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- ON
EDUCATION
- EDUCATION COLUMN-2
- Beginning at the Beginning
- By:John S. Davis
- The UMJ Volume 3.5
- EDUCATION COLUMN-2
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Until about thirty years ago, the only brains that could be studied were dead ones, and what do dead ones do?--just lie there like a rock. The times have changed. Now we have PET scans, which film the flow of glucose in the brain and therefore precisely where the brain activity is taking place, EEGs which measure the different kinds of brain waves (alpha, beta, delta, and theta), and MCR's which identify the flow of oxygen. And we have astonishing facts. For example, the brain has no nerve cells for pain. Therefore, it can be stimulated and/or operated on when the skull has been opened while its owner is wide awake! And the neurons in the brain--we are born with are the ones we will die with--they do not die and get replaced every 20 some days or so, as do most of our body cells. Other incredible facts: 1) Children prior to the age of 12 use about 225% more glucose in their brains than adults-no wonder our kids are all geniuses! They are making as many as 12,000 connections per second. 2) An adult has as many as one quadrillion connections in their brain, the longest of which are 2 or 3 feet long. Do you have any idea how big one quadrillion is? If you were to count to it, 1..2..3...etc., it would take you fifteen million years to get there. 3) The brain neurons seem to have designated functions from birth in all of the human species. When it comes to language, there are separate cells for seeing words, hearing words, interpreting words, saying words, etc. 4) Memory is not like a video. It is a reconstruction of all of the related connections, every time one tries to remember something. 5) The same cells are designated for seeing and visual thinking (imagining). Hence the possible confusion of what one has seen with what one has imagined or been instructed to imagine, reducing the reliability of episodic memory. 6) The brain capacity of any individual is unlimited. Young children could probably learn as many as 5 languages quite easily if they had the environment for it. However, beyond the age of 10 or so, brain cells are subject to atrophy if they are not used, the more so the older one gets. 7) Children learn naturally and with joy if their learning has not been inhibited by violence and abuse. I may be reached by e-mail at johnsdavis@hotmail.com or by snail mail c/o Head Office, United for a Multicultural Japan.
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