OF SIGHT AND INSIGHT

Q. According to science, maximum brain growth occurs during early childhood. So, Isn’t this the time to begin teaching children to read and write?

Perhaps Nicholas’ mother knew, or intuited, a secret. Most parents of her generation dutifully sent their children to rectangular structures outfitted with chalkboards, books, paper and pencil. Meanwhile, Nicholas’s mother allowed him to escape outdoors each morning on their ten acres. While, others his age sat at desks to learn geography, Nicholas surveyed the world from his tree house.  While most glanced at textbook photos of nature, Nicholas became on intimate terms with the insects, animals, trees and plants of his domain. While teachers lectured about the world, Nicholas watched science and nature documentaries.

When Nicholas turned ten, he decided to come to our school. One of the kindest children to ever grace our little society, he patiently stooped to tie shoelaces and lent a hand to struggling tree climbers. There was an innocence about him, and yet a quiet confidence; a fascination with the world, and a voracious hunger to learn more about it.

However, Nicholas could neither read nor write. Normally, the learning journey from phonics to reading classical literature takes five or six years. I began teaching Nicholas to read in September. By May of that same year, he was daily engrossed in none other than the classic, Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain.

The second year Nicholas wrote pages and pages in his journal.

Normally the journey from beginning math to algebra takes about six years. Nicholas progressed with ease through addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and fractions to reach the 5^th grade level in one year.

Was Nicholas a genius? As far a I could tell, no more so than other children are geniuses. He was emotionally ready to learn. He was highly motivated to augment his considerable knowledge of the world with academics. His level of physiological development supported his quest and made learning easy.

Did Nicholas’ mother intuit that when children are ready, when they have been allowed their full childhood, they can accomplish five or six years of learning in one year?

The collective story, passed from generation to generation, asserts that our success as adults is because of childhoods imprisoned in hierarchical systems. Fearfully, the current, seventh generation graduates of these institutions subject our children ever earlier to rote learning and left-brain minutia.

But, according to science, this practice holds hostage natural physiology, including the development of sight. In this first in a series on physiology and learning, let’s focus on the eyes.

Carla Hannaford, Ph.D (Smart Moves – Why Learning Is Not All In Your Head) writes, “In a three dimensional environment, such as outdoors, the eye is in constant motion, gathering sensory information to build intricate image packages necessary for learning. The brain integrates these image packages and other sensory information like touch and proprioception (the sense of how our bodies are positioned) to build a visual perception system. The eyes are equipped with different kinds of visual focus, of which three dimensional focus is vital for learning, yet we emphasize two dimensional focus in learning situations with books, worksheets, computers and video games.”

Have you ever observed a four-year old hunker down to intently follow the path of a roly-poly for several seconds? He’s exercising his foveal focus. Next, if he’s lucky, he’s running through an open field developing his peripheral vision. Sure, he’s having fun, but improving his vision?

In both the U.S. and Singapore the forcing of 3 and 4 yr. olds to sit still and do seatwork (reading and writing) has stunted the vision. In Singapore, this led to 85% having myopia as 5 year olds. Similarly, in the U.S. children tend to become myopic when they start to do school work. (G. Kobata, What Causes Nearsightedness? Science, 1985, vol. 229, pp. 1249-1250.)

Can there be a correlation between free and happy childhoods and excellent vision?

A New York longitudinal study* followed 133 subjects from infancy into adulthood. In the early learning environment three major factors emerged as vital contributors to competency in adulthood:

First, sensory-rich indoor and out door environments;

Secondly, freedom to explore the environment with few restrictions; and

Thirdly, available parents that acted as consultants when the child asked a question.

Nicholas’ mother must have intuited that nature designed full support of the child’s physiology, to fully support adult competency.

* Thomas Alexander and Stella Chess, Genesis and Evolution of Behavioral Disorders From Infancy to Early Adult Life. American Journal of Psychiatry, 141, pp. 1-9.