EDUCATION
Developing a positive attitude towards learning By Gail Hugman No matter how skilled or knowledgeable a person might be, their attitude may well be the deciding factor in their future success, both personal and professional. The second a child is born, its brain, with roughly eighty six billion neurons or nerve cells, ‘hits the ground running’ making connections through senses and experience.
going to be far more effective and therefore, higher achieving than their peers who are simply ‘going Everything a young child does, feels, through the motions’ of learning. hears and sees creates pathways between these nerve cells, building The child who loves practising the a reference bank of experience. In guitar is going to progress more the first three years, the connections quickly than the child who battles the brain makes have risen to with you or resents practising! one thousand trillion. This is an automatic process. Ninety percent The reason for this is that as we of brain development is complete by grow, the brain takes its lead from the time a child is 5 years old. what we do repeatedly. Where we make a conscious decision to put Although there is a default setting effort is where the brain will focus for the brain to function whether connections. we engage or not, when it comes to learning, children who are actively Children who enjoy what they’re engaged in the learning process are doing, who love learning, who have a positive attitude, actively engage. Active engagement creates the signal for the connections the brain makes to be ‘cemented’ in myelin, a coating of fat and protein which make it ‘automatic.’ This is how learning is assimilated and habits are created. Continued on page 7 Familiesonline.co.uk
March/April 5