I ran across this article in Time magazine about how kids with ADHD can learn better when they fidget and move around. And it’s true! ADHD children like to move when they learn and so do many “regular” people.
In fact, all of us moved a lot when we were starting to learn. In the early years of life – birth through age 7 – we developed the cerebellum of our brain through movement. We rocked, twirled, crawled, ran, jumped, spun and found ourselves in almost constant movement during the early years of our lives. All this movement served an important purpose – it developed the connections in the cerebellum that would become the foundation for our learning, attention and behavior for the rest or our lives.
With enough of the right movement, the cerebellum is set to go on “autopilot” around age seven and the left and right hemispheres can take their growth spurt. When we have not developed enough connections in the cerebellum, it is more difficult for the brain to process the information we receive in the classroom. Movement helps us by giving the cerebellum more input when we are trying to learn.
If you were a fidgety kid, most likely you will be a fidgety adult. Chances are you have a nice slow brain wave. Chances are that parts of your brain are firing 4 to 8 times per second, while “regular” people have a firing of 15 to 18 times per second in those parts. People with brain waves of 15 to 18 times per second can get lots of routine tasks done easily every day.
People with slow brain waves are extremely creative. They are thinking of the possibilities and what they could do. Often, they have difficulty doing all of the routine and boring tasks necessary to get their big ideas to happen.
When they take stimulants their brain speeds up into the 15 to 18 range and they are able to do the routine tasks more easily – at least while the stimulant is in their system.
Movement and stimulants help lots of people with nice slow brain waves accomplish the routine tasks that most people find easy to do.
But, it is the nice slow brain wave that facilitates the creative insights and great ideas that lead to new discoveries. People with slow brain waves dream up the next new ideas.
John Lennon sang, “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one”…indeed, approximately 10% of the population are “dreamers”.
This ten percent of people make the nice slow brain waves. They dream up the new advances that carry invention and creativity forward, as they wiggle and squirm to get their brain focused on the tasks they need to accomplish to carry out the dream.
Imagine if Thomas Edison were made to sit still. We would not have the electric light and many other amazing advances that have carried forward generations of discoveries. Leonardo da Vinci lamented that his life was a failure because he failed to carry out most of what he started.
How many highly creative people feel this same way. It is easy for the “dreamers” to feel they can’t keep up with the 90% of the population that can easily accomplish all of the routine tasks that need to be done.
During the early years of school, almost all of the tasks are routine. Learning the math facts and the sounds of letters are all very specific, routine kinds of tasks.
Creative people have more difficulty doing boring, routine kinds of tasks. When they move their bodies, they engage their cerebellum so the higher centers of their brain – where the creativity emerges – can do their job.
Wiggly, fidgety children are doing their best to pay attention to and learn the routine information that will give them the important basic learning skills so they can put their creativity to its best use.
