01-04-2014, 10:34 AM
Accelerated Learning
Introduction
A quiet revolution is gathering momentum in the way we learn. In the last decade or so psychologists
have begun to discover more of how the brain really works and how facts can be rapidly and deeply fixed
in the memory. It's on these discoveries that Accelerated Learning is based.
Historically, most teaching has been undertaken by those who were the best at the subject - the person
who was "best at French", became the French teacher. But that person was not necessarily the most
skilled at the principles of teaching. You employ an architect to design your house, because his speciality
is the principle of construction but a builder to actually carry out the plans, because he is adept at the
practice.
In a similar way psychologists have begun to define the principles behind learning, and these findings
have led to a quite different approach to learning.
Conventional teaching has assumed that learning should involve determined concentration and frequent
repetition. We now know that this style of learning is not efficient, because it causes unnecessary tension
and it tends to involve just one half of the brain.
The recent discoveries in Inner Space
The human brain appears over-endowed. It used to be an often quoted statistic that we only use 10% of our
potential brain power. The more psychologists have learnt in the last ten years however, the less likely
they are to dare to attempt to quantify our brain potential. The only consistent conclusion is that the
proportion of our potential brain power that we use is probably nearer 4% than 10%.
Most of us, then, appear to let 96% of our mental potential lie unused. But it doesn't have to be so. Once
we begin to understand how the brain's memory works, the way is opened to tap that vast unused potential.
The result can be a quantum leap in learning speed, an enrichment of every part of our life and, scientists
now believe, a measurable increase in intelligence, whatever our age. First, let us look at some of the facts.
Left Brain/Right Brain
That the brain is divided physically into a left and right half is not a new discovery. The Egyptians knew
that the left side of the brain controlled and received sensations from the right side of the body and vice
versa.
It is only in the last two dozen years, however, that the true implication of the left/right split has gradually
become apparent, through the work of a number of researchers. The most famous are probably Dr. Roger
Sperry and Dr. Robert Ornstein of the California Institute of Technology. Their work has won them a
Nobel prize.
Sperry and Ornstein noted that the left and the rig hemispheres are connected by an incredibly complex
network of p to 300 million nerve fibres called the Corpus Callosum. They ere also able to show that the
two halves of the brain tend to have different functions.
Two Brains are Better than One!
It would appear that the better connected the two halves of the brain, the greater the potential of the brain
for learning and creativity.
Recent research by Dr. Christine de Lacoste Utamsing at the University of Texas has found that the
interconnecting area is always larger and probably richer in nerve fibres in women than in men. We don't
know why yet, but it has fascinating implications.
Roger Sperry's work further showed that, when people develop a particular mental skill, it produced a
positive improvement in all areas of mental activity, including those that are lying dormant. In other
words, the popular belief that painters and musicians (right brain people) must inevitably be poor at
mathematics is not true.
Does Mental Ability decline with Age?
Almost certainly not. What does deteriorate is the body. Arteries become clogged as fat builds up inside
the walls, and once they have passed fifty years of age, up to 50% of people suffer diminution of blood
supply, i.e. oxygen feeding the brain. When these arteries are cleaned, patients show a significant
reduction in nervousness, mental distress and a measurable increase in I.Q. Moreover, when older patients
are given specific oxygen treatment, there can often be an appreciable improvement in mental ability.
Genius is more made than born
In 1800 Karl Witte's father, a German doctor, decided to give his son a really rich educational
environment. Karl entered the University of Leipzig at nine, and gained his PhD at fourteen! Lord Kelvin's
mother made the same decision. Her son became one of the nineteenth century's most successful
physicists. More recently in the well publicised "Edith Experiment", New Yorker Aaron Stern determined,
in 1952, to give his daughter the best environment he could devise. Classical music was a continuous
background. He talked to her in adult terms and showed her reading cards with numbers and animals on
them. Edith Stern could talk in simple sentences at one, and had read an entire volume of the Encyclopedia
Brittannica by the age of five. She was reading six books a day by age six.