INTELLIGENCE AS INTERACTION

Q.  How can schools best promote enhanced intelligence growth in children?

We have spoken of the frontal lobes as being the most human part of the brain. The center for planning and design, these are also the seat of creative, innovative and abstract thinking. Additionally, this is the area where our self-reflective and empathic pondering takes place.

Importantly, this seat of high intelligence requires input from the heart and cerebrum. In fact, the more valid, and forthcoming the input, the greater the intelligence. It’s as if the frontal lobes are the president and the heart and cerebrum are the chief advisors. The heart has its finger on the interior pulse of the world, and the cerebrum is the liaison between President Frontal Lobes and the physical world.

The accuracy, the true value of the advice from this president’s chief advisors comes from first hand, ongoing contact with the living, dynamic, ever-changing planet, including its people, plants and animals by means of the body.

At no time is this first hand, ongoing contact with the surrounding, dynamic world more vital than in childhood. This time of growing, stretching intelligence requires hands-on interaction—the scintillating interplay of all the senses.

Receptors that line the sensory and motor cortices of the cerebrum receive input from all over the body, especially the hands.1

Carla Hannaford (Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not all In Your Head) writes, “With a huge part of the sensory and motor cortices in the brain involved with the hand, the hand shapes our cognitive, emotional, linguistic and psychological development.”2

Let’s imagine we could see the cerebrum as thousands of lights. Like tiny lightning bolts, dendrites form a connective web of shining streams of light. New experiences send new dendrites arching between synapses. The denser this web of connections, the greater the  intelligence source for President Frontal Lobes.

This is the question: How many light bulbs and links are likely to be shining if for 7 hours a day the child is confined to a chair in a rectangular room, holding a pencil, writing on rectangular sheets of paper, or interacting with rectangular computer screens or rectangular text books?

This is the next question: How much are those lights and the connecting web of light streams likely to be firing in the following scenario:

At 8:45 the arriving children are glad it’s spring and eager to play and interact with one another outdoors for the first 20 minutes. As they converse, run and climb, an array of textures, colors, forms, and sounds stimulate their senses. Amidst bird calls and songs, and other children’s voices, a variety of earthy scents assault their nostrils. They may touch the bark of trees and feel the dew-laden prairie grass brush again their ankles. Yellow dandelions beckon amid shades of green and brown. The children exercise their bodies as they walk, run, change directions, climb, and jump.

After circle time at 9:05, the indoor scene is another vibrant hive of activity as the children design independent projects. Some are seated at tables, while others sprawl on the floor surrounded by books and materials. Researchers are flipping through book pages or at computers. While some cut cardboard boxes or pieces of paper for dioramas, others design backdrops. As one concentrates on fancy lettering, another paints an animal, and still another molds a tiny clay person. While one writes on note cards, two friends converse as they co-design a project. Someone heads outside to retrieve sticks for a miniature teepee, while another raids the craft cabinet for beads or feathers.

Amidst the background hum of conversation, eyes are bright, the senses are engaged, and the hands are busy.

At 10:20 in response to rumbling stomachs, the group stops for a snack and an outdoor break before returning to projects.

In Magical Child Joseph Chilton Pearce explains in chapter 3 entitled  “Intelligence as Interaction”, that interaction is a two-way exchange of energy. Through interaction the brain grows new dendrites as well as its ability to interact.

When we see intelligence as a dynamic exchange of energy with the sights, sounds, smells and textures of LIFE, we see childhood learning in a new light.

In which case, instead of “sit still and be quiet,” we are more likely to echo Captain Jean Luc Piccard as we point toward the world and say, “Engage!”
1.Penfield and Jasper, Epilepsy; The Functioning Anatomy of the Human Brain. Boston: little Brown. 1954, P.58.
2.Wilson, Frank R. The Hand; How its Use Shapes the Brain, Language and Human Culture. N.Y: Pantheon Books. 1998, Introduction.