A blessing for your day.

There's a beautiful Native American greeting, and I believe it is from the Apache tribe elders.

May the sun
~bring you new energy by day.
May the moon
~restore you by night.
May the rain
~wash away your worries.
May the breeze
~blow new strength into your being.
May you walk
~gently through the world and know its beauty all the days of your life.

I thought that I would post this kind blessing to everyone who visits this blog.

It seems that the summer months were full of e-mails and calls from parents who are just trying to balance everything on their plate and needed someone to say: "Everything is going to be okay."

And, if you didn't hear that yet...

Everything is going to be okay.

As parents, our lives can be so busy. We think about what our children are eating. What they're wearing. What they're learning. How they are integrating with their environment, their teachers and their peers.

Are they loving and kind? Are they happy? Are they healthy? Are they clean? Are they safe?

We are on constant watch.

But that mindset can sometimes take us out of just being in the moment with our children. With ourselves.

So, if your intuition brought you to this page today, take a moment. Take a deep breath. Think of your children in their highest, happiest, most positive state--hugging you, laughing with you, playing with you.

Savor that.

And...

May your children
~remind you of the beauty and loveliness of your own being.

__________________________________________________________
Please note: The above picture of the Zinnia was taken from this site.

Did you know?
As a flower essence, Zinnia enhances one’s ability to rediscover the child-like qualities of playfulness, joy, delight, unconditional love, and a spirit of lighthearted innocence and adventure.

Healing the Right Brain

I had it on my heart to share a story with you today.

Bradley, a 7-year-old boy, sat down for a right brain lesson. After Alpha Relaxation, we started to play a Wink Eye Exercise game. As his eyes ran across the eye exercise card, he began to grow angry. "I don't like this!" he cried.

"That's okay, Bradley." I said as I gently removed the card from his hands. "What do you want to play instead?"

"I want to play with these..." he murmured as he reached toward the policemen figurines. They were colored in blue, red and yellow for Observation Training play. But before we could get to the game, he began to fight with them—pretending that they were at war. He voiced anger from one man to another. I let him play it out for a little bit, and then I picked up one of the figurines.

"Hello, Bradley," the small policeman bellowed as he looked lifesize Bradley squarely in the eyes. "Tell me, why are you so sad?"

Bradley's eyes began to water as he told the policeman about a schoolyard bully who called him a girl at recess. The other children followed his lead, laughing and teasing him.

The little policeman patiently listened while Bradley's mother, who sat behind him, covered her mouth in a gasp.

Bradley continued to explain about how he felt when he was humiliated. Slowly, slowly, the anger began to subside.

"Bradley," the policeman finally spoke up. "I'd like to shake your hand." Bradley reached for his teeny-tiny hand and shook it.

"You were very brave," explained the policeman.

"Okay," sniffled Bradley.

"And I think that your mom wants to give you a hug," he continued.

Bradley turned to face his mother and they shared a tearful hug. The rest of the lesson was dedicated to their embrace because as soon as he was inside her arms, he just completely let go and cried.

The next lesson, Bradley was back to his cheerful self. The school yard issue had worked itself out and he was happy once again.

The right brain is all about memory and emotion. Everyday negative experiences greatly impact learning.

Love is so key.

So, what happens when a child, or a parent, has experienced trauma?

The right brain shuts down.

The limbic system—our natural defense system valiantly guarding our most vulnerable self—quickly limits access to our creative intuitive mind until things are safe and/or loving once again.

One very effective way to treat the little hurts that come our way is through talking each day. But another way is to release negative memories through a form of acupressure called EFT, or Emotional Freedom Technique. It is quick, easy to learn and easy to use in any situation—large or small.

As EFT founder, Gary Craig, shared in a recent article:

"The basic idea is simple. Every night, while children are being tucked into bed, parents should ask...

"Can you tell me about your good and bad thoughts as well as the good and bad things that happened to you today?"

Then, as the events are being told (both good and bad), the parents should lightly and lovingly either tap or gently rub the EFT points.

(You can read more of his article, entitled A "must" EFT procedure for children here.)

To download a free manual to learn EFT for yourself, your family or classroom, please go to: www.emofree.com/.)

Please Note: Right Brain Kids does not have an affiliate relationship with this site, or profit from referrals in any way. We just really, really, love this technique. We want to see all obstacles to right brain development cleared so that you and your child's potential can fully blossom and shine!

You, Me and the Honeybee...

This article came across my desk today:

Memory in honeybees: What the right and left antenna tell the left and right brain from PhysOrg.com

It is widely known that the right and left hemispheres of the brain perform different tasks. Lesions to the left hemisphere typically bring impairments in language production and comprehension, while lesions to the right hemisphere give rise to deficits in the visual-spatial perception, such as the inability to recognize familiar faces.

[...]

I think this is so fascinating!

As our friends in the scientific community delve more into brain research, we may find out more about ourselves through the investigation of other life species.

Truly, we are One.


(Photo courtesy of Jon Sullivan at http://www.pdphoto.org)

If The Right Brain Could Talk...

...it would sound a lot like Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor.

She has firsthand knowledge of the splendor, the peace, the bliss of the right brain state of mind.

You see, one terrible day, Dr. Taylor, a 37-year-old Harvard neuroscientist, had a debilitating stroke. Afterward, she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life. Over the next six years, because of her understanding of how the brain works, her respect for the cells composing her human form, and an amazingly strong, loving and patient mother, Jill completely recovered. (Hooray for Jill's mother and all mothers who never give up!)

And now she has something very special to share.

In Jill's book My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey, she beautifully outlines the insight she gained into the unique functions of the right and left halves of her brain.

From her web site (http://www.drjilltaylor.com):

"Having lost the categorizing, organizing, describing, judging and critically analyzing skills of her left brain, along with its language centers and thus ego center, Jill’s consciousness shifted away from normal reality. In the absence of her left brain’s neural circuitry, her consciousness shifted into present moment thinking whereby she experienced herself 'at one with the universe.'"

This "oneness" is the innocent child-like state that the right brain calls home. It is precious. It thrives on love. And it can remain a reality for all children growing up into adulthood as long as we continue to pay attention to how we treat them, how we speak to them, how we care and tend to their needs.

That "right brain state of awareness" is where true wisdom exists.

If you know me, you know that right brain learning is not all about speed reading and photographic memory--it is almost an after-thought once the right brain is wide open and able to express itself. But through left-brain cultural habits, we measure it, we push for it, and then we lose the prize.

But if you place love and kindness as your first priority, then all else will follow. And it will do more than just helping your child ace his (her) math exams. He (she) could change the world through love.

Jill teaches us through her own example how we might more readily exercise our own right hemispheric circuitry with the intention of helping all human beings become more humane.

She shares:

“I believe the more time we spend running our deep inner peace circuitry, then the more peace we will project into the world, and ultimately the more peace we will have on the planet.”

Albert Einstein once said, "I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be."

Jill certainly did.

We are so inspired by her courage and the gift she has been able to give us through her personal journey of healing.

Your right brain is speaking...are you listening?


To learn more about Dr. Jill and her personal journey, please visit:

(1) Dr. Jill's website: http://www.drjilltaylor.com
(2) Oprah's web site (Jill's 4-part interview will be aired through May this month!)
(3) Dr. Jill's incredible presentation at TED http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

...

On a personal note, we would like to thank Dr. Jill for permission to use her photographs in this blog. Her encouraging words put wind in our sails!

Right Brain Education in America

Many of our Right Brain students and customers hail from around the world, so I won't take too much of your time pulling you into American politics. But because education is a major issue in the election, Right Brain Education seems to be popping up as a possible solution to making education more effective for every type of learner.

The US "No Child Left Behind" government policy has, sadly, left many children (and frustrated teachers) down. Politicians meet everyday American families, teachers and children from state to state. They inevitably see and hear the effects of this policy and have to address it.

Enter, the right brain.

"Education is only a true education if we're developing both the left and right brain of the student," says Mike Huckabee (former Arkansas governor) when addressing education during a live teleconference. "The left brain is great for math and science and all the logical forms of education, but knowing what to do with what a student has learned is as important as what they've learned. Music and art, teaching the stimulation of the creative side, is absolutely critical to a total well-rounded education.

"Music students do 20 points better on SAT scores than nonmusic students. They learn foreign languages better," the former governor and presidential candidate said. "Take a room of 5-year-olds and give them a piece of paper and crayon and every one of them draws a picture. … When he's 15 that kid won't draw the picture or sing the song. Somehow the education system beat out of him or her the creativity that was innate in that student."

What Mr. Huckabee did not say is that when the right brain is FULLY utilized, children benefit from speed learning using their creative, photographic mind to scan information much faster and more joyfully than when it's continually repeated through left-brain drills.

An educational system infused with right brain techniques will truly leave no child left behind--and, as Reverend Jeremiah Wright rightly addressed in his NACCP address last night: it can close the gap on inequality in education as a whole.

Please read this excerpt from his speech.

"Dr. Hale showed us that in comparing African-American children and European-American children in the field of education, we were comparing apples and rocks.

"And in so doing, we kept coming up with meaningless labels like EMH, educable mentally handicapped, TMH, trainable mentally handicapped, ADD, attention deficit disorder.

"And we were coming up with more meaningless solutions like reading, writing and Ritalin. Dr. Hale's research led her to stop comparing African-American children with European-American children and she started comparing the pedagogical methodologies of African-American children to African children and European-American children to European children. And bingo, she discovered that the two different worlds have two different ways of learning. European and European-American children have a left brained cognitive object oriented learning style and the entire educational learning system in the United States of America. Back in the early '70s, when Dr. Hale did her research was based on left brained cognitive object oriented learning style. Let me help you with fifty cent words.

"Left brain is logical and analytical. Object oriented means the student learns from an object. From the solitude of the cradle with objects being hung over his or her head to help them determine colors and shape to the solitude in a carol in a PhD program stuffed off somewhere in a corner in absolute quietness to absorb from the object. From a block to a book, an object. That is one way of learning, but it is only one way of learning.

"African and African-American children have a different way of learning.

"They are right brained, subject oriented in their learning style. Right brain that means creative and intuitive. Subject oriented means they learn from a subject, not an object. They learn from a person. Some of you are old enough, I see your hair color, to remember when the NAACP won that tremendous desegregation case back in 1954 and when the schools were desegregated. They were never integrated. When they were desegregated in Philadelphia, several of the white teachers in my school freaked out. Why? Because black kids wouldn't stay in their place. Over there behind the desk, black kids climbed up all on them.

"Because they learn from a subject, not from an object. Tell me a story. They have a different way of learning. Those same children who have difficulty reading from an object and who are labeled EMH, DMH and ADD. Those children can say every word from every song on every hip hop radio station half of who's words the average adult here tonight cannot understand. Why? Because they come from a right-brained creative oral culture like the (greos) in Africa who can go for two or three days as oral repositories of a people's history and like the oral tradition which passed down the first five book in our Jewish bible, our Christian Bible, our Hebrew bible long before there was a written Hebrew script or alphabet. And repeat incredulously long passages like Psalm 119 using mnemonic devices using eight line stanzas. Each stanza starting with a different letter of the alphabet. That is a different way of learning. It's not deficient, it is just different. Somebody say different. I believe that a change is going to come because many of us are committed to changing how we see other people who are different."

Bravo, Reverend Wright. Bravo, Mike Huckabee.

Children desperately need a new way to learn.

Let's lead the way!

---

Secret Huckabee Turns Out To Be Clintonesque
By JOSH GERSTEIN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
January 3, 2008
http://www2.nysun.com/article/68832

Transcript of Jeremiah Wright's speech to NAACP
Given April 27, 2008
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/28/wright.transcript/

Einstein DID Use Flashcards

Every once in a while I come across this book in a store or while browsing on-line.

Have you seen it?

It's called: "Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn--and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less." It was written by a team of fellow-female authors: Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, and Diane Eyer.

Now, you may think that because Right Brain Education for little ones includes the technique of flashcards, that I would begin bashing this book. But, (1) I try not to bash and (2) I actually agree with a lot of what they've written.

ABOUT FLASHCARDS

I agree that you need to play more and memorize less.

Traditional approaches to flashcards involve a lot of lessons throughout the day. If you've done this (I did!) then you soon discover how little time and energy you have left for other things... like enjoying your child and playfully just experiencing life together throughout the day.

I once worked at a Montessori school that used flashcards in their 0-3 program. After presenting educational cards regularly 2-3 times per day, with much updating from showing to showing, we stressed both children and the teachers alike. And the emotional climate in the nurseries was unhappy, to be polite. We soon learned that while we were seeing results with some children, there was such a thing as "over-stimulation" and we stepped back to re-evaluate what could be done.

The result was a gentler, kinder program where teachers checked out 15 sets of cards (or so) per week instead of updating and reorganizing that plan every day. So, no fancy schedule--just straight forward: 150 cards per week. We also presented the cards once a day, in the morning during "circle time."

To our surprise and great delight, instead of compromising results (as was feared according to what we had read), results were stronger and more consistent from child to child, classroom to classroom. Babies remembered using the joyful right side of the brain--not the repetitive, more conscious, left side of the brain.

IN SHORT: in less than 10 minutes a day, we could boost learning and increase time for free play and one-on-one bonding with the children. Memorization this way is unconscious fun, not conscious stress.

ABOUT EINSTEIN

But, I do not agree with the idea that: Einstein Never Used Flaschards. Because I believe that he did and it's what led to his brilliant discoveries later in life.

You see, when Albert Einstein was only one, in 1880, his family moved to Munich, where his father and his uncle founded a company, Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie. (This company manufactured electrical equipment, providing the first lighting for the Oktoberfest and cabling for the Munich suburb of Schwabing.) According to Einstein's mother, for as long as she could remember Albert would spend hours upon hours in his father's office looking through technical periodicals and magazines. He waited for the mail each day in order to be the first to devour the newest editions.

Each booklet, each leaflet, and every bit of information he heard bantered back and forth from uncle to father were recorded as pictoral or auditory images--much like flashcards.

THE REAL BABY EINSTEIN

At the same time, little Albert's speech was seriously delayed. Some reports say that he could not speak coherently until age 9. While some believe that he was "developmentally delayed" to this point, our theory is that the left hemisphere (responsible for speech) was not yet effectively connected.

According to our theories, that put him in an absorbent "right brain state" for nine long years. In this state he was absorbing thousands of information bytes per second without the filter of the logical left. We would use this pre-language state as an opportunity to input as much information as possible.

You see, we focus upon flashcards during the first years of life while the right brain is wide open for input. We give flashcards and other types of visual, auditory and tactile information to a child before the left brain--the more conscious side which filters information--begins to develop. When we do, the child's mind creates a mental library that is immense. The connections made within the brain at that point determine the future learning capacity of the child.

And it's not what is consciously remembered.

It's the number of CONNECTIONS that have been made within the brain using data received during that key time of life.

Imagine.

Einstein was in the key absorbent time of life for NINE YEARS.

...and during that time he was exposed to the very latest in technological thought.

So, why are we so surprised that his many contributions to physics include:
- special theory of relativity (mechanics and electromagnetism)
- general theory of relativity (extended the principle of relativity)
- relativistic cosmology
- capillary action
- critical opalescence
- classical problems of statistical mechanics and their application to quantum theory
- an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules
- atomic transition probabilities
- the quantum theory of a monatomic gas
- thermal properties of light with low radiation density
- a theory of radiation including stimulated emission
- the conception of a unified field theory
- the geometrization of physics

If you were going to design a flashcard program for a future physics genius, what would YOU use?

It couldn't have been more perfectly designed.

NEW! Right Brain-Left Brain Research

A team of scientists from UCL have just published additional information about how the right and left brains differ--at the cellular level.

As many of you know, Right Brain Education is based upon the belief that each hemisphere is responsible for a different type of mental processing--and that only the left-brain is used widely in the schools of today.

Left side of the brain = analytical thought (linear, logical, methodical)
Right side of the brain = creative thought (intuition, inspiration, photo-memory)

Right Brain Education teaches how to involve the dormant right brain into any academic program and setting. But in order to do so, solid scientific research must back what we've seen for years in the classroom.

Research released to the public on Monday, explains for the first time how neurons are hard wired DIFFERENTLY in each hemisphere.

It's very exciting!

Read more: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-03/bc-nhw032708.php
---

SOURCE: Brain asymmetry is encoded at the level of axon terminal morphology
Isaac H Bianco, Matthias Carl, Claire Russell, Jonathan DW Clarke and Stephen W Wilson
Neural Development
http://www.neuraldevelopment.com/

Right Brain Kids...a right brain business.

I know, I know. The word "business" oftentimes seems synonymous with cut-throat, impersonal sales techniques.

But Right Brain Kids is different.

Right Brain Kids began over ten years ago as a circle of parents and teachers. We're not businesspeople. We are a collection of people looking for a wholesome, loving, accelerated learning solution for children of every age.

Right Brain Education

You see, during the 80's and 90's, we discovered something very special. Years of blending different educational curricula in an eclectic Montessori school yielded an approach to learning called Right Brain Education (RBE).

• early reading and writing
  
• early, solid grasp of math
• loving communication and social skills
• three-dimensional visualization
• photographic memory
• perfect pitch
• love of learning
  
• accelerated creativity in art, music and science
• self-esteem and confidence
  

Sadly, the school closed in 1997. However, we were determined as a group to make sure that this method continued to thrive. And it has. We created many businesses--Oatmeal Angels, The Soul Learning Company, and now Right Brain kids--to teach, train and develop as many materials as possible to meet the growing needs of other families and schools who want to implement RBE in classrooms and homes across the globe.

Right Brain Kids--a right brain business in a left-brain business world.

At Right Brain Kids, we strive to have a business/learning center that is creative, flexible, and fun! And because we are a small collection of family-based businesses, we can do what larger corporations cannot: we still have the ability to listen to and meet your individual needs. Students and customers are like family here.

Join the fun!