Don't start teaching too early

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Modern mums and dads begin to develop their babies literally from the cradle. And they are completely sure that they are doing everything right. But it turns out that this is not so important. It is much more important to make good use of the resources that we have.

Psycholinguist, neurobiologist, professor at St. Petersburg State University Tatyana Vladimirovna Chernigovskaya in her lecture "How to teach the brain to learn" talks about why boys and girls need to be taught differently and about secrets that will make the learning process easier and clearer.

It is very important for children to start learning on time. The main misfortune of a modern child is vain parents. When they say to me: "I began to teach my son to read at two years old," I answer: "What a fool!" Why is this needed? At two years old he still cannot do this. His brain is not ready for this. If you train him, he will, of course, read and maybe even write, but you and I have a different task.

In general, children have a huge variation in the rate of development. There is such a term - "the age of school maturity." It is defined as follows: one child is 7 years old and the other is also 7 years old, but one goes to school because his brain is ready for this, and the second one needs to play for another year and a half at home with a bear and only then sit down at the desk.

According to official figures, more than 40% of our children have difficulty reading and writing after graduating from primary school. And even in the 7th grade there are those who read poorly. In these children, all the cognitive power of the brain is spent wading through the letters. Therefore, even if he reads the text, he did not have enough strength to understand the meaning of his strength, and any question on the topic would put him at a standstill.

Develop fine motor skills

We are facing a very difficult task: we are at the interface between a person who wrote from prescriptions and read ordinary books, and a person who reads hypertext, cannot write at all, deals with icons and does not even type texts. It is important to understand that this is a different person and he has a different brain. As adults, we love this other brain, and we are sure that there is no danger in it. And she is. If a small child, having come to school, does not learn to write, getting used to the small filigree movements of the pen, if in kindergarten he does not sculpt anything, does not cut with scissors, does not touch beads, then his fine motor skills are not developed. And this is exactly what affects speech functions. If you do not develop fine motor skills in your child, then do not complain later that his brain is not working.

Listen to music and teach children to do it

Modern neurosciences are actively studying the brain at a time when it is affected by music. And we now know that when music is involved in human development at an early age, it greatly affects the structure and quality of the neural network. When we perceive speech, very complex physical signal processing occurs. Decibels, intervals hit in our ear, but it's all physics. The ear listens, but the brain hears. When a child learns music, he gets used to paying attention to small details, distinguishing sounds and durations among themselves. And it is at this time that a fine cut of the neural network is formed.

Don't let your brain get lazy

Not all people on our planet are brilliant. And if a child has bad genes, then nothing can be done about it. But even if the genes are good, this is still not enough. Grandma may have gotten a great Steinway grand piano, but you have to learn to play it. In the same way, a child can get a wonderful brain, but if it does not develop, form, limit itself, adjust - it’s an empty matter, it will die. The brain goes sour if it is not cognitively loaded. If you lie down on the sofa and lie there for six months, then you will not be able to get up. And exactly the same thing happens to the brain.

I think any person understands that if Shakespeare, Mozart, Pushkin, Brodsky and other outstanding artists tried to pass the Unified State Exam, they would have failed. And the IQ test would have failed. What does this mean? Only that the IQ test is worthless, because no one doubts Mozart's genius, except for the crazy.

Do not sharpen children only under the exam

There is such a caricature, it depicts animals that have to climb a tree: a monkey, a fish and an elephant. Different creatures, some of which, in principle, cannot climb a tree, however, this is exactly what the modern education system offers us in the form of an object of our special pride, the Unified State Exam.

I think this is a very big harm. If, of course, we want to prepare for life the people who will work on the assembly line, then this is certainly a suitable system. But then we must say: that's it, we are putting an end to the development of our civilization. We will hold Venice for as long as possible so that it does not drown, but we don’t need a new one, there will be enough masterpieces, there is nowhere to put them. But if we want to educate creators, then this system is the worst that could be thought of.

Teach Boys and Girls Differently

Talk to boys in a short and specific way. For maximum effect, they must be involved in vigorous activity, they simply cannot sit still. They have so much energy that it is best to try to channel it into a peaceful channel, to give it a way out, and right during classes. Don't lock them in a small confined space, give them room and room to move. In addition, boys need to set more real tasks, come up with competitions, and give less boring written tasks, they are useless. And they definitely need to be praised for any little thing. And here's another interesting fact: it turns out that boys should be brought up in cooler rooms than girls, because otherwise they will simply fall asleep during class.

Girls love to work in a group, they need contact. They look each other in the eye and love to help the teacher. This is very important: girls should not be protected from falls and pollution, they should be at “controlled risk”. There is an opportunity for her to fall, let her fall and learn to cope with it.

Girls really do not like harsh loud conversations, but they require an indispensable emotional inclusion, and they also love the colored world, that is, the class for girls should be bright.

An attentive individual approach can turn a poor student into an excellent student. Not all Losers are truly Losers, some of them are Leonardo Da Vinci, who perished forever thanks to the brilliant efforts of their teachers.

Take breaks

It is usually believed that if in the process of learning a child forgot something - this is bad, distracted - bad, took a break - too bad, and if he fell asleep - generally a nightmare. This is all not true. All these breaks are not just not hindrances for memorizing material and processing information, but, on the contrary, help. They enable the brain to put, assimilate the information received. The best thing we can do if we need to learn something urgently right by tomorrow is to read it right now and go to bed quickly. The main work of the brain occurs while we sleep.

In order for information to enter long-term memory, it takes time and certain chemical processes that occur just in a dream.

Constant stress from the fact that you did not have time to do something, something did not work out, again mistakes, nothing comes of it - this is the worst thing that you can do to yourself. You cannot be afraid of mistakes. To make it easier to study, you need to realize that learning is always going on, and not just at the desk. If a person just sits at his desk and pretends that he is studying, nothing useful will come of it.