Shedding a Light on Brain Development





Did you know that brain grows at a phenomenal rate from pre-birth to age 12?  It never develops at such a fast rate any other time in a person's life. Physically, you see the results of this growth as a fetus grows inside the womb and an infant learns to suckle, babble, walk and talk.

Scientifically during pregnancy,  a quarter million neurons connections are being made and by age three, a child has over a thousand trillion more neural connections!

This scientific information on brain growth sheds a new light on the importance of early childhood education. It actually shines a giant spotlight on the elementary years, which typically spans ages 4 - 12.

The "rockets red glare" fact based on brain research is that girls peak with full brain growth an average of 2 to 3 years before boys. Girls reach this peak growth period on average between 10 - 11 years of age and boys reach the same peak growth at 13- 14 years of age.

"The bombs bursting in air" or wake up call is that after this peak growth, although the brain continues to develop into the early twenties, a pruning process is also going on at the same time. Neural pathways of the brain that were developed in the early years but have not been used get pruned away. This pruning process begins slowly but then continues on through out a person's life, which becomes sadly evident beginning in our mid 40's when we can't seem to remember where we put our phone or keys and it only progresses in the area of forgetfulness in the latter years. It also shows why learning a foreign language is easier for a younger child than a teenager or adult.

The facts listed above, based on recent brain research, support why Huakailani focuses specializes in the elementary years in a all-girls setting.

There are no structural differences between the female and male brain but there are developmental differences in the sequence in which the brain develops.Take a look at the MRI time lapsed video clip posted here on the blog that shows the similarities and differences of a male and female brain from age  10 to 20. You can see how the growth, in girls and boys,  is very different early in a person's life and then becomes very similar later on.

The more I read and learn about the brain the more I am intrigued by it's complexities and growth patterns, especially how it relates to young children and how they grow cognitively because that is my job, "Growing Dendrites".

I still have much to learn on the topic because brain research is a very "brainy" field and researchers have only reached the tip of the iceberg with uncovering the mysteries of the brain, how it works and develops. New discoveries of the brain are still frequently being unlocked each year.

As "dendrite farmer", my job is to keep up to date on how to maximize the cognitive development of children. Brain research is my almanac. I would love to share what I have learned so far in my journey.

If you would like to learn more about this, please sign up for the upcoming "Are Girls' and Boys' Brains Different?" presentation.

By learning about the brain,  maybe we can prevent a few of our dendrites from getting pruned for a few years longer in our brains.






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What is the "cattiness" level in an all girls classroom?

A classroom of all girls? Anyone who has daughters or is a teacher has experienced "girl cattiness."

Girl cattiness = A lot of "me me me" and at the same time "it's not fair," and "everything must be the same" yet they know that there are differences, "she looked at me mean", "she talked to me in a mean way" ....

The sweetest girls can sometimes get caught saying the nastiest and sassiest things to each other when so and so is not their best friend any more!

So I get asked often doesn't the all-girl environment just ask for a elevated "cattiness" all day long?

At first I was not so sure what would happen because as a teacher I had my fair share of this cattiness amongst my female students in coed classroom. This was my first time teaching in a single gender classroom and was not completely sure how it would be with "girls only."

What I have experienced with my all-girl multiage class is wonderful! The key is the multiage... the girls are balanced out in the different stages/phases they are in. For example, a group of 10 second grade girls in the same classroom all aged 7-8 are all basically in the same stages - what aggravates or frustrates one second grader socially - frustrates the others. The result - Cat Fights!

In our multiage classroom, the ages and stages are dispersed from age 5 - 12. The result, a peaceful, calm harmonious group of girls. With most of the any minor issues occuring amongst girls in the same grade level. Interesting! The younger and older girls all help and support each other and that keeps good manners in check and bad manners out.

We have Friendship Circle twice a week where we talk about conflict resolution (how to productively resolve problems and conflicts with others) and have lessons on topics such as "manners" and " how to share" and basic social skills. Learning how to get along with others and to solve problems is just as important to learning how to read and to do math. That is why I incorporate these lessons into the Huakailani program. Social skills and socialization is so much more important to girls than boys. Girls need to talk and share their feelings. Our environment supports that need.

They all still get along great 95% of the time and you won't find that in any other classroom setting so I am fortunate for that. Lucky me! Each student although different in shape and size fits perfectly into the Huakailani Girl puzzle.

On the other side of the coin - some of you may say "Well - that's not the real world" but there is plenty of time for them to learn to deal with "the real world" later on. Kids have to grow up way too fast these days. This is elementary school and we should support our kids to be kids.

My job is to give them the skills they will need to be able to cope with and to deal with the issues and conflicts that life may present as they grow up. We do just that.