Learning Styles and Stress Management

Think “childhood”, and phrases such as “carefree”, “long summer days”, “doing nothing” or “fun” will instantly spring to mind. However, nothing can be further from the truth for the current generation of school-goers. In certain parts of the world, even preschoolers feel the pressure to achieve, and thus to secure a place in a reputable private education institution.

Some schools cite education and achievement as their top values. Others prefer to concentrate on learning through fun, treating every child as an individual with a unique learning style, and offering an all-rounded learning option that includes as much dancing as it does arithmetic.

The world out there is tough and competitive. Do you shelter your children and let them enjoy life as long as they can, or do you start grooming them for the rat race in kindergarten? That’s the choice that every parent has to make individually.

Meanwhile, if you think that your child is feeling stressed, their own learning style can give you a clue as to how to help them. Highly analytic children will want to retreat and solve the problem by themselves, while highly holistic children will want to discuss the issue with you. To find out how to deal with your child’s stress, please analyse their learning style on http://www.creativelearningcentre.com/products/learning-style-analysis/.

Some ideas that might also appeal to your child include:
1. Listening to music with a beat that is slower than their heart rate.
2. Taking a walk together - a forest or a beach will work particularly well.
3. Essential oils such as lavender, chamomile, mandarin or rose have a calming effect - you can burn them in the room if you have a burner or dab them directly onto the wrist.
4. A comforting healthy snack, like low-fat low-sugar apple pie or cocoa.
5. Distraction: ask your child what the best thing was that she saw or did today.

Just as prevention is better than cure in the area of physical health, so it is with stress. If your child does not thrive on achievement, it’s best not to push them. To check, do their Learning Style Analysis on http://www.creativelearningcentre.com/products/learning-style-analysis/.

Learning Styles and Maths

Mathematics is probably the only school subject that has a reputation for being “difficult”. Although most children of school-going age can count comfortably from one to ten, some of them will not understand that the rhyme onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineten actually refers to the action of counting, and they don’t know that “two” is more than “one” even if they understand that “two lollies in Jane’s hand” is more than “one lolly in my hand”.

Thus, some children begin their first lesson in Maths on a sour note of “I don’t understand” and “it’s too difficult”. And even if they manage to sail through the arithmetic side of things, there are things like Geometry to trip up those good at numbers.

Children with a preference for sequential information processing will probably tend to do better in arithmetic, which is usually introduced at the beginning of the child’s maths career. By the time they hit concepts more easily understood by a simultaneous mind (geometric patterns, abstract algebra and imaginary numbers), they probably firmly believe that they are “no good at maths”.

This is why it’s so important to get help as early as possible. As soon as your child turns 5, you can use the Learning Style Analysis Junior MINI tool to determine whether they are sequential or simultaneous thinkers. The tool will also show you whether they are good at absorbing visual information (a very useful skill when it comes to geometry and trigonometry), whether they would learn well with word sums and real-life examples, and how best to motivate them in their learning.

The Learning Style Analysis Junior MINI report will also show you how to do revision and homework with your child in a way that’s most beneficial to them. Click here for more information: http://www.creativelearningcentre.com/products/learning-style-analysis/about.html.

Learning Styles can help your brain stay fit

Have ever you noticed how your ability to do a certain type of puzzle improves if you do more puzzles of the same type? Be it crossword puzzles, IQ tests (yes, you can train your brain to improve at those), or even jigsaws - practice makes you better. Recent research suggests that puzzles that rely on problem-solving, memory and logical deduction can be highly beneficial for the brain by making people approach tasks in a more flexible way.

Although your brain is not a muscle, it stays fit in the same way as the rest of your body: through exercising it. People can acquire new brain cells throughout their lives, provided their brains are stimulated.

Says Dr Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, a cognitive neuroscientist and author of The Learning Brain: “When you’re stimulating your brain, it is more active and can even grow brain cell connections. If you teach people to play the piano, the part of the brain that controls finger movements increases and is more active. That’s the idea behind brain training.”Some suggested activities for keeping your brain agile include:
· Learning to play a musical instrument (check your Learning Style first on http://www.creativelearningcentre.com/products/learning-style-analysis/).
· Riddles, crosswords, Sudoku and Scrabble.
· Learning another language (check your Learning Style first on http://www.creativelearningcentre.com/products/learning-style-analysis/).
· Breaking at least two habitual actions a day, e.g., altering your route to the shops or using your “wrong” hand for your mouse.
· Checking your Learning Styles Analysis report (available from http://www.creativelearningcentre.com/products/learning-style-analysis/) and deciding which flexibility to change into a preference.

Too Hungry to Learn

I’ve just heard a heart-warming story about solving an education problem in India. While the government is pouring money into textbooks and school buildings, a non-government organisation discovered that children don’t go to school because they are too hungry to concentrate. So the NGO built kitchens that would supply food to the schools. Now, because school was the only place where they could get food, children started attending - and because their bellies were full, they could benefit from the lessons, too.

And, closer to home, in New Zealand, smart-looking raincoats are given to children who can’t afford them. Not only do they keep the children dry, they boost their self-confidence and improve school attendance.

I wonder how many education problems could be solved by thinking outside the square like that.

Next time you encounter a child who has learning problems, think:
· Are their basic survival needs met (food, warmth, personal safety)?
· Are their higher survival needs met (friendship, parental love, feeling valued, feeling capable, feeling stimulated)?
· Are their learning style needs met (learning with their preferred senses, learning at their biologically dictated time of day, learning sequentially or holistically, learning in their preferred social grouping)? To find out more about learning styles, please visit http://www.creativelearningcentre.com/products/learning-style-analysis/.

Learning Styles Prevent Toxic Childhood

While living in the First World of the 21st century offers many good things (the cure for pneumonia, the ability to communicate instantly with people across the globe, abundance of food - to mention just a few), it also brings with itself the downside of opulence (like the constant race against time, the lack of appreciation for small things, our unnatural lifestyle).

Experts claim that modern life can stifle our creativity. They warn that poor diet, limited exercise, sausage-factory education and too much TV are all responsible for creating a “toxic environment” for our children.

The end of their letter reads: "Our society rightly takes great pains to
protect children from physical harm, but seems to have lost sight of their
emotional and social needs.

Despite all our wealth and technology, the childhood experienced by today's children in the Western world is significantly poorer from that of previous generations. The food they eat is often not home-cooked. They inject fewer fresh fruit and more preservatives. They are not as physically fit or able as their grandparents were at the same age, and their power of imagination is weaker.

Can Learning Styles help? Certainly they can, particularly to combat the problem of sausage-factory education. Learning Styles cater to every child’s unique learning needs, showing parents and teachers how to bring out the best in every individual.

Learning Styles can also help parents choose appropriate pastime activities to replace the TV and computer games. By looking at the child’s strengths and flexibilities, parents are able to decide whether the child will benefit the most from building model aeroplanes, doing gymnastics, reading, listening to books on tape or socialising with friends.

To assess your child’s Learning Style, please have a look at http://www.creativelearningcentre.com/products/learning-style-analysis/.

Of course, no matter what the child’s Learning Style, they will benefit from outdoor exercise, healthy home-made food and time spent with their loved ones.

Bananas - a wonder food - a brain food

I know not to believe everything I read on the Internet, but recently I’ve come across information from various sources that bananas are good for you.

· They provide energy thanks to the three simple sugars they contain.
· They can prevent depression because of tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin.
· The vitamin B6 in bananas can regulate blood glucose levels and thus prevent mood swings and help the nervous system.
· The high levels of potassium in bananas makes it a perfect brain food.
· The potassium lowers your blood pressure too.
· Bananas can alleviate heartburn.
· They can help you quit smoking. The vitamin B in bananas, as well as the potassium and magnesium, all help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.

But the most interesting fact I discovered about bananas is that it is seen by some cultures as a cooling fruit, one that can help you cope with a hot environment. If you’re the type of person who works better in a cooler environment (to find out, click on http://www.creativelearningcentre.com/products/working-style-analysis/ and complete your WSA), eat a banana, then post a comment to this blog to let me know if you feel better.

Learning Styles - Help for Auditory and Mobile Learners

It may sound like science fiction, but if you’ve upgraded your computer within the last 3 years, chances are, you can talk to it and it can talk to you.

Instead of typing in the text, you can simply read or speak into the microphone, and the computer will turn your voice into text. And instead of reading, you can ask the computer to read out the text for you.

As you can imagine, this is outstanding news for learners who prefer to get their information through their ears (auditory learners) as opposed to through their eyes. It’s also good for people who enjoy talking more than they enjoy typing, or whose brain seems to freeze when they are faced with a blank sheet of paper on which to type or write.

Furthermore, it is not necessary to sit in front of the computer when using voice input (yay from all those with aching backs, those who like informal learning areas and those who need mobility when learning difficult concepts). Of course, you must be able to see the monitor to find out whether your words are correctly recognised, but apart from that, you can use voice input while standing, walking or lying down.

Are you an auditory learner? What learning area is optimal for you? Do you need to walk around while memorising new information? Visit us on http://www.creativelearningcentre.com/products/learning-style-analysis/ to find out.

A word of caution about talking computers, though: sometimes we tend to glorify computers and attribute human-like intelligence to them. Not surprisingly then, when it comes to voice input devices, we often have unrealistic expectations. We imagine that the computer will read our minds (“listen to what I think, not to what I say”). Unfortunately, we are still years away from the scenario of talking to our computers the way we would to a fellow human being, one with two ears and a well-trained human brain between them. Also, it may take a few weeks of reading pages of prescribed text to your computer, before it can recognise your particular accent and speech patterns.

You can find out whether your computer is capable of voice input by going to the Control Panel (from the Start menu). If you find a Speech icon, your computer is ready to go!