What?
Dr. Ratey has and is continuing to study the relationship between exercise and the brain. His most recent book Spark addresses how exercise can help people regulate mood, deal with stress, help your brain learn better and remember more. He has found connections to and evidence of how exercise is a necessary part of human existance and where our society is deficient in addressing this topic and ways that we can be better.
So, What?
One area that he really emphasizes is how making exercise part of the learning process will improve students' ability to learn and retain information. There were several articles from various places across the country about schools that were implementing programs to address the students need for physical activity. The reports were wonderful about how it helped to focus students, kept them on task longer, and reduced behavioural problems.
Now What?
I am excited to look more into this topic. I think that helping students get the most out of their education is a key role that teachers play and I am open to exploring more ways to do that. I know that I get tired of sittinig in classrooms all day. It is very difficult to pay attention for long periods of time and I think that learning is degraded the longer it goes on without breaks or other activity. I plan to incorporate some of the strategies that were talked about on Dr. Ratey's website and also to be an advocate for physical education and the importance of keepinhg students moving.
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