The Impact of Stress on Learning
We're living in stressful times. Whether we're aware of it or not, stress affects learning.
According to current research, stress can block chemical reactions in the brain that can disrupt learning and short/long term memory development, forcing the brain to revert back to it's more primitive survival needs.
Ideally, learning should be creative, open, and fun! To foster this, we must minimize stressful situations for our children. The challenge for parents is to make sure that their children's educational setting and teachers are using a teaching and classroom style that reduces levels of the stress hormone (cortisol) and increases levels of the "happy" hormone (DHA).
How will parents know? Simple. They'll observe how their children) are responding to their educational environment. Are they content, happy, healthy, and having fun? Or are they expressing negative feeling and behaviors as a result of their time in the educational setting?
What are their words and behaviors telling you? Do they want to be in school? Or are you battling with them to go to school?
At Brock's, we believe that learning should be free from negative, cortisol-producing stress. Our intention is to provide the very best in creative instructional practices and curriculum resulting in the production of "happy" stress hormones for each student.
Research also tells us that happy learning results in long-term memory development, or in other words, students who will remember what they've learned for years to come. How many of you remember all the details of the content you were taught when you were in school?
One final word of advice, take each one of your children individually when evaluating their needs. No two learners are ever the same. What might be a negative stress-producing educational setting for one child might be totally different for another, even when they are from the same family. As a parent and educator, I believe it is our job to "assure" each student's future for happy, healthy learning. We do this by making sure they're in the right learning environment where who they are is honored, respected, yet challenged to discover their full potential.
Dr. Melodee Loshbaugh
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