Childhood

Book Review: Dr. Jane Healy, A Theory of Brain Development and Learning in Your Childs Growing Mind

Your Childs Growing Mind is a classic book written by Dr. Healy about the fascinating process of brain development and learning. This work is hailed by parents and educators alike, as a contemporary and comprehensive overview of the development of a childs brain and its impact on a childs learning ability. In the book, Dr. Healy looks at the roots of intelligence, emotion and creativity by translating the latest scientific research on the neurobiology of brain development into practical suggestions for parents and teachers alike.

Throughout the book, Dr. Healy offers countless suggestions on how parents can help without pushing. She also explains the basic components of spelling, mathematics, reading and writing through the lens of brain development. She then goes on to show how to help young people of all ages develop attention, motivation, critical thinking and problem solving skills. The newest addition also incorporates a discussion about the various hot topics of todays educational world. Some of the topics that are discussed include ADHD, learning disabilities, the pros and cons of the electronic media, and the hazards of forced early learning.

For teachers and parents, Dr. Healy offers a wealth of practical information and advice, based on her research and experience as a learning specialist. Throughout the book she enumerates the best environment and incentives for teaching children at different developmental stages. For example, a baby needs lots of physical and sensory play at the first stage of development. His or her brain is not yet ready to engage in intellectual or conceptually-based learning, such as reading or mathematics.

In the introduction to her book, Dr. Healy explains why the revised version is highly relevant to todays contemporary, electronic world. She explains, The main elements of the revolution are twofold. They link the modern marvels of brain research with the power of instantly available information and knowledge.
For the first time, we now know how to store almost all the worlds most important information and make it available instantly, in almost any form, to almost anyone on earth, and to link everyone together in a global networked learning web. The seismic scope of this change forces us to completely rethink everything weve ever understood about learning, education, schooling, business, economics and government. She goes on to explain, In fact, schools can successfully introduce information technology only if they rethink the role of teaching and learning. If every student can retrieve knowledge when required, then the teachers main role is no longer that of a information-provider.

Dr. Healy refers to her learning model as the Learning Revolution. She endorses learning through developmentally-appropriate fun tasks. For example, in the Tahatai Coast Primary School in New Zealand, six-year-old students use computers to make CD-ROMs and plan their own school of the future. Other six-year-old students build Lego working models of their contemporary dream home. Students also use computers to activate the solar and wind powered units designed to make each house self-sufficient in their energy usage. Through the Learning Revolution model, Dr. Healy believes that if you create the right environment even previously unmotivated children explode into self-directed learning.