lizzzyyy051

This post is a nod to my friend and mentor Karen Boyes who I remember talking about the comfort and learning zones at a conference a long time ago... I loved the concept and intend to share this with our class this term as we continue to learn about our brilliant brains.  I recently shared a post about considering the brain with behaviour management and shared some tools I have used to help explain the brain to the children I have worked with. Using Glenn Capelli's magic brain model to help describe behaviour has been effective and so using the same model I intend to focus on learning with the brain in mind (see below)... it could be said we are able to learn our best when we are in the Learning Zone which in the model below is in the blue thinking room.   Here is a little reminder of Glenn's Magic Brain model:  The blue thinking room- where we have heaps of choices and this is where heaps of our learning happens  The glitter room of emotions (Glenn talks about th...

Last week I attended a course hosted by Compass Seminars entitled Distressed or Deliberately Defiant. Dr Judith Howard presented from a research, neurobiological and personal perspective which was powerful and at times profound. Her book covers the content of the seminar and although I am going to share some of what I learned from Judith here, if you are interested I would recommend reading her book to get the big picture.  The focus was on children who have suffered significant, chronic trauma that has caused neurological pathway differences due to an interruption in normal attachment development (WOW that was a huge mouthful!)  Initially we looked at neurobiology and attachment theory so there was a basis for the discussion that followed. This was recommended as the approach we were to take if sharing with colleagues which I agree with completely, if we don't know what we are dealing with then we will struggle with implementation. The basics of this fit well with the magic b...