment yields increased Gf in adults. Furthermore, there is a long history of research into cognitive training showing that, although performance in trained tasks can increase dramatically, transfer of this learning to other tasks remains poor. Here, we present evidence for transfer from training on a demanding working memory task to measures of Gf. This transfer results even though the trained task is entirely different from the intelligence test itself. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the extent of gain in intelligence critically depends on the amount of training: the more training, the more improvement in Gf. That is, the training effect is dosage-dependent. Thus, in contrast to many previous studies, we conclude that it is possible to improve Gf without practicing the testing tasks themselves, opening a wide range of applications.

Play, think…
J.R. Atwood

In my very first post on this blog, I referenced a book called Spark, the most successful and accessible mass-market publication that explains the science of, and relationship between, physical exercise and overall mental health.

John Ratey, the book’s author and an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, says “[I] cannot underestimate how important regular exercise is in improving the function and performance of the brain. … Exercise stimulates our gray matter to produce Miracle-Gro for the brain. It’s such a wonderful medicine.”

The more rigorous the physical exercise, the better it is for your brain. But as noted in “Train Your Brain: Can Jogging Make You Smarter?“, an article by Simon Usborne in The Independent (UK), “Even regular brisk walks can books memory, alleviate stress, enhance intelligence, and allay aggression.”

The short article provides a fantastic CliffsNotes summary of Spark. Some excerpts:

Happiness

Evidence suggests that pounding the pavement can change the way our brains work to make us happier, or even stave off depression. “Exercise is as good as any anti-depressant I know,” Ratey claims.

Last December, scientists from Yale University wrote in the journal Nature Medicine that regular exertion affects the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for mood. Tests on mice showed that exercise activated a gene there called VGF, which is linked to a “growth factor” chemical involved in the development of new nerve cells. Tests show that this brain activation lifts a person’s mood.

Participants in one recent German survey were asked to walk quickly on a treadmill for 30 minutes a day over a 10-day period. At the end of the experiment, researchers recorded a significant drop in depression scores

Stress

We respond to stress in the same way our ancestors did – by adopting a “fight or flight” response. Adrenalin and other hormones are released into our bloodstreams and our muscles are primed for response. The problem is that, these days, stress is more likely to be brought on by a tricky PowerPoint presentation or a job interview than an attack by marauding lions, so the toxins that build up for a physical response have no outlet.

The results can be good; the cardiovascular system is accelerated and we can work harder (for a while, at least), but others are not so good; stress slows down the gastrointestinal system and reduces appetite, and can overexcite the brain, fuzzing our thought.

By responding to or anticipating stress with fight (kickboxing or judo, say) or flight (30 minutes on the treadmill, say, or 50 lengths of the pool), blood flow to the brain is increased, allowing the body to purge the potentially toxic by-products of stress.

According to Ratey, exercise also helps in the long term. “It builds up armies of antioxidants such as Vitamins E and C,” he says. “These help brain cells protect us from future stress.

Intelligence

Says Ratey, “Exercise doesn’t make you smarter, but what it does do is optimise the brain for learning.”

Physical activity boosts the flow of blood to the part of the brain that is responsible for memory and learning, promoting the production of new brain cells. Several schools in the US and the Netherlands have taken note. Pupils at Naperville Central High School near Chicago, for example, start the day with a fitness class they call “Zero Hour PE”. Equipped with heart monitors, they run laps of the playground, and teachers say exam results have soared since the keep-fit initiative kicked off.

Meanwhile, in Amsterdam, a test involving 241 people, aged 15-71, compared physical activity with the results of cognitive tasks. The researchers documented improved results among people who were more active, especially those in younger age groups.

Yet more research suggests that exercise boosts intelligence in the very, very young. Experiments on rats at the Delbrück Centre for Molecular Medicine in Berlin showed that baby rats born to mothers who were more active during pregnancy had 40 per cent more cells in the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for intelligence.

Aggression

“People assume exercise reduces aggression by burning energy. In fact, exercise changes your brain so you don’t feel aggressive in the first place,” says Ratey.

The frontal cortex is the part of the brain that decides whether you throw a punch or take something on the chin. Reduced activity in the region can result in an inability to control violent urges. “This area makes us evaluate the consequences of our actions,” Ratey says. Exercise increases activity in that area, boosting rational thought, which makes us less likely to lash out.

Memory

“When we’re exercising, we’re using nerve cells in the brain which help build up what I call brain fertilizer,” Ratey says. He is talking about new research that suggests exercise increases blood flow to the part of the brain responsible for memory, and improves its function.

In MRI scans on mice, conducted last year by neurologists at Columbia University Medical Centre in New York, the animals were shown to grow new brain cells in the dentate gyrus, which is affected in age-related memory decline.

“Exercise does more than anything we know of to boost memory.”

Addiction

Research by British scientists suggests that as little as five minutes of brisk walking can reduce the intensity of nicotine withdrawal symptoms. In the tests, researchers asked participants to rate their need for a cigarette after various types of physical exertion. Those who had exercised reported a reduced desire to smoke. “If we found the same effects in a drug, it would immediately be sold as an aid to help people quit smoking,” Adrian Taylor, the study’s lead author at the University of Exeter, said last year.

The principle is that exercise can stimulate production of the mood-enhancing hormone dopamine, which can, in turn, reduce smokers’ dependence on nicotine. “Dopamine works by replacing or satisfying the need for nicotine,” Ratey explains

So how much does one have to exercise to realize these results?

In Spark, Ratey advocates that we invest as much time and effort as we reasonably can afford into exercising. But as noted in the article, “You don’t have to become a marathon runner to benefit your brain. The mainstay of exercise is simple, brisk walking.”

Especially beneficial is interval training - “really pushing yourself for between 20 and 30 seconds so that you are momentarily exhausted.” Thirty seconds of sprinting, for example, sandwiched between two minutes of walking, for a total of 20-30 minutes, four-to-five times a day, will radically boost your brain power.

“The side effects on the body aren’t bad either - I lost 10 pounds in no time,” Professor Ratey says.

Play, think…
J.R. Atwood